From the Rabbi

From the Rabbi’s Desk

Rabbi Manes Kogan

5763

Sidrat Bo deals with the last 3 plagues and the laws of Passover as well as the first collective Mitzvah: the sanctification of the months, i.e. the establishment of the Jewish calendar.

Regarding the ninth plague, the plague of darkness, we read in the Torah:

"Moshe stretched out his hand toward the sky, and there was total darkness in the entire land of Egypt for three days" (Exodus 10:22)

Rashi brings a puzzling explanation for this specific plague just before the exodus:

Why did He bring darkness on them? Because there were among the Israelites of that generation evil people who did not wish to leave, and they died out during the three days of darkness so that the Egyptians not see their demise thereby saying, "They are being struck as we are." (Rashi, to Exodus 10:22)

We can find a similar Rashi in next week’s portion on the verse:

"God led the people around [by] way of the desert [to] the Red Sea, and the children of Israel were armed when they went up out of Egypt" (Exodus 13:18).

Says Rashi on the word "Chamushim" – "armed":

Another interpretation: "Chamushim" means "divided by five," [meaning] that one out of five [Israelites] went out, and four fifths [lit., parts of the people] died during the three days of darkness [from Mechilta, Tanchuma, Beshallach]

In other words: there seems to exist a strong tradition (not shown in any of the movies) that only one fifth of the Jewish people was willing to leave Egypt.

This is puzzling, indeed.

How can we explain that four fifths of the Jewish people wanted to stay in Egypt?

How can we explain that 12 million men and their families were reluctant to leave behind them a life of oppression, hard work and death?

Don’t forget that, at this point, we are talking about people who experienced God’s awesome power through the first eight plagues! We are talking about people who were at the threshold of freedom, ready to go!

This is puzzling, indeed.

We find a similar situation after the exodus takes place. In the dessert the Children of Israel complain against God and against Moses, God’s messenger, for what they perceive as an adverse situation. We don’t justify them, but we can sympathize with them: wondering in a vast dessert, not enough water, not a large variety of food, uncertainty; we can relate to that…

But here… they are still in Egypt! They are slaves! They have nothing to loose! Why are they reluctant to leave?

Rashi (a main exponent of what we can call "official Jewish tradition") calls them "evil people who did not wish to leave". However, I believe, we should reconsider Rashi’s statement.

I understand Rashi. It is puzzling to me too. So puzzling that everybody (including those who dealt with the saga of the exodus before) left out of the picture the "we don’t want to leave" option.

However, is it possible that oppressed people who apparently have nothing to lose, refuse to leave the well known hell to adventure into something that rarely could be worse?

The answer, as puzzling as it might sound, is yes.

History teaches us that this is exactly what happens every time that an oppressed ethnic, racial or religious group of people is faced with the option of migration.

It happened in Egypt 3500 years ago, it happened in Spain 500 years ago and it happened in Germany and Eastern Europe 60 years ago.

Moving to another country, changing environment, learning a new language and making new friends, is so overwhelmingly difficult that some people choose to die (or commit suicide as it happened in Germany in the late 1930’s) rather than to be uprooted.

This is puzzling, indeed, and impossible to explain to someone who hasn’t gone through the process.

Raul Hilberg, in his book "Perpetrators, Victims, Bystanders" gives us a glimpse into the traumatic experience of the refugee and the immigrant:

"Even in the developed countries, the intellectuals and artists had their difficulties. Scientists Otto Frisch and Edward Teller were denied Rockefeller grants on the ground that they could not return to Germany. The political scientist Hans Morgenthau could not become an assistant professor at Brooklyn College before he was a deity at the University of Chicago. The economist Alexander Gerschenkron is reported to have worked as a longshoreman before he was a Harvard professor. Franco Modigliani managed a book center for imported Italian books before he did the work for which he received the economics Nobel Prize.

In the State of New York, the former director of Neurological Institute at the University of Vienna, who was the author of two hundred papers, attempted to avail himself of a New York law permitting the practice of medicine without an examination by physicians of "conceded eminence and authority." Despite attestations by American physicians describing him the "most prominent" or the "leading" neuropathologist in Europe, the highest New York court ruled that the refusal by the state to grant the dispensation was not arbitrary, unfair, or capricious.

In Britain several hundred physicians were unable to practice before they attained citizenship. A historian of this scene reports: "A surgeon secretly washed corpses in a morgue, a radiologist repaired radios and a bacteriologist peddled baking soda."

Almost all of the refugees who entered English-speaking countries went through a stage of economic and psychological shock. That was the time they might have had to rely on local relatives for money to pay for the initial rent and groceries. They might have had to sell personal possessions they had taken along, including cameras, china, stamp collections, or fur coats. During this initial period they were told at every turn that they were lucky, that they would have to work hard, and that they should learn English right away. Invariably the adults would speak the new language with a foreign accent that they could not shed. They were informed that everything in their past was inferior to what they would encounter now, and they were expected to agree. In America, they were instructed, as listeners of Johann Sebastian Bach and as readers of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, that Victor Herbert was a great composer and Washington Irving a great writer. Accustomed to friendship, which to them was a lifelong tie to people of similar thought and philosophy, they could not find this institution in America, where casual acquaintances one hardly knew were often called friends. The United States seemed isolated as well as isolationist, a vast nation of individuals who did not ponder the meaning of life or understand the world around them. ( Hilberg, Raul: Perpetrators, Victims, Bystanders. Harpers Collins Publishers - 1992).

Betty Oberlender shared with me the recollections of her first memories when she came to America in the late 1940’s, after loosing her entire family. Betty recalls that when she told her experience to her American relatives, they told her (more or less): "Everybody has problems, and our life wasn’t easy either". People didn’t want to hear, people didn’t want to know.

I cannot start counting my blessings: my wife, my children, my parents, a wonderful welcoming congregation, a beautiful home, security and freedom. My words echo the words of our patriarch Jacob:

"I have become small from all the kindnesses and from all the truth that You have rendered Your servant" (Genesis 32:11)

And still, part of me can relate to the four fifths of the Children of Israel who didn’t want to leave Egypt.

Egypt, Spain and Germany were "living hell", but if you grew up there; there is home.

The Americans have a wonderful way to ask you, where you are from. They say: where is home for you?

I guess that for Sheila and Stuart, "home" is New York, for Debbie, "home" is Philadelphia and for me, I don’t know…"

I left Argentina six and a half years ago and I have never felt uprooted until a few months ago.

When my parents moved to Israel two months ago, something changed within me, something that I couldn’t name for a long time. I was tense, and anxious, but the overwhelming feeling was a deep sadness.

Now I know what it is: finally, after six and a half years I was uprooted. Since my parents moved away, Buenos Aires is not home anymore, because "home" is more than a physical place. "Home" is a complex mixture, which includes your memories, your physical home, your friends, your language and your parents.

I have everything and I still feel homeless.

I didn’t understand the Jews who didn’t want to leave Germany. I couldn’t relate to the impoverished Argentinean who refused to go to Israel or to move to the USA. I didn’t understand how was it possible that four fifths of the Jewish people didn’t want to leave Egypt.

Now I know.

I was not one of them. I moved and I bless the day I did move. But I understand the cost, and I understand the struggle, and I no longer judge those who act and feel different in this regard.

I have now another reason to wait eagerly for the coming of the Messiah, since he will gather us in, and return us home. May he come soon, speedily, in our days. Amen.

Shabbat Shalom!