רפואה מן התורה
Healing from the Torah
Parashat Yitro
Exodus 18:1-20:36
By Adam Ruditsky
By Adam Ruditsky
Although a little longer than normal, I would like to approach this week’s Torah parsha, Yitro, differently. In this case, I want to look beyond the words, and in particular connect with the image of Mt. Sinai. In the Zohar we read that when Moses approached Mt. Sinai he knew that it was the mountain of God and was subsequently drawn to it. In fact, Rav Yosi taught that Moses and the mountain had been prepared for each other at creation; the mountain was the place where Moses would see God and where God would meet with Moses (Zohar, Yitro 14:247-252). What is the lesson of the mountain today? Rabbi Jonathan Sacks talking about that very mountain wrote, “With the revelation at Sinai, something unprecedented entered the human horizon, though it would take centuries, millennia, before its full implications were understood. At Sinai, the politics of freedom was born.” Let’s explore that a bit.
In Mishnah Pesachim 10 we read, “[God] brought us out from slavery to freedom, from sorrow to joy, from mourning to festival, from darkness to great light, and from servitude to redemption [therefore] let us say before Him, Halleluyah.” Surely, this is for us who during our Passover Seders are admonished to identify with our ancestors captivity and release. The former slaves who came out of Egypt could not be expected after a mere three months to say whole-heartily, “Halleluyah.” Therefore, are the words “from slavery to freedom,” really the case? Isn’t more accurate to say from slavery to the wilderness? Of course the oppression of slavery had ended, no longer are these former slaves beholden to Pharaoh’s control, but have they really found freedom? The fact is they now needed to deal with this new phenomenon, yet while Israel left their slavery in Egypt, did the slavery of Egypt truly leave Israel?
Keep in mind that in B’shallach God did not lead Israel through the land of the Philistines because war of any kind may have caused them to return to the false security of Egypt. So when Israel arrived at Mt. Sinai they easily, and understandably, proclaimed their new servitude to God as opposed to Pharaoh (Ex. 19:5). When they responded to Moses by saying, “All that the LORD hath spoken we will do,” did they know what that meant? (Ex. 19:8). The mountain they approached that day would be more than a place where they received the Ten Commandments, but it was a place where the transformation from slavery to freedom would begin. Rabbi Dan Fink in his article on Shavuot from the book “Ecology and the Jewish Spirit” writes, “The covenant with God and the Jewish people may have commenced with Abraham and Sarah … but the relationship was not sealed until the first Shavuot when the Israelite's received the Torah from the summit of Mount Sinai.” Rabbi Fink wrote this after he had hiked the Appalachian Trail that changed him. In this case, the transformative power of the mountains and the nature that he engaged contained a revelation for his own life and appreciation of God. In that spirit I do not think it was an accident that upon Israel’s journey the first significant place where they would set up camp was at a mountain.
We read that Mt. Sinai was a place where ”there was thunder and lightning and a heavy cloud on the mountain,” which announced the presence of God to the community (Ex. 19:16). We also read that when Moses presents the commandments to Israel it did not say, “I am the Lord your God” who created the world and am more powerful than all other gods … but, “I am the Lord your God that brought you out of Egypt,” so one day you may be free. In Exodus 19:20 we read, וַיֵּרֶד יְהוָה עַל-הַר סִינַי,אֶל-רֹאשׁ הָהָר, “And the LORD came down upon mount Sinai, to the top of the mount,” meaning that God came to meet with Israel on their level. Upon Moses’s ascent of Mt. Sinai the Ohr HaChaim writes, “as soon as God noticed Moses was ascending, God called out to him,” meaning that Moses’s pursuit of God drew a like replay. This is what the Zohar meant by saying that Moses and the mountain had been prepared for each other at creation. But it was not the God of creation who judges the earth that Moses contended with, but the Lord who identified as, אָנֹכִי יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ, “I am the Lord your God,” reflecting the Lord of covenant and relationship. Surely then, God must have spoken to Moses with the soft and gentile voice of a friend.
We actually see this play out with Elijah in 1 Kings 19 who is led by an angel to the Mountain of Horeb (i.e. Mt. Sinai) where he is greeted by a mighty wind, splitting mountains, shattering of rocks, an earthquake and fire; the power of a God who judges the world just as it was at Mt. Sinai. Yet, God was in none of those powerful manifestations. The voice that Elijah sought was in the wind, something that was described as a “soft murmuring sound.” This God was also identified as Lord, the same Lord-God of compassion and mercy, who previously spoke to Moses with the same soft and gentile voice (cf. 1 Kings 19:11-12). Those who know me have heard me talk about the mountain of Psalm 121 where it says, אֶשָּׂא עֵינַי, אֶל-הֶהָרִים-מֵאַיִן,יָבֹא עֶזְרִי, “I will lift up mine eyes unto the mountains: from whence shall my help come?” A mountain is powerful, majestic, opposing, jagged and towering just to name a few. But when we look we see that a mountain is something else, it's impermeable, so while we cannot see through it to the other side we surely know that there is another side. Compare that with the Mountain of Moses and Elijah, thus as they encountered a mountain of power and might, they also found something else - but that had to look for it. The mountain for Israel contained another side as well, that other side per R’Sacks included a “politics of freedom.”
Freedom is not just given, it is taken, not a revelation but a revolution. Michael Walzer in his book “Exodus and Revolution” writes about the redemptive power of God from Egypt, yet he further says that its lasting results are found in “the long-term work required to make deliverance permanent.” Since we all traverse our own mountains each of us gets to embrace this as we need, but leaving Egypt was freedom part-one, and slavery to freedom was (and is) a journey with the mountain being a place that contains a message on the other side. We know that the first generation did not make it, they failed to find freedom, but the mystery of the mountain that is transformative says freedom when sought can always be found. From slavery, to the wilderness, to freedom.
Shabbat Shalom!
In Mishnah Pesachim 10 we read, “[God] brought us out from slavery to freedom, from sorrow to joy, from mourning to festival, from darkness to great light, and from servitude to redemption [therefore] let us say before Him, Halleluyah.” Surely, this is for us who during our Passover Seders are admonished to identify with our ancestors captivity and release. The former slaves who came out of Egypt could not be expected after a mere three months to say whole-heartily, “Halleluyah.” Therefore, are the words “from slavery to freedom,” really the case? Isn’t more accurate to say from slavery to the wilderness? Of course the oppression of slavery had ended, no longer are these former slaves beholden to Pharaoh’s control, but have they really found freedom? The fact is they now needed to deal with this new phenomenon, yet while Israel left their slavery in Egypt, did the slavery of Egypt truly leave Israel?
Keep in mind that in B’shallach God did not lead Israel through the land of the Philistines because war of any kind may have caused them to return to the false security of Egypt. So when Israel arrived at Mt. Sinai they easily, and understandably, proclaimed their new servitude to God as opposed to Pharaoh (Ex. 19:5). When they responded to Moses by saying, “All that the LORD hath spoken we will do,” did they know what that meant? (Ex. 19:8). The mountain they approached that day would be more than a place where they received the Ten Commandments, but it was a place where the transformation from slavery to freedom would begin. Rabbi Dan Fink in his article on Shavuot from the book “Ecology and the Jewish Spirit” writes, “The covenant with God and the Jewish people may have commenced with Abraham and Sarah … but the relationship was not sealed until the first Shavuot when the Israelite's received the Torah from the summit of Mount Sinai.” Rabbi Fink wrote this after he had hiked the Appalachian Trail that changed him. In this case, the transformative power of the mountains and the nature that he engaged contained a revelation for his own life and appreciation of God. In that spirit I do not think it was an accident that upon Israel’s journey the first significant place where they would set up camp was at a mountain.
We read that Mt. Sinai was a place where ”there was thunder and lightning and a heavy cloud on the mountain,” which announced the presence of God to the community (Ex. 19:16). We also read that when Moses presents the commandments to Israel it did not say, “I am the Lord your God” who created the world and am more powerful than all other gods … but, “I am the Lord your God that brought you out of Egypt,” so one day you may be free. In Exodus 19:20 we read, וַיֵּרֶד יְהוָה עַל-הַר סִינַי,אֶל-רֹאשׁ הָהָר, “And the LORD came down upon mount Sinai, to the top of the mount,” meaning that God came to meet with Israel on their level. Upon Moses’s ascent of Mt. Sinai the Ohr HaChaim writes, “as soon as God noticed Moses was ascending, God called out to him,” meaning that Moses’s pursuit of God drew a like replay. This is what the Zohar meant by saying that Moses and the mountain had been prepared for each other at creation. But it was not the God of creation who judges the earth that Moses contended with, but the Lord who identified as, אָנֹכִי יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ, “I am the Lord your God,” reflecting the Lord of covenant and relationship. Surely then, God must have spoken to Moses with the soft and gentile voice of a friend.
We actually see this play out with Elijah in 1 Kings 19 who is led by an angel to the Mountain of Horeb (i.e. Mt. Sinai) where he is greeted by a mighty wind, splitting mountains, shattering of rocks, an earthquake and fire; the power of a God who judges the world just as it was at Mt. Sinai. Yet, God was in none of those powerful manifestations. The voice that Elijah sought was in the wind, something that was described as a “soft murmuring sound.” This God was also identified as Lord, the same Lord-God of compassion and mercy, who previously spoke to Moses with the same soft and gentile voice (cf. 1 Kings 19:11-12). Those who know me have heard me talk about the mountain of Psalm 121 where it says, אֶשָּׂא עֵינַי, אֶל-הֶהָרִים-מֵאַיִן,יָבֹא עֶזְרִי, “I will lift up mine eyes unto the mountains: from whence shall my help come?” A mountain is powerful, majestic, opposing, jagged and towering just to name a few. But when we look we see that a mountain is something else, it's impermeable, so while we cannot see through it to the other side we surely know that there is another side. Compare that with the Mountain of Moses and Elijah, thus as they encountered a mountain of power and might, they also found something else - but that had to look for it. The mountain for Israel contained another side as well, that other side per R’Sacks included a “politics of freedom.”
Freedom is not just given, it is taken, not a revelation but a revolution. Michael Walzer in his book “Exodus and Revolution” writes about the redemptive power of God from Egypt, yet he further says that its lasting results are found in “the long-term work required to make deliverance permanent.” Since we all traverse our own mountains each of us gets to embrace this as we need, but leaving Egypt was freedom part-one, and slavery to freedom was (and is) a journey with the mountain being a place that contains a message on the other side. We know that the first generation did not make it, they failed to find freedom, but the mystery of the mountain that is transformative says freedom when sought can always be found. From slavery, to the wilderness, to freedom.
Shabbat Shalom!
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