Who hardened whose heart? And how do we soften our own?

Rabbi Philip Weintraub
Congregation Agudas Israel

1/17/2015

Exodus Chapter 7 (NJPS via jtsa.edu)

1 The Lord replied to Moses, "See, I place you in the role of God to Pharaoh, with your brother Aaron as your prophet. 2 You shall repeat all that I command you, and your brother Aaron shall speak to Pharaoh to let the Israelites depart from his land. 3 But I will harden Pharaoh's heart, that I may multiply My signs and marvels in the land of Egypt. 4 When Pharaoh does not heed you, I will lay My hand upon Egypt and deliver My ranks, My people the Israelites, from the land of Egypt with extraordinary chastisements. 5 And the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord, when I stretch out My hand over Egypt and bring out the Israelites from their midst." 6 This Moses and Aaron did; as the Lord commanded them, so they did. 7 Moses was eighty years old and Aaron eighty-three, when they made their demand on Pharaoh.

This week we read of blood, of frogs, of insects, but to me the most fascinating part of the parsha is not the miracles, but the inner struggle.

וַאֲנִי אַקְשֶׁה, אֶת-לֵב פַּרְעֹה And I will harden Pharaoh's heart      ,

What is the psychological challenge of Pharaoh?  Did Gd harden Pharaoh’s heart or did Gd reinforce the decision that Pharaoh had already made?  Several times in the book of Exodus, it says that Moses or Gd hardened Pharaoh’s heart, yet in the book of Samuel, we read:

וְלָמָּה תְכַבְּדוּ אֶת-לְבַבְכֶם, כַּאֲשֶׁר כִּבְּדוּ מִצְרַיִם וּפַרְעֹה אֶת-לִבָּם:  הֲלוֹא כַּאֲשֶׁר הִתְעַלֵּל בָּהֶם, וַיְשַׁלְּחוּם וַיֵּלֵכוּ.

6 Wherefore then do ye harden your hearts, as the Egyptians and Pharaoh hardened their hearts? when He had wrought among them, did they not let the people go, and they departed?

Which is it?  Can it be both?  Can Gd have simply reinforced the decision of Pharaoh?  On a light-hearted note, I think of the kid’s song, “Little bunny foo foo”, who the fairy gave three chances to improve himself, yet he continued to make the same poor decisions!  Perhaps Gd worked in the same way, giving Pharaoh TEN opportunities to change his ways, yet each time, he did let our people go!

Pharaoh’s sin was not simply refusing GD or Moses.  His sin was in thinking that his hold on power was permanent.  His sin was in imaginging that there was no other way but the choices he had already made.  He could not imagine changing his mind.  The end of the Purim story has always surprised me.  The King does not rescind his order to kill the Jews.  Instead he orders the Jews be armed, that they may protect themselves from the evil onslaught.  His failure to rescind his order causes the needless suffering of many of his people.  And this sin remains today.

Many of us are unwilling to admit we are wrong.  We are unwilling to accept that we can change.  We have hardened our hearts with the wrong idea that the way it is today is the way it will be tomorrow.

As this week celebrates the achievements of Martin Luther King, Jr, I think about the ways that people in this country had hardened hearts.  For those of us who grew up in the South, we were sometimes taught that the Civil War was the end of racism, yet it does not take much to show that it did not end there. Nor did it end with MLK and the passage of the Civil Rights Act or Voting Rights Act.  Rather racism changed form and went underground.  While it is not socially acceptable to openly speak racist thoughts, Avenue Q taught us that “we’re all a little bit racist”, that many people harbor prejudice.  Recently books have come out talking about the “new Jim Crow”, how our justice and prison systems unfairly target those of color.  The “drug war” criminalizes “black” and “white” drugs in different ways, so that if I were to smoke something I shouldn’t (which I wouldn’t since I’m allergic to everything!), I would likely not be arrested or my charges would be dropped, yet if someone of color made the same choice, he or she might find him/herself locked in the prison system.  

Our country has hardened its heart against those that look different.  Yet the demographics of our country are changing.  It is less white than it has ever been.  And somewhere along the way, we Jews became white!  On a side note, as our brothers and sisters in France have discovered, that is not a universal statement!  There is closeted (and not so closeted) anti-semitism even here!  

One lesson of the plagues is that if we get uncomfortable enough, even the most hardened hearts can change.  Even Pharaoh, when the stakes were high enough let our people go.  What does it take for change in this country?  What would it look like to have a just society?

We do not understand the dangers that police navigate every single day.  Every day is another opportunity to protect and serve, but is another opportunity to be placed in a dangerous situation that is not always survivable.  When I can walk to and from synagogue to my home, I am appreciative of those who protect this community and make that walk safe.  Unfortunately, the laws that are enforced are not always just.  We must continue to work with our legislators, with our Congress, to ensure that ALL have opportunity in this country, that laws that unfairly target some are written out of the law books.  That is one way we soften our hearts.

We soften our hearts through suffering, through empathy, through seeing the challenges in our lives and those in our neighbors.  We soften our hearts through respect of those who protect us.  We soften our hearts through demanding equal rights for all.  Did you know that the Equal Rights Amendment has been brought to every  single Congress since 1982 and yet still has not become a constitutional amendment?!

Many times I have heard that if we could all unload our burdens, our challenges and place them on this bimah, given the opportunity to trade them, we would all take back our own challenges.  Our challenges are familiar, yet hopefully we use them to soften our hearts and not harden them.  I pray that we use our challenges to look around the room, to look around the world and find it in our hearts to simply be kind.  I pray that we find it in our hearts to be kind AND to do something.  Let us continue to work for a just world.  It does not happen overnight, but if we imagine the world as immutable, we make the same mistake that Pharaoh did.  We all have the capability to improve this world.  What are we doing?  Shabbat Shalom.

Walking with You, Walking with Hashem

Rabbi Philip Weintraub

CAI

5/17/2014

PLEASE NOTE--ITALICS are from Rabbi Daniel Nevins, http://learn.jtsa.edu/content/commentary/behukkotai/5774/walking-together-god

This week I read a very interesting D’var Torah from Rabbi Daniel Nevins, the Dean of the Rabbinical School at JTS.  He opened with a story:

I saw a strange thing on my walk to minyan the other morning. At a quiet side street with no cross-traffic in sight, a woman stood still, waiting for the walk sign. All around her people bustled by, peeking quickly to make sure no truck was barreling down the street before crossing, but she patiently waited for the light to indicate that it was her turn to walk. She wasn’t setting an example for a toddler, and she didn’t look like a tourist. This woman was content to obey a sign that others, myself included, blithely ignored.

If you don’t live in New York City, perhaps you won’t find my story strange, but let me assure you, one doesn’t see this every day. Yet with pedestrian casualties a stubbornly persistent statistic in our city, perhaps more of us should heed her example. I am often alarmed by people staring intently into their phone screens as they cross busy Broadway. We could all stand to pay more attention to how and when we walk.

In our Torah reading this morning, walking is a key metaphor.  In just the first few verses, we see that verb three times.

If you walk in God’s statutes, then many blessings will follow, culminating in Godwalking in your midst and causing you to walk upright. In the next, darker section, God predicts that the people will walk stubbornly... and in response, God too will walk stubbornly with them. What is it with all this walking?

Rabbi Nevins find that the Torah is filled with references to walking as a spiritual practice. Enoch is a saintly figure who “walked with God and then he was no more, for God took him” (Gen. 5:24). Noah is praised for walking with God (6:9). Abraham is the biggest walker of them all, covering many hundreds of kilometers in his dusty sandals. God commands him to “get up, walk around the land” (13:17), and “walk before me and be blameless” (17:1). In Exodus, God walks before Israel in a pillar of cloud, and in Deuteronomy, Moses promises that “God walks before you; he will not release you nor will he abandon you.” Prophets such as Jeremiah are told to walk on God’s command, and the Psalmist pleads with God, “show me your paths, that I might walk in your truth” (86:11). The people of Israel are expected to walk to Jerusalem on pilgrimages three times annually, and Moses famously teaches them to speak of their love for God “when you sit in your homes and when you walk on the way.” Furthermore, the prophet Micah sums up the religion of Israel as “walking humbly with your God.”

Is it any wonder that Judaism came to associate its method of religious practice with walking? The Rabbis created a normative world known as halakhah (“the walk”), and the Sage Ulla claimed that since the Temple was destroyed, the Holy One has no place in the world except for the four cubits of halakhah (BT Berakhot 8a). This could sound claustrophobic, but unlike the Temple, the halakhah is not enclosed on four sides. It has boundaries, but its origins stretch back to the mythical beginning of time, and its destination remains beyond our imagination. What matters about the Jewish walkway is not endlessly broad, but rather has defined edges that lend it coherence.

I like to think of the four cubits of halakhah as the width of the path. A cubit is said to be somewhere between 18 and 24 inches long, so a four-cubit path is six to eight feet wide. It is broader than a trail, but narrower than a proper road. It is just right for two people to walk side by side, engaged in an animated conversation as they cross the countryside.

This metaphor of walking and talking is a beautiful way to think of Jewish life. Our religion has seldom emphasized solitary meditation. The image of a monk in a cell staring at a candle and breathing deeply is not immediately recognizable as a Jewish ideal, though there is certainly room for such spiritual practices in our religion. Walking on a path together is a social, dynamic metaphor. And if you imagine, as our portion does, that God is available to join you for a walk, then religious life becomes an adventure.

As a chaplain, as a congregational rabbi, I think that walking is a beautiful metaphor for life and relationships.  I was asked recently if I thought my style of leadership was walking behind, walking with or walking in front of.  I thought about Biblical generals who led from the front of their armies and modern generals who frequently sit in headquarters.  I answered emphatically that to me, leadership is about walking with people.  It is not saying that I have all the answers, nor is it saying that I believe that you have the solutions to every life or halachic debate.  Rather, it is the philosophy that together, we can derive solutions to any situation.  Together, we can cry or celebrate.  Together, we can live deeply spiritual lives.

Our teachers, the rabbis, used the metaphor of walking because walking is life.  Whether we are trying to improve our health or just get around, we have to get off our tushes and move.  By saying that halacha is walking, the rabbis were saying that Judaism encompasses every aspect of life.  From how to eat, how to thank, how to walk, how to talk, how to relate to others, our traditions have ideas, answers and more questions.

This is what a community like CAI is all about.  Together we journey.  Together we walk. Together we find the presence of Gd and each other.  May we continue to walk together, not in front, not behind, but together.

As the camp version of the supposedly Camus line goes:

Don’t walk in front of me, I may not follow.

Don’t walk behind me, I may not lead.

Just walk beside me and be my friend

And together we will walk in the ways of Hashem.