I am giving the d'var Torah this week. We are in Exodus, and the portion of the week, B'shellach (Ex. 13:17 - 17:16), begins with God not leading the Israelites in the straight way, through Philistia, but rather inland, in a more roundabout way, includes the crossing of the Red/Reed Sea, the Song of the Sea, the miracle of manna, and the bitter waters at Marah. The weekly commentary I received from the Jewish Theological Seminary is by Rabbi David Ackerman, and compared the Israelite roundabout road to freedom to the African-American road that has led to the presidency of Barack Obama.
Ackerman begins by looking at the Nineteenth Century in this country, and the Civil War and emancipation as the turning point in African-American life, though the road was not straight, and it took another hundred years for civil rights and voting rights to become reality, and another forty for Obama to become President.
Last month I stood in the cold with a million or so fellow citizens to witness President Obama's inauguration. I was fortunate to receive two tickets and was determined to give our two teenage sons the opportunity to be part of history. As they reminded me, somewhere in a crush of people getting on or off the Washington Metro, "Abba, this is something that we'll get to tell our grandchildren about." The boys took the two tickets and found their way to a reserved section near the podium. I headed to the National Mall, settling in near the Washington Monument, among the people. My "neighborhood" for the day was overwhelmingly African American, and for my neighbors on January 20 the day's events symbolized that same possibility of redemptive transformation embedded in emancipation a century and a half prior. My neighbors hung on every word spoken, especially those offered by the new president, who expressed the same sensibility in describing himself as "a man whose father less than sixty years ago might not have been served in a local restaurant" but who "can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath."
In our culture, the paradigm for moments of redemptive transformation is the Bible's story of the Exodus from Egypt, and Parashat B'shallah serves as the dramatic high point of that tale. B'shallah begins with a verse much commented upon: "Now when Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them by way of the land of the Philistines, although it was nearer . . . (Exod. 13:17)." The path from slavery to freedom will not be the direct route, but rather a roundabout one. The trip is not a straight shot; rather, as Rashi puts it, it is derekh m'ukam—curved and twisty.
You can read the whole commentary here. It is really quite lovely. N.B. I had to click on Conservative Judaism, then Torah Commentary, then on this week's commentary when I clicked on the link - I don't know if that is just me, but the URL was the same all through.
When thinking of what I want to say about this parashah (portion), I realized that I wanted to discuss freedom. This idea that freedom is a process rather than an event is important. We did not become a free country with the founding fathers. Groups other than white men of property had to fight to join the ranks of full citizenship, sometimes over many years. We have to choose freedom over and over again.
For the Israelites leaving Egypt, the uncertainty and hardship of the journey to freedom raised questions - was slavery really so bad? At least we had food and shelter. The manifest presence of God in the pillars of cloud and fire brought little comfort - who is this God, where is he leading us?
We read this with disbelief - these people had witnessed miracles with their own eyes, performed to get them to this place - whereever it was. And yet we know what feeling is the worst enemy of freedom, don't we? Our slavery can be comfortable. In fear, we will long for the days when we were not free.
In the desert
I saw a creature, naked, bestial,
who, squatting upon the ground,
Held his heart in his hands,
And ate of it.
I said, "Is it good, friend?"
"It is bitter -- bitter," he answered;
"But I like it
Because it is bitter,
And because it is my heart."
Stephen Crane
Moving out into the unknown is hard, and we prefer the bitterness that is out custom to an unknown sweetness.
Fear reduces us to bestiality, and to a state of being in which we cannot see beyond our own crouching selves. Freedom requires standing up and demanding it of the world. We see this now in the reactions to Obama's decree about closing Guantanamo - and how wonderful is it to have a President tell us that we can be just and safe? World leaders have understood this throughout history: if the people live in fear, a leader can take power easily by promising to keep them safe.
Successful political movements require people to move beyond fear. Slaves rebel or escape, despite the probable consequences. In this country, freed slaves risked their own freedom to return south and help others escape. A hundred years later, people faced firehoses, attack dogs, and beatings to take their rights as citizens.
Ackerman writes:
Redemption, like revelation, doesn't happen all at once. It evolves slowly, and sometimes painfully. As Congressman John Lewis, a veteran of Selma and one of the great heroes of the civil rights movement, put it to a visitor the day before inauguration: "Barack Obama is what comes at the end of that bridge in Selma." A full generation's march through the wilderness is what it takes to get there.
So too with the Israelites - a full generation's march is what it takes to get there. The freed slaves were so fearful that they couln't imagine (in the literal sense) freedom. Not even a miracle could have made them ready to be free - they were too closed in to understand the miracle of freedom.
Your thoughts about freedom are welcome.