Reflections from Rabbi Ellis

We are now in the fourth Parsha in the book of Shmote. The book started with Israel enslaved. The Parsha begins with Israel leaving Egypt and heading to… the desert. Last week G!d freed us from slavery in Egypt, this week we start learning the price of freedom. This week the young nation of Israel faces down foreign armies twice, the first time they run, the second time they take a stand.

One of the great ironies of this Parsha is that G!d decides not to lead the Children of Israel to Mt. Sinai via the coastal route, because he fears what will happen when we encounter other nations and are forced to fight. Yet in the end of this week’s Parsha we face war, and emerge bloodied but not beaten. War didn’t traumatize us nearly as much as the vagaries of traveling the desert route that G!d laid out before us.

The last two weeks G!d revealed himself to Egypt through judgment and justice. G!d was not interested in forging a relationship with the people of Egypt, only in showing them his power, and control of the world and he does so quite effectively. This week the focus changes as G!d begins trying to show Israel his love for us, the results are mixed at best.

In Breishit, the first book of the Torah, we repeatedly see the challenges that humans face trying to raise their children. In particular we see the difficulty that fathers have when it comes to balancing love with discipline. When we started Shmote, our current book of the Torah, and our Parsha in particular, G!d is put into the role of the father of the nation of Israel and he finds fatherhood no less challenging than we do.

In our Parsha we see that from an operational standpoint it is easier to be stern and execute justice than to express love and desire, but that justice often ends in destruction. In our Parsha G!d learns that fulfilling our needs is never enough, that we are never happy until we receive what we want. At the beginning of our sojourn in the desert we spend three days without water, when we finally receive water it is bitter and the children of Israel refuse to drink it. Arguably both situations are within our capacity to tolerate, a person can survive three days without water and I have heard of people being thirsty enough to drink dishwater, yet G!d is not thanked for what he supplies us, the opposite in fact. Put another way we are rarely able to judge what others need, and giving that alone is almost never considered an expression of love.

The Children of Israel have much to learn in our Parsha as well. The first test we fail is our inability to appreciate what G!d does give us. We never find a single expression of thanks from the Children of Israel for the miracles that sustain us in the desert. We only seem to find our voice to express our unhappiness with what G!d provides us with.

The relationship of the lover and the beloved is never a simple one. It requires patience on both sides and a genuine desire to learn and adapt. Throughout the Torah and the rest of history we see G!d changing the way that he expresses his love for us. It is our chance to do our part. To accept that what G!d gives us as an expression of his love, even if it is not the best way to express it and to be brave enough to tell him what we need from him to feel his love.

Shabbat Shalom!

Yehoshua