You Send Me--Part 2

So why does God want Pharaoh to do the sending?

The simple answer as far as I can tell is because Pharaoh did the enslaving.

If we take the model metaphor of God as parent and humans His children, it would go something like this:

The parent sees his his one kid beat up on and tease his other kid. The parent can pick up the taunted kid and remove him from the torture directly. But if he does that, the bully kid doesn't really learn anything and, not only that, the tortured kid learns that bullies don't necessarily suffer any consequences. So even if the parent thinks the bully kid will not really change his ways if he is punished, he might still punish him in order to teach the other kid that ill behavior does have consequences.

So it is with Pharaoh, the bulliest of bully kids.

Now, though, why should God reward him for sending the Children of Israel out of Egypt?

This is a bit trickier but I will offer at least one suggestion--one for tonight, anyway. Maybe another one for tomorrow night.

Jewish thought includes a notion of reward as well as punishment. One is to be rewarded for fulfilling God's will just as one is to be punished for violating that will.

Pharaoh was commanded, that is, he was given a mitzvah to send the C of I out of Egypt. Ultimately, he fulfills that mitzvah so he should get a reward for it, right?

Maybe you cringe a bit when you read that. After all, Pharaoh really tortured the C of I and, in any event, only released them after his kingdom was a shambles and his own first born died. Nonetheless, I would still say he is deserving of reward of some kind.

Note that the reward doesn't go to Pharaoh directly but rather to the Egyptian people as a whole (see yesterday's posting). This is true for the other examples brought by the M'chilta as well.

But also remember the parent/child metaphor. If the parent forces the bully child to 'make nice' the parent will want to reinforce that behavior by rewarding the child. You might argue that, again, Pharaoh is not really going to change his ways no matter what God does. But I would then add that, again, another reason for the parent to reward the bully when he finally 'does the right thing' is to show the other child that the parent will reward good behavior.

You might ask, though, if Pharaoh really fulfilled the mitzvah at all since, after all, it was done under duress. Well, we'll look at that tomorrow.

You Send Me...

Last week's parsha, which we didn't really get to discuss much, saw the Children of Israel leaving Egypt at Pharaoh's behest. This week's parsha will follow up on the immediate aftermath of that Exodus including the parting of the Red Sea, complaints by the newly freed slaves about food and water, their first encounter with war and more and more.

This week's parsha opens with this verse:

שמות פרק יג

(יז) וַיְהִי בְּשַׁלַּח פַּרְעֹה אֶת הָעָם וְלֹא נָחָם אֱלֹהִים דֶּרֶךְ אֶרֶץ פְּלִשְׁתִּים כִּי קָרוֹב הוּא כִּי אָמַר אֱלֹהִים פֶּן יִנָּחֵם הָעָם בִּרְאֹתָם מִלְחָמָה וְשָׁבוּ מִצְרָיְמָה:

Exodus 13

17) And it was that when Pharaoh sent the nation that the Lord did not conduct them by way of the land of the Philistines, for it was close, for the Lord said, "Lest the nation regret when they see war and they return to Egypt."

For the moment, I want to focus on the word בשלח b'shalach, which is conveniently also the name of our parsha. The root word shalach means 'sent.' This word has played prominently in this story with Moshe and Pharaoh all the way back to when God first appeals to Moshe to lead the Children of Israel out of Egypt. 

Before we go all the way back, though, let's ask a question: Why did God need/want Pharaoh to send the Children of Israel out of Egypt anyway? I think it is safe to say that God could have brought them out Himself in any number of ways. 

Even if we set that question aside, it is still worth noting that the verse frames the exodus from Egypt as being effected if not initiated by Pharaoh. The verse could have said "And came about when Moshe led the Children of Israel out of Egypt" or "When God took the C of I out of Egypt" or any number of other variations. 

Apparently the fact that Pharaoh sent the C of I out of Egypt is particularly significant. 

The Sages, in fact, tell us that because Pharaoh sent the C of I out of Egypt, the Egyptians were rewarded! The M'chilta states:

מכילתא דרבי ישמעאל בשלח - מסכתא דויהי פתיחתא 

הפה שאמר גם את ישראל לא אשלח (שמות ה ב) הוא הפה שאמר אנכי אשלח אתכם (שם /שמות/ ח כד) מה שכר נטלו על כך לא תתעב מצרי (דברים כג ח) 

The mouth which stated "I will also not send out Israel"(Ex. 5:2) is the same mouth which said "I will send you."(Ex. 8:24). What reward did he take for this? "You shall not despise the Egyptian." (Deut. 23:8). 

The M'chilta goes on to bring two more examples of Pharaoh's intransigence, his subsequent bending to God's will and ultimately the reward he earned for the Egyptian people because of his capitulation. 

So not only does God somehow need Pharaoh to send the C of I out of Egypt, but he ultimately rewards him for doing so, even though it is clear that Pharaoh carries out God's wishes only after the most extreme duress. 

Tomorrow we'll look at possible reasons for why God has to have Pharaoh do this sending, why the reward and what 'sending' means anyway.

Moshe vs. Avraham

To pick up from where I left off yesterday and hopefully to address ziggi's comment at the same time:

What distinguishes the Patriarch's from others in their time and in later generations was their ability to communicate with God, to seek out a direct relationship with God and ultimately to secure a covenant with God.

Even though the way we see the story in the Torah, God first seeks out Avraham, the way the sages understand it, Avraham first seeks out God when he realizes that the notion of idol worship doesn't make sense.

Later on, there is an implication, which the sages pick up on and amplify, that Avraham kept all of the Torah including rabbinic enactments, even though he was not commanded to do so.

So Avraham's relationship to the Torah is an organic one; that is, he comes to keep the Torah as he came to worship God, by way of his own initiative and highly perceptive abilities.

 This approach reflects a very high spiritual and intellectual level. While it is incredibly admirable, this is not a model that everyone else can emulate. We are not all blessed with those sorts of abilities and, perhaps more to the point, we are not all imbued with the spirit of seeking that Avraham and the other Patriarchs had.

Moshe, by contrast, is clearly sought out by God, even chased and sort of hounded by God. Moshe displays a different sort of critical mind and way of thinking. When confronted by God, Moshe steps back and says maybe I don't want this relationship. He challenges it on every level.

Moshe represents the person who does not figure out the Torah by himself; in fact, he represents the kind of person who challenges each aspect of the Torah as it is presented to him. Whereas Avraham was in harmony with the Torah and how it works in the world in some kind of intuitive way, Moshe needed to understand each aspect of the Torah as it came to him. Thus, I would argue that Moshe is the more appropriate party to bring the Torah into the world. He leads the way for the rest of us who need to understand the Torah in our own way and may not be up to tuning into the Torah on some kind of higher plane.

Live From Budapest!!

I can't get the whole post in just now. I am at a sort of cafe/food emporium which offers free wi-fi and cheap beer (well, most places here offer the latter, at least) but they are going to close any moment!

Maybe I will just wrap this segment up by pointing out that no matter what particular meanings you assign to these various names of God, you will come away understanding that the Torah looks at each name as being unique and meaningful.

The Ibn Ezra in his commentary here understands the name Shaddai to be derived from the root shoded meaning, in this sense, to control as in The God Who Controls Stuff in the Universe.

Rashi understands the name יקוק to refer to that aspect of God which metes out reward and punishment. This understanding of that name is evident from a number of passages later on in Vayikra, and we'll comment more on them there perhaps (if I remember!).

In our context, then, it means that the Patriarchs didn't personally experience all of the reward that God promised them and yet they didn't kvetch and challenge God as Moshe did.

And here is the contrast, then, between Moshe's argument with God and Avraham's argument with God about the destruction of S'dom and Amora: Avraham's argument was essentially selfless--he had nothing to personally gain by the halting of the destruction nor nothing personally to lose by letting the destruction take place (except maybe losing his nephew Lot, but that gets taken care of anyway).

Moshe, though, when he argues with God here is, of course, concerned primarily with the welfare of his fellows but he is likewise concerned that his own efforts were for naught or worse. That is, he expresses real doubt about God's direction here and feels that in some way God may have slighted him. It is not a bad argument  in some ways and I would argue myself that it may reflect one of the reasons that Moshe was chosen to be the vehicle for receiving the Torah itself whereas the Patriarchs didn't get that particular honor. We'll pick up on this next time.

Night all!!

What's In a Name?

Sorry about the long hiatus! I'll try to finish up a couple of points from last week and then we'll move on to this week.

In the verses we quoted in the last posting, we saw three names of God:

1)    יקוק The four letter name of God
2)    א-להים E-lohim
3)    א-ל ש-די Eil Shaddai

Note: Because of the holiness of God's four letter name in particular, it is not written out properly (which would find the letter ה where I have substituted the letter ק)  except when written in a Torah scroll,  or printed in a book of learning or a siddur where it is unlikely that it will be defaced. The sages learned from the Torah that God's name, once written, must never be erased, even partially. For essentially the same reason, I have modified the writing of the other names of God mentioned in our passage by placing a hyphen between letters.

In classic biblical criticism, at least the little I know, the first two names on this list are used by two different authors of the Torah. Very nifty but that doesn't explain much about the meanings of the names as used in the context of our verses.

In Chapter 6:1 God addresses Moshe as יקוק. Immediately after in the next verse, God addresses Moshe as א-להים but explains to Moshe that He is יקוק.  This is a bit odd for two reasons I can see right off:

1)    If He is indeed יקוק then why doesn't He speak to Moshe as יקוק? The verse says that א-להים spoke to Moshe, not יקוק.
2)    God already told Moshe that He is יקוק back in Exodus 3:15. In fact, He tells Moshe that “this is My name forever and this is My rememberance from generation to generation.”

God then goes on to tell Moshe that He appeared to the Patriarchs with “Eil Shaddai” whereas the name יקוק he did not 'make manifest' to them. This is also a bit odd as God spoke to each of the Patriarchs using the name יקוק.

The midrash and the commentaries all deal with these issues as well as the issues I brought up in the last posting.

For today, I just want to point out that the Torah here (and elsewhere!) makes a big deal about God's names. The notion that any name is significant is seen pretty early on in the Torah when God has Adam (Genesis 2:19,20) give names to the various animals He created. Later passages also attest to the significance of names. So it is understandable that God's names would be important, too.

We might ask, though, if God is singular and completely unique, why should He have more than one name?

More soon!

And While We're At It--Kvetching by Moshe

שמות פרק ה
(כב) וַיָּשָׁב מֹשֶׁה אֶל יְקֹוָק וַיֹּאמַר אֲדֹנָי לָמָה הֲרֵעֹתָה לָעָם הַזֶּה לָמָּה זֶּה שְׁלַחְתָּנִי:(כג) וּמֵאָז בָּאתִי אֶל פַּרְעֹה לְדַבֵּר בִּשְׁמֶךָ הֵרַע לָעָם הַזֶּה וְהַצֵּל לֹא הִצַּלְתָּ אֶת עַמֶּךָ:

Exodus Chapter 5
(22) And Moshe returned to God and he said, “Lord, why have you made it bad for this nation—why have you sent me? (23) Ever since I came to Pharaoh to speak in Your name, You have made it bad for this nation and You have surely not saved your nation.

Moshe asks two questions of God:

1)Why did God make it worse for the Children of Israel and
2)Why did God send him (Moshe) on this mission?

Moshe also makes two claims against God:

1)Ever since he (Moshe) spoke in God's name to Pharoah, God has made things worse for the Children of Israel and
2)God has not saved the Children of Israel.

The next passage has God's response. We will want to see if and/or how God responds to Moshe's questions and claims.

What we see first of all is that various names of God are used in the next few verses.  Although we see different names for God in other places, in this particular context at least some of those names provoke particular interest here because God Himself (or Herself—can't get into that whole bit now) points out and seems to differentiate between names. To wit:

[פרק ו] (א) וַיֹּאמֶר יְקֹוָק אֶל מֹשֶׁה עַתָּה תִרְאֶה אֲשֶׁר אֶעֱשֶׂה לְפַרְעֹה כִּי בְיָד חֲזָקָה יְשַׁלְּחֵם וּבְיָד חֲזָקָה יְגָרְשֵׁם מֵאַרְצוֹ: פרשת וארא (ב) וַיְדַבֵּר אֱלֹהִים אֶל מֹשֶׁה וַיֹּאמֶר אֵלָיו אֲנִי יְקֹוָק:
(ג) וָאֵרָא אֶל אַבְרָהָם אֶל יִצְחָק וְאֶל יַעֲקֹב בְּאֵל שַׁדָּי וּשְׁמִי יְקֹוָק לֹא נוֹדַעְתִּי לָהֶם:

[Chapter 6](1) And God יהוה said to Moshe, “Now you will see that which I will do to Pharaoh—for with a strong hand he will send them and with a strong hand he will expel them from his land. Parshat Vaera (2) And the Lord spoke to Moshe and He said to him, “I am God יקוק.”
(3) And I appeared to Avraham and to Yitzchak and to Yaakov through Eil Shaddai אל שדי whereas my name God יהוה I did not manifest to them.”

Technical note:

1)Bear in mind that Chapter divisions in the Torah (and the rest of Tanach) were made by Christian monks in the middle ages and are not part of the original Hebrew text. 
2)The divisions between the weekly Torah portions were established by custom and are also not necessarily reflected in the way the text is written or laid out.

The point being that when we try to read the text in a way that maintains continuity, we need to read the last verses from the end of Parshat Shmot (the ones where Moshe is complaining) along with the beginning verses of Parshat Va'era. It is important to note, though, that in an actual Torah scroll, there is a large space placed between the end of Chapter 6 v.1 and Chapter 6 v.2.

More soon....

Back to the Parsha--For Now, At Least

Last week saw me prattling about the Oral Torah and all and I neglected to speak about the Parsha! Well, to bring us up to speed, last week's Parsha told about how the Children Of Israel become enslaved in Egypt, Moshe's birth and ultimate appointment as God's point man to take said Children out of Egypt and Moshe's first confrontation with Pharaoh.

Regarding the latter, Moshe goes to Pharaoh fully thinking that Pharaoh is going to roll over and let his (i.e. Moshe's) people go. Not only does Pharaoh not let them go, but he makes life more difficult for them.

So Moshe complains. To God.

One can understand Moshe's feelings here. He was pretty reluctant to go on this errand for God to begin with but at least, he must have figured, his brethren will be better off if they can leave. But Moshe's demands just make working conditions for the Hebrews even worse! Moshe feels 'used,' perhaps, or at the very least slighted by God. And last week's parsha ends with Moshe pointing this out to God.

Our parsha this week opens with God's reply. Clearly, God was up for this and had somethiung prepared to tell Moshe already. His reply has something to do with His names. And we will talk about those names and a bit of Biblical Hebrew grammar tomorrow.