Parashat Bo — January 23, 2010 – 8 Shevat 5770

Patient: Rabbi, how can I ever get over what my father did to me when I was a child? He abused me when he came home from work angry! He hurt my mother and my other sister as well. He said that he didn’t mean it, when he calmed down. However, over the years I have learned to hate him for what he did to us, what he did to… me. It has changed me to the core…

Rabbi: I know that you will never be able to forget what happened. That will stay with you for the rest of your life. However, how long will you continue to carry the burden of the emotions that continue to enslave you to your hatred of your father? In other words, can you find a way to forgive him for what he did, even if he is no longer alive, so that you can move on with your life in a way that is more free of the guilt and the shame and the anger that has put you in this place?

Imagine being with your father in a place that is secure, where he cannot harm you physically any more. What words from him would serve as a gift to you that would set you free from all of the hatred that you have built up over the years, the feelings that have enslaved you to your tears and to your anger, and your low self-esteem…? What words could you offer him as a gift that would free you from the pain that keeps you from living more freely?

Perhaps there is something that we can learn from the Israelite community that trusted the Pharaoh to provide for them in the same way that he cared for the other citizens of his country. However, as their parental caretaker, he turned on them, enslaving

them in systematic fashion so that they lost their sense of self and their autonomy as individuals to choose how they could contribute to the growth of their family in a land that they adopted as their own. We learn that right before the tenth plague was delivered, Moses was instructed to tell the Israelite community to “ask their neighbors for articles of silver and gold.” (Exodus 11:2) In the next c

hapter we learn the results of their efforts when “the Egyptians (who were favorably disposed by God) gave them what they asked for…” (Exodus 12:36)

Why would God ask the Children of Israel to take the time to go to the homes of their neighbors seeking gifts of gold and silver, when we read each year at our Passover seders that on that special night when the angel of death went through Egypt, the Israelites did not have enough time to bake their bread? Why would the Egyptians be so accommodating as to give them their gold and silver as a parting gift? If you knew someone is going on a difficult journey, surely you could give them something more useful!

What makes matters worse is our own ability to look ahead at what the Israelites ended up doing with the gold and the silver that was given to them on that frightful night of preparation. They used the jewelry to construct the Golden Calf when Moses did not return to them on the appointed day, according to their calculations. According to the Talmud (in Tractate Berakhot 32a) Moses defends the Children of Israel by blaming God: “Had You not told them to take the gold from Egypt, they would not have had the materials with which to make the calf!” However, God defends His actions by reminding Moses what he said when they first spoke at the burning bush, before the exodus began. God said to Moses: “And I will make the Egyptians favorably disposed toward this people, so that when you leave you will not go empty-handed. Every woman is to ask her neighbor and any woman living in her house for articles of silver and gold and for clothing, which you will put on your sons and daughters. And so you will plunder the Egyptians.” (Exodus 3:6)

This is not the only place in the Torah where we see the phrase relating to the mitzvah not to send someone away empty-handed. In Deuteronomy, Moses reminds the newest generation of Israelites that had grown up in the wilderness without servitude to the Pharaoh, that when they release a servant from their servitude to them, they are to give them gifts with their departure as a reminder of their ancestors’ experiences in Egypt. (Deuteronomy 23:7)

Why does God have us focus on this one idea? What is so important about gift-giving that it receives such attention from the Torah text? Surely there are more significant details that need attending to when preparing for a hasty exit, other than collecting gifts from one’s neighbor?

Perhaps we can gather some insight from our tradition. Any number of times in our liturgy we are reminded to remember that we were once slaves in Egypt as a way to prevent ourselves from enslaving ourselves and others in a similar way. In other words, do not inflict others with what you suffered! Memory serves a greater purpose other than just recalling the past. Santayana is quoted as saying, “those who do not remember the past, are destined to repeat it.” Moses encourages all of us to remember our past so that we do not repeat what was done to us by inflicting pain upon others. It is no surprise that the Israeli government, for the most part, when considering military actions, is very careful about inflicting injury on those who are innocent. The greatest lesson that the gift-giving teaches us is that is very difficult to hate those who offer us a gift which represents a part of themselves. As Rabbi Jonathan Sacks claims in his d’var torah for this week, “A people driven by hate are not – cannot be – free.” (Covenant and Conversation, Bo, 2009)

If the Israelites had gone into the wilderness with revenge on their minds, they would have never rid themselves of their enslavement. As happened, there were aspects of their servitude to the Pharaoh of Egypt that they did carry with them as excess baggage, which resulted in their dying in the wilderness without ever accomplishing their ultimate goal, while their children reaped the reward of reaching the Promised Land. As it has been written in several sources, “Moses may have taken the Israelites out of Egypt, but he did not take the Egypt out of the Israelites.” It took many years of wandering before a new generation was able to grow up with a different experience in which the bonds of anger did not restrict them in their ability to move forward, chaining them to the past. As our social workers and psychologists remind us in our individual therapy sessions, “To be free of what burdens you, you have to let go of the hate that keeps you from feeling free.”

So, on Passover, when we recount and relive our past at our seder tables, both the Egyptian stories and our own stories of escape from persecution in our own day and age, we remind ourselves of what happened, not in order to hate, but to serve a greater purpose, to remember the gifts that we were given as part of out experiences of enslavement. As Rabbi Sacks reminds us, “There is a fundamental difference between living with the past and living in the past.” In our remembering Egypt in our daily prayers, we do so for the sake of the future, not the past.

What I have learned from human behavior and mental health is that “we need to draw a line over the resentments of the past.” Rabbi Sacks concludes, “There is no way of giving back the years spent in servitude. BUT, there is a way of ensuring that the parting is done with goodwill, with some symbolic compensation. The gifts allow the former slave to reach emotional closure; to feel that a new chapter is beginning; to leave without anger and a sense of humiliation. One who has received gifts finds it hard to hate.”

In thinking about what God instructed to Moses in their initial conversation, I have been bothered by God’s comment that the Israelites shall plunder their oppressors. The Hebrew word for “plunder” is “v’nitzaltem” and is related to the Hebrew word “hitzil,” which is used in the Torah in conjunction with the gifts that the Israelite Children gave to build the mishkan in the wilderness, a place for God to dwell among the people, as well as in their hearts. “Hitzil” in this case, means “save.” An early 20th century commentator, Benno Jacob, translates Exodus 3:22 as saying, “You shall save the Egyptians,” rather than the traditional translation, “You shall plunder them.” Jacob argues that “the gifts that they took from their Egyptian neighbors were intended to persuade the Israelites that it was not the Egyptians as a whole who were responsible for their enslavement. Rather, it was Pharaoh who acted alone.” The gifts that the Israelites collected from their Egyptian neighbors were meant “to save them” from any possible revenge in the future by the Israelite community.

The Anti-Defamation League, among others organizations, teach us the lessons of history of what can happen when we stereotype people. It makes it easier to hate them and to then destroy them. We see the agency of hate in our own world where fundamentalist Muslims perpetuate their hate and teach it to children in the classroom. It becomes easier to use yourself as a bomb to inflict pain and suffering upon others who have no humanity. The long and short of human history is that there will be no peace as long as we as a human race are unable to let go of our hatred of one another. So, we will never be free!

To the person who has been injured physically and psychologically, as well as emotionally, by another human being who showed them love at some point in their lives, and violated that love, to forgive that person may never be possible. To forgive themselves for being a victim may be equally difficult to accomplish in their lifetime. However, is it possible for that person to find some small gift that was offered to them by their “perpetrator” that enables them to let go of the hatred that they are harboring in their hearts? To do so, would become the first act of un-anchoring themselves from the chains that keep them in that place of being hurt – even if it is in their own thoughts and emotions long after the physical acts have ended.

Such grief has the power to unite those who can share in their pain. The gift is the ability to overcome our differences and to speak a common language that knows no barriers, the language of tears. As Jews, we do not overlook or hide our bitterness. We find blessings in embracing it through our rituals of understanding. A bridegroom, and sometimes a bride, break a glass at the end of the wedding ceremony to mark the fragility of human relationships, especially once created with intimacy, and the work that is needed to keep such things from shattering. On Passover, we create a Hillel sandwich, acknowledging that life is composed of both sweet charoset and bitter herbs, and that the two are so closely related to one another. “To be a Jew,” says Rabbi Sacks, “is to carry the burden of memory without letting it rob us of hope and faith in the possibility of a world at peace” – both our inner and personal worlds, as well as our communal ones. We must let go our hate – in order to be free!