וַיֹּאמֶר יְהֹוָה אֶל־מֹשֶׁה בֹּא אֶל־פַּרְעֹה כִּי־אֲנִי הִכְבַּדְתִּי אֶת־לִבּוֹ וְאֶת־לֵב עֲבָדָיו לְמַעַן שִׁתִי אֹתֹתַי אֵלֶּה בְּקִרְבּוֹ׃ וּלְמַעַן תְּסַפֵּר בְּאׇזְנֵי בִנְךָ וּבֶן־בִּנְךָ אֵת אֲשֶׁר הִתְעַלַּלְתִּי בְּמִצְרַיִם וְאֶת־אֹתֹתַי אֲשֶׁר־שַׂמְתִּי בָם וִידַעְתֶּם כִּי־אֲנִי יְהֹוָה׃
Then Yah, Breath of Life said to Moses, “Come into Pharaoh. For I have made him glorify his heart and the hearts of his slaves, in order that I may display these My signs among them, and that you may recount in the hearing of your child and of your child’s child ...
Exodus 10:1-2
This week, the anniversary of January 6, people across the US gathered in vigils to advance democracy. In the continuing Torah story of the Exodus, Pharaoh represents the aspect of us that holds ourselves as separate; the world and other beings are experienced as "other." The tragedy of that consciousness pervades human history. As individuals and as a collective, how do we move to trust inclusiveness, to a realization that "your liberation is bound up with mine."
Visionary feminist writer, scholar and activist bell hooks asks, "Where do we find that space of connecting, of belonging...that space where there is no 'other.'"
Life itself calls Moses into this consciousness in this week's Torah portion, titled "Come into Pharaoh." Enter into the heart that we don't understand. Enter into the hearts that burn and consume everything around them. This scary path is the path to healing and passing on a better world for our children. Somehow, we are instructed, the closer we can get to entering into the alienated hearts, the more we will know that a better world is meant to be.
Moses discovered this when he drew close to a burning bush and saw that there can be burning without consuming. This knowing gave him the courage to get closer. He approached what is beyond our understanding with curiosity and openness.
Nonviolent Communication (NVC) recognizes how hard it is for us to stay open and curious in the face of what scares and even repels us. We fear that simply offering our presence will somehow reinforce or condone falsity and even violence. When I first began sharing NVC in Israel and Palestine, it was challenging to even find Israeli Jews or Palestinians who would admit to the existence, history or experience of the other. In our trainings, we explore how empathy, connecting with other's pain, can be in service of empowerment rather than submission.
This applies equally in our personal and local lives. Parents and educators fear that offering an empathic presence to young people''s strong desires for freedom and spontaneity will encourage dangerous or "counterproductive" behavior. Globally, we judge and turn away from people making different health choices during the pandemic. We resist acknowledging the pain and despair in the hearts of those who invaded the palace on January 6 last year.
We also suffer this way with our own frozen trauma. Something overwhelmed us and we had no capacity to metabolize it, to digest it in a way that brought healing and soothing. It was too weighty.
This is how pharaoh-nature arises. Life itself pounds the heart in a cycle of blame and shame. In Buddhism, this is the wheel of suffering, called the wheel of samsara. It is a cry for contact.
Our natural hearts yearn for this contact. We want someone to pick up a crying child. We yearn to know how to encounter the one sitting on the edges of the sidewalk and behind the bars at Rikers. We may be scared and turn away, pretending that they are not as human as we are. Our hearts, like Pharaoh's may close from heaviness. Or, pharaoh-like, we may self aggrandize, our hearts acting as if we are more deserving or needier than others.
Where is the healing, can we get off this wheel of suffering?
Come into the heart and tell your story
"Come to Pharaoh," Torah exhorts. Tell stories of your courage and hope to your children. Don't wage a war of facts. When we are stuck in our Pharaoh-nature, we aren't moved by facts. Pharaoh's orifices are closed to what is in plain sight. Instead, share your own pain and fears. Listen to other's . Let a new consciousness with new solutions arise out of the newly entered wilderness.
Torah's teaching this week is come into Pharaoh's heart because liberation is ultimately about the heart and "your liberation is bound up with mine. "
Torah scholar Aviva Zornberg teaches this by pointing out that Pharaoh's heart is mentioned 17 times in these Torah verses. 19th century Hasidic teacher Reb. Tzaddik HaCohen draws on the Zohar to interpret this week's opening verse as a call to enter into the depths of Pharaoh's heart. Come into the hidden inner rooms of Pharaoh's heart. This is Life Eternal's instruction to Moses.The heart is the seat of love. Yes, we feel every emotion from the heart. And Torah reminds us, over and over, that the heart is the seat of love and love is the source of wise action.
What happens when we go into the heart of what we fear? Trauma healing involves entering into the frozeness in our own hearts and in other’s hearts. In my NVC empathy group this week we witnessed what happens when our fear is held with empathy, spaciousness and care. We witnessed the opening of tenderness and compassion.
Come into Pharaoh.
Get close. You can’t understand what's inside your own or other's hearts when you are outside. You can't heal without touching the woundedness of the heart. Healing means touching this in yourself and recognizing your own suffering in others, and others in yours. My freedom is bound up with yours.
Torah wants us to face the fullness of this interconnectedness, including the shadow side. The Egyptians' hearts open to the enslaved soon-to-be refugees and offer their wealth to take into the wilderness with them. And then, the final plague strikes, wrought by Pharaoh refusing or unable to see what's in plain sight. The first born of the Egyptians are slain. This is the Nakba, the catastrophe, that is the cost of the Israelite's freedom. How do we understand this and how do we heal? Your freedom is bound up with mine.
Open your vision and perspective to the Cosmos we inhabit
In the very midst of the Egyptian suffering of plagues and the Israelite's exodus, Torah introduces the lunar Hebrew calendar. In the liminal space between enslavement and freedom, the human condition, Torah's first instruction to the Israelites is to mark time by following the cycles of the moon.
Sforno, the Torah commentator from 16th century Venice wrote that because the moon's cycles are freely and naturally available, marking time this way signifies freedom. As Avivah Zornberg explains, time is of little importance to a slave — their time is owned by a master; marking time, knowing the moon, celebrating every new month, is a mark of freedom. Stopping to notice the moon, ordering your life around the cycles of the moon, rather than the demands of slavery, is freedom.
Following and watching the cycles of the moon calls us to trust rebirth and to play a role in rebirthing. This is living in freedom. Being a free person means centering yourself in an expansive view of who you are, what you are and how you fit into all of existence. When we are enslaved we are caught and limited to a very small sphere of choice about how we spend our time in this body.
In the language of Nonviolent Communication, when we are constricted with no access to empowered imagination, we make choices that fall short of meeting our core needs and we can't imagine that it's possible to make choices that support the web of life by valuing everyone's needs.
Torah instructs the enslaved peoples to come out of the constricted place, even when they are wandering in the wilderness of their lives, and mark their freedom by constructing their lives around the calendars of the vast heavens, following the rebirthing cycle of the moon.
As a woman this resonates so deeply with learning from, respecting, integrating the monthly rhythms of the body with daily life. Noticing and ritualizing the monthly rhythms of the body in alignment with the cycle of the moon opens us to a depth way beyond the schedule of daily tasks. This is a freedom from the Egyptian taskmasters, as they are often called in the Torah.
Reparations; My liberation is bound up with yours
וַֽיהֹוָ֞ה נָתַ֨ן אֶת־חֵ֥ן הָעָ֛ם בְּעֵינֵ֥י מִצְרַ֖יִם וַיַּשְׁאִל֑וּם וַֽיְנַצְּל֖וּ אֶת־מִצְרָֽיִם׃
YHVH gave over chein to the people of the eye of Egypt and [the Israelites] ran with it
— Exodus 12:36
The Egyptians who could see past the darkness of enslavement and othering blessed the Israelites on their journey. Eternal Presence filled their hearts with chein, the beauty of symmetry and they supplied the refugees with money, gold and clothing for the journey home. This offering back what was taken for four hundred years is how we walk each other home.
Freedom Comes with Sobering Signs
This week's parsha, Bo, ends with the horrific slaying of the first born of Egypt followed by a final message to the people from Eternal Presence:
הוֹצִיאָ֥נוּ יְהֹוָ֖ה מִמִּצְרָֽיִם׃
And so it shall be as a sign upon your hand and as a symbol on your forehead that with a mighty hand the ungraspable freed us from Egypt.
Exodus 13:16
Remember, your destiny is bound up with the destiny of everyone in narrow places. It will be known and seen that your freedom was born from the great suffering of Egypt. Let us retell the story each year with greater and grater capacity to recognize that our privilege, our good fortune, bound those left behind. Let us uplift ourselves generation to generation with greater truth telling and accountability to all life.
Moon Viewing; Accessing the Awakened Mind
How far do I have to go to see the full moon?
The moon casts
Rays of gold,
Awaking the night.
Seeker, do you hear
The homily ringing
Through the autumn air?
Bell-crickets peak:
The moon is always
Full.
Is a gentle breeze
Moving
The pampas grass?
— Paula Arai, "Painting Enlightenment: Healing Visions of the Heart Sutra"
In many spiritual traditions, the moon represents the mind that is awakened to its own true nature of interconnectedness, of belonging to the web of life in all form. When we stop and look for the moon, watch its disappearance and rebirth we are reminded that freedom is more than physical. The mind of enlightenment is real and accessible to each of us when we root ourselves, our relationships and our societies in the One Source of interconnectedness.
Come. come, whoever you are
NVC Practice for Moving Hearts
Preparation
- Think of something challenging you want to say to someone in 40 words or less. (This is important, so practice saying it beforehand in 40 words or less.)
- Write two versions of the statement you want to make. One with facts and any suggestions to want to make to the other person.
- Second version, only use "I" statements; When I hear or see XYZ, I feel XYZ. Leave out any characterizations of the other person.
- Which of your versions meet your need to create a connection between hearts? Pick that one.
Approaching the Other Person
- Start by asking if this is a good time for them to hear you. Depending on who the person is, you may want ask them if its ok for you to try out a new way of communicating what is important to you. Don't do it until you get a "yes" that you trust is willing and interested.
- After you receive that "yes," deliver your message.
- Stop and check in with the other person — how is that for you to hear?
- Is there an opening to try your other version?
- Depending on who the other person is, you may want to ask them, "How can I say it in a more inviting way?"
Let me know how this goes!