Exodus | Shemot
Exodus begins by showing us Pharoah-nature, the nature that cannot sit where other folk sit in order to feel what they feel, the nature that closes its heart to others’ suffering. And then it presents us with the questions of our time, of all time: How does transformation of suffering occur? How do we humans affect the formless Flow of Life, Eternally Present, the Formless Creator of Genesis, so that there is sitting “where other folk sit in order to feel what they feel.“
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Elohim, the ancient plural form that spoke the world into form at the beginning of Genesis, reveals the formless unpronounceable name of יהוה to Moses. … The spiritual journey is unfolding in God’s revealing God’s presence to humans in shape, sounds and form that they might receive.
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In this week’s Torah portion, God gives a deep instruction to Moses about the road to freedom. God tells Moses, “Bo בֹּ֖א ,enter, Pharoah.” Enter the place that is stuck, closed, frozen, from where violence is sourced. Enter it, enter the place where the heart is hardened. That is where the light must be seen.
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This week, all across the country, people are gathering in vigils to guard our democracy. Today I will be standing in New York City. This week’s Torah portion calls us to take an even bigger risk to save our world: “Come into Pharaoh.”
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This week’s Torah portion is the first retelling of the flight from Egypt, the crossing of the Reed Sea and the entry into the wilderness. It is a story of a people’s escape from slavery, from a place ridden with plagues and suffering, a journey out of a familiar place of suffering into the unknown.
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This week’s essay follows the teachings on “letting go” in the dynamic among the G!d of Torah, Pharaoh and the Israelites as they flee from enslavement into the wilderness.
What does it take for them to let go of doubt that there is a healing power at the center of existence?
I’m writing this in the midst of ambulance sirens in New York City, attacks on voting rights for people of color, greater and greater polarization between people making different choices about vaccines. Not seeing any straight road ahead has me teetering on the edges of self doubt and despair.
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This week’s Torah portion begins with Moses’ father-in-law, Yitro, high priest of the free desert people of Midian, hearing about the deliverance of Israel from slavery…Without hesitation, Yitro leaves his home to join the wanderers in the wilderness, and he brings Moses’ wife and sons with him.
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With a heavy and grateful heart I dedicate this week’s Torah at the intersection blog to my teacher Thich Nhat Hanh. I am not overstating to say that Thay, the Vietnamese Buddhist term for Rebbe, Roshi and teacher, sent me to Torah and has guided me in every breath of my life. Here is this week’s blog, finished shortly before I heard the news this afternoon that he has passed from the body. As with everything I write, I mention him by name and walk with him.
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This week’s post emerges from the intersection of the fires of Buddhism, Nonviolent Communication and Torah.
This has been a week of Rabbis speaking of Thich Nhat Hanh and his impact of returning them to Judaism. Students of Nonviolent Communication trainer Robert Gonzales speaking of how his life and work grounded their NVC practice in the Buddhist values of compassion and bodhichitta. And my own weaving of the NVC principles of needs and strategies into the Torah portion of Mishpatim.
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When I was a young civil rights lawyer in New York City I worked briefly on the criminal defense of Yusef Salaam, age 15, one of the now exonerated Central Park Five. After spending a short period of time with some of the young, accused black men and their families, it was apparent to me that they were innocent. It was apparent to all the lawyers in our office.
READ MOREA video talk offered as part of the “A Shtickele Toyrah” (a “small piece” of Torah) with the Woodstock Jewish Congregation.
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As we build sanctuaries in our own hearts for each other we are uplifted. The better world we dream of arises as the collective body of the people build it and govern with willing and receptive hearts.
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