A Bissel Torah – 04/08/2020

Tonight and tomorrow night, as well as in every daytime Pessah service we sing the Hallel, which includes Psalm 114. The Hebrew text begins with B’tzeht Israel. Let me share a few thoughts about this psalm with you.

Psalm 114

1 When Israel came out of Egypt, the House of Jacob from a strange tongue,

2 Judah became God’s holy one,   Israel God’s dominion.

3 The sea looked and fled, the Jordan turned back;

4 the mountains leaped like rams,   the hills like lambs.

5 Why was it, sea, that you fled, and what made you, river Jordan, turn back?

6 What, mountains, made you leap like rams, you hills, like lambs?

7 Tremble, earth, at the presence of the Eternal, at the presence of the God of Jacob,

8 who turned the rock into a pool of water, the hard rock into a fountain of water.

Psalm 114 is a celebration of the Exodus. The house of Jacob left a place of distress, contrition, and narrowness, to experience liberation. The miracle of freedom was witnessed not only by Israelites and Egyptians. Nature itself felt the power of God’s deliverance, as mountains leapt, seas and rivers flew backwards, and from hard rock water flowed. The Exodus from Egypt, according to this psalm, is as miraculous as God’s power over nature.

This is a psalm that urges us to understand the centrality of the Exodus experience not only to the ancient Israelite and modern Jew, but also to the whole cosmos. This psalm universalizes the experience of leaving Mitzrayim, urging us to experience the process of liberation from slavery in safety as the central metaphor by which Jews live, and how we act in this world. The Exodus of the past transformed the cosmos; our celebration has the power of transforming our world. The lesson we learn must be shared with the whole world, through our partnership with God. To me, the lesson of the Exodus is that I must act as God’s partner in ensuring that our world experiences freedom. I have to ensure that I partner with God to end slavery and human trafficking, I have to work for freeing nature from pollution and destruction, I have to do everything in my power to end poverty and hunger, and I must create space for peaceful living among nations.

As we sit in our Seders this year, we can read or sing this psalm as a reminder of the power of the Exodus, and the actions we must take to make this world a better place. I wish you a great Pessah, hoping that you have a meaningful experience during these very different times. And I hope you join me next Tuesday at 5:00pm for happy hour. I hope to be drinking my caipirinha, the Brazilian drink made with sugar cane rum, sugar ice and mashed fruit, usually limes. See you then!

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