This Shabbat is bittersweet, much like the book of Exodus. Today, we are overjoyed with the prospect that the hostages will be returning home, and the war will hopefully end. But, like all tragedies, the bitterness is still with us.
One moment I will never forget was a video I saw shortly after the attacks. It was of a family from Gaza with an Israeli boy, around five years old, taken hostage. They had a leash on him, and called him their dog.
There were so many horrors from the last 460 days, but the dehumanization was the most horrific of it all.
Pronouns are a big topic in today’s age which seems completely new, but interestingly enough though, pronouns have always been a part of who are, how we relate to others, especially those who are different than us, and how pronouns can be used to humanize or dehumanize the other.
In the movie Emancipation which tells the story of a slave named Gordon, or as he was known to the world: ’Whipped Peter’. Gordon was a slave of John and Bridget Lyons on the Lyons Plantation who escaped in 1860 and eventually joined the Union Army to fight for the liberation of his family and his people in the South. Gordon was one of many former slaves who risked their lives to bring freedom to their people, to go back to the South, but Gordon was made famous by a picture taken of his back and published in Harper’s Weekly, the most widely read journal during the Civil War. The pictures, seen during the height of the Civil War when the fate of the conflict was certainly in doubt, provided first-hand evidence of what the Union Army was fighting for.
What’s fascinating about the movie is not just Gordon’s story, but how the white population of the South viewed the black slaves: they would never call them he or she, or even they: they were it. In one scene, Gordon is caring for a little black girl who was beaten by her master so badly that she is close to death. As he’s holding the little girl dying, he takes out a cross and says to her, “God loves you, God loves you.”
A slave owner comes upon him and says, “It is alive?” He begs for the master to give her water and he screams, “Leave it!”
This struggle continued during the Civil Rights Era. In 1968, The Civil Rights leader, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., whom we are honoring this Monday, went to Memphis to support the sanitation workers. He marched with them and made speeches. During the marches, many workers wore signs that read “I Am A Man.” This showed that they were fighting for equality, dignity, and respect.
On April 3, Dr. King gave a very famous speech in Memphis during the strike. He told his listeners: “I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight that we, as a people, will get to the promised land.” An assassin killed Dr. King one day later.
The Civil War and the Civil Rights struggle were more than physical battles, but moral battles that would change history.
Those moral battles began with this book, the book of Exodus.
The English word for the book of Exodus is Shemot which is translated as ‘names’. The reason we call his book Shemot is because it is the first significant word of the book, but I think it’s actually more than that. The parashah begins with the following:
וְאֵלֶּה שְׁמוֹת בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל הַבָּאִים מִצְרָיְמָה אֵת יַעֲקֹב אִישׁ וּבֵיתוֹ בָּאוּ׃
These are the names of the sons of Israel who came to Egypt with Jacob, each coming with his household:
(Exodus 1:1)
The Torah goes on to record the names of Jacob’s children. Although this is a new book, just a couple of chapters before it in the book of Genesis, we read:
וְאֵלֶּה שְׁמוֹת בְּנֵי־יִשְׂרָאֵל הַבָּאִים מִצְרַיְמָה יַעֲקֹב וּבָנָיו
These are the names of the Israelites, Jacob and his descendants, who came to Egypt. (Genesis 46:8)
Rashi, quoting the Midrash, asks the question, why does the Torah mention this same line twice?
He gives the following answer:
Although scripture has already enumerated them by name while they were living, when they went down into Egypt (Genesis 46:8-27), it again enumerates them when it tells us of their death, thus showing how dear they were to God — that they are compared to the stars which also God brings out and brings in by number and name when they cease to shine, as it is said, (Isaiah 40:26) “God brings out their host by number, God calls them all by name”
This commentary gives an interesting perspective on our relationship to God: we are precious to God. Shortly after the names of Jacob’s children are mentioned, the Torah says a new Pharaoh arose in Egypt who did not know Joseph.
This new Pharaoh makes a proclamation:
הָבָה נִתְחַכְּמָה לוֹ פֶּן־יִרְבֶּה וְהָיָה כִּי־תִקְרֶאנָה מִלְחָמָה וְנוֹסַף גַּם־הוּא עַל־שֹׂנְאֵינוּ וְנִלְחַם־בָּנוּ וְעָלָה מִן־הָאָרֶץ׃
“Let us deal shrewdly with them, so that they may not increase; otherwise in the event of war they may join our enemies in fighting against us and rise from the ground.”
But Pharaoh doesn’t say ‘them’ in Hebrew, he says him, let us deal shrewdly with him. Hebrew is a gendered language meaning that we use pronouns to describe people, there is not ‘it’ in Hebrew, so the text says ‘him’ but if we look at it a little deeper, we can see that Pharaoh is actually dehumanizing a nation. It is as if they are all one person - not distinguishable from one another. He turns they into it. This is the first step to making these people who were an integral part of Egyptian society inhuman and therefore could be treated as if they were animals at best, objects at worst.
But even though we were just ‘things’ to the Egyptian slave owners, we were special to God.
At the very beginning, we see how important the book of Shemot is not just for us as Jews, but for all people who were marginalized and dehumanized. Humans might regard other humans as they were objects, but God never does. God calls each one of us by our names which is arguably the greatest act of showing human dignity.
The midrash uses the metaphor of the stars, the same metaphor that God gave to Abraham when God brings him outside and tells him to look up at the stars because that is how numerous his offspring will be. In the book of Psalms, God reassures us, we are stars, and each one of us has a name.
The book of Exodus began a revolution in humanity - a revolution that began the long road to human rights which we still struggle with today. Just 70 years ago, the Jews of Europe were tattooed with numbers as they were exterminated and those left alive relegated to slavery.
I believe that this entire book begins and ends with a question: will you call others by their names? Do you see the divinity within each person, especially those who are marginalized and beaten physically, emotionally, or spiritually? Once you see that they are human like you, that they have a name and an identity like you, what will you do to help raise them from the darkness and into the light?
I wanted to end by quoting Rachel Goldberg Polin, whose son Hersch was held captive for over 300 days and murdered by Hamas terrorists in Gaza. In her recent article, she stressed the humanity of everyone, the hostages, and the innocent Gaza’s who has suffered terribly since Hamas began this war:
"What is essential to us at this moment is that we make sure this phase of the deal is the beginning of the end, and not the end. Getting out 33 cherished human beings is critical. BUT, there are still going to be 65 hostages left in captivity. This remains a microcosm of failure of all of humanity.
The remaining hostages represent 23 different nations. They are Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists. The youngest is Kfir Bibas, who will turn two years old on Saturday, Jan. 18. And the oldest is Shlomo Mansur, who is 86 years old. They are both slated for being released in this first phase of the deal. Yet back in November 2023, they were also supposed to be released (as was my son Hersh), but the deal broke down and now Hersh is dead. I pray Kfir and Shlomo come home as planned, alive and able to recover.
In addition, the innocent Gazans who have suffered terribly since the Hamas attack on Oct. 7, 2023 also severely and critically need relief and recovery immediately. So this deal must happen, to the very end, with everyone in the region finally able to quench our common desperate need for solace.
While I remain ever optimistic and cautiously sanguine, a deal is not a deal until it is successfully completed.
Godspeed to us all."
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