Parshat Shmot
by Rabbi Avi Billet
This past Monday I followed through with a little custom I’ve undertaken to listen to a speech of Martin Luther King, Jr. on the day this country has dedicated to him based loosely on his birthday, and in listening to his “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech I heard him say this: “If I were standing at the beginning of time, with the possibility of taking a kind of general and panoramic view of the whole of human history up to now, and the Almighty said to me, ‘Martin Luther King, which age would you like to live in?’ I would take my mental flight by Egypt and I would watch God's children in their magnificent trek from the dark dungeons of Egypt through, or rather across the Red Sea, through the wilderness on toward the promised land. And in spite of its magnificence, I wouldn't stop there.”
The significance of the timing of hearing this as we, in our communities, are embarking on our own journey through the book of Shmot, is coincidental, but should not be overlooked.
King was talking about the incredible efforts he had seen in his own time of fighting against injustice and in doing so in such a way that was so transformational to the United States of America. When we look at some of the protests going on today, in some cases with violence and destruction of property, and in some cases the verbal and written demonization of what should be a celebrated democratic process that led, in this round, to the election of a presidential candidate who is a far cry from being a perfect human being, who happens to not be the candidate supported by those who are crying and demonstrating against his now presidency (their candidate is also a far cry from being a perfect human being), we see how much has changed since the eloquence of King’s words was meant to teach a nation of how you make your point and how you move towards justice. [Saying a democratic election in the United States is unjust because you don’t like the results is callow and immature.]
For me personally, I would have to agree with King that the Exodus is not the time period when I would like to live. But as a Jew, my own wish is to experience Judaism in its ideal form, with a Temple on the Temple Mount. This is not a call for “change in the status quo” today – we’ll leave such an objective to God Himself. But were I to take that panoramic view through history with the opportunity to settle anywhere on the timeline, that is where I’d like to go.
And the truth is, this was really the dream of our Master Teacher, Moshe Rabbenu. Yalkut Shimoni (Devarim 823) says “Moshe wanted to see the Temple, and God showed it to him, as it says [amongst the things in the land that God showed him] ‘and the Gilaad…’” Gilaad is a reference to the Temple.
In his commentary on Bamidbar 20, Or haChaim notes the known viewpoint that had Moshe entered the land and built the Temple, there would be no second thought against enacting God’s wrath agains the Jewish people when they sinned. God saw what the Israelites might do in the future, and so God had the thought process of “If Moshe enters the land and builds the Temple, and God has cause to pour out His wrath against the Jews for their behavior, He will pour it out against them instead of against their Temple which Moshe will have built. Should this come to pass, the Israelite nation will be wiped off the map. God therefore chose to prevent Moshe from having this distinction, preferring for His wrath to go against a building rather than His children.
The idea that Moshe will not get to go into the Land is hinted to in the last comment of Rashi on the parsha, in quoting a Talmudic passage from Sanhedrin, that “Now you will see what I will do to Egypt” implies, “But you will not see what I do to the nations of Canaan because you will not enter the land.”
Moshe's destiny was to live in his specific time. Our destiny is to live in our time. But in the hypothetical world of possibility opened before us by MLK, we are left to ask, what period of time would we like to be in? As human beings – is this time and place in history the time we are meant to be in, and therefore we should embrace it, even if there are challenges? How about those who don’t like election results?
And for us, as Jews, what time would we like to be in? King said, “I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land.”
That was the conclusion Moshe came to at the end of his life. I’ll have to be satisfied with the life I was given. And get as close to God as I can in the one shot that I get.
But if we believe in a promise for the future that might perhaps give us an opportunity for a different kind of Jewish experience, what are we doing to help us get there? What will our own personal “Promised Land” be?
May we merit to get there in our lifetimes.
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