Parashat Vaera

At the Passover Seder, the act of retelling the Exodus story is done mainly through a Midrash (interpretation) on Devarim 26:5-8, a brief summary originally recited when bringing the First Fruits to the Temple. It is Midrash in its most basic form, connecting each word or phrase from this text with another verse, mainly from Exodus, with little explanation. This text is one of several in the Bible that present brief synopses of the events of the Exodus, including passages like dayenu and Psalm 136. These summaries are as notable for what they omit as for what they include. The Devarim text describes the suffering of the Israelites in slavery and then the grandeur and might of God in bringing them to freedom. Thus the Midrash quotes at length from chapters 1 and 2 of Exodus, then straight to chapter 12, while the plagues, which occupy five full chapters of Exodus, are simply listed by name. Other “synopses,” both Biblical and Rabbinic, do the same — they jump from oppression straight to the Crossing of the Sea, with a few mentioning the plague on the first-born. The intimate, intense, personal drama of Parashat Vaera is absent.

This contrast models two radically different ways of telling a story and two very different purposes. The Exodus version is driven by Moshe’s burning self-doubt, his struggle not only with Pharaoh but to win over his own people, and the power struggle between him and Pharaoh, creating a gripping, visceral drama that captures the imagination. It is the novel at its best. The retellings, by contrast, are crafting history. They reflect a judgment about what it is about this episode, this moment of transition, that will guide the nation as they develop their self-understanding. In that retelling the personalities are set aside — most important is that we forever define ourselves as the Nation that God led out of slavery, a fact which both raises and obligates us.  

Those two lenses speak to me deeply in this current moment of both crisis and transition. For years, we have been living through the daily dramas of outsized personalities, of tweets and talk show interviews, of scandals real and manufactured. I daresay many have found the drama gripping to extent that we thought about little else. But I find myself hoping that when the history of this time gets written, it will, like the Haggadah, pointedly not tell the story of personalities, egos, and insults, but rather look at how the world was changing — the steps forward, the steps backward. And I pray that we will see that, through all the noise, we found ways to move forward on the path of building a better world. 

Shabbat shalom.