When You Don't Feel Safe, It's Hard to Feel Flexible

Rabbi Melanie Aron

January 12, 2002

Whether because I am leaving for Israel this coming week, or because Jan and I have spent so much time together in discussion on issues relating to Israel and the Palestinians- I saw in this week's Torah portion analogies with our contemporary situation.

In particular I was interested in the negative results of Moses's first efforts, in the advice that God gives Moses in facing these difficulties, and more generally in the problems Moses had with the Israelites,

In last week's Torah portion, Moses, who we know was exceptional from birth, is plucked out of his happy suburban life in rural Midian and thrust into a confrontation with Pharoah that was to consume the next 40 years of his life. Moses returns to Egypt where he is greeted by his brother Aaron. Aaron explains to the people that Moses has been sent to redeem them from slavery, and the people respond with joy- vayamen haam, they believed and they bowed down and prostrated themselves.

But after this initial victory, things don't go so well. The Pharaoh punishes the Israelites for Moses' challenge. The taskmasters withdraw the straw that they had been providing, and the Israelites slaves are forced to keep making their same quota of bricks. The people turn against Moses saying, why have you come, only to make things more difficult for us.

That is where this week's Torah portion begins. The people have turned against Moses and Moses lashes out at God. Why have you sent me, he asks, I have just made everything worse . God speaks to Moses of deliverance, but when he repeats God's words to the Israelites he gets no traction. Because of their crushed spirits, because of the burden of their hard work, they cannot really hear Moses' message.

This is a time of pessimism for many in Israel and in America. In 1993, Rabin and Arafat shook hands in Washington. Is Israel better off today than it was then? Some say, look at where your message of peace has brought us. Look at where the withdrawal from Lebanon has led. We have armed the Palestinian Authority and now they come after us. Look how much worse things are today. Yet it is my hope and the hope of many, as indicated by the rallies and citizen conferences most recently in Israel, that this is still the middle of the story. We hope and pray that our contemporary story, like the story of the exodus, is one that gets worse only as a prelude to getting better.

Moses who grew up in the palace and lived his early adult life in security in Midian has a hard time understanding the Israelites. His experience was so different from theirs. Why aren't they more excited and confident about the future?

I was thinking this week that this situation is somewhat analogous to the gap that exists between some American Jews and Israel. Why can't they understand, some say, this cycle of violence and response is getting us nowhere. Don't they see that Israel needs a game plan with some positive end game? How can the Israelis both believe that assassinations are ineffective in preventing future terrorism and believe that Sharon should continue this policy?

Our perspective may reflect some distance from the situation, which may be helpful, but we need to realize that we may be delivering a message that Israelis are not able at this moment to hear. Like the Israelites in this weeks Torah portion- they are victims of kozter ruach veavodah kashah, shortness of spirit and hard work. The Biblical commentators explained, the Israelites feared death, and the unrelenting pressure they were under, made it hard for them to concentrate.

Like the ancient Israelites, modern Israelis are under tremendous pressure. The constant barrage of terrorism effects people's everyday lives. People are making calculations of what they feel is safe for themselves and their families. David Shipler, who has written extensively about the Middle East, had a very interesting article in the New York Times earlier this week. He reminds the world that it is the violence itself which creates the rigidity which makes the peace process difficult. He writes: Most Israelis, weary of occupation, resisted withdrawal only because they felt vulnerable to Arab attacks.

Moses was a lot like us Americans- he wasn't fully in the situation. Some commentators say it had to have been that way. Because he grew up in the palace, because he had lived as a free man, he could see things that those whose spirit had been crushed could not. However, because he had not shared their labors and their suffering, he was not really with them, and he often misunderstood them.

In this particular chapter God has to urge Moses to lead the people more gently- as Bereishit Rabbah says, benachat, at a slower pace, cautiously. They needed more assurance, They needed help to sustain their optimism.

We today need to rethink our impatience with the average Israeli who doesn't always take our point of view. After all, again quoting Shipler, "when you don't feel safe its hard to feel flexible." Perhaps Moses's example of leading gently and at a slower pace will help us as well.