Exodus the Sequel

Rabbi Melanie Aron

Saturday, April 4, 2009

When a movie is successful quite often there is a sequel. For my generation it was the Rocky movies, James Bond, and Star Wars that just kept coming out one after another. More recently there have been Superman and Spiderman sequels, and the children’s films High School Musical, Shrek, even Ice Age and Little Mermaid. If you think about it you probably could name a dozen- Wikipedia has a 199 page listing of movie sequels.

Sequels make sense. After all, the characters are already established, the sets built, and there is an audience ready and waiting. Once Hollywood has something that sells, it just keeps on producing more of the same.

The most successful story in Judaism is the story of the Exodus, the story that we will retell at our seder this Wednesday night. This story is the foundation of the creation of the Jewish people. It is the basis not only for our celebrating Passover but for all the Jewish holidays. Think of the Kiddush we recited last night. It reminds us that Shabbat is zecher letziat mitzrayim, a reminder or a pointer to the Exodus from Egypt. Without freedom, there could be no Sabbath.

The other major Biblical festivals, Shavuot and Succot, also have their roots in the Exodus. Succot reminds us of the wandering in the desert on our way to the Promised Land after the Exodus and Shavuot is tied to the Exodus, as we count the days from Liberation to the Giving of the Torah on Mt Sinai.

Our ethics is also grounded in the experience of slavery and redemption. Over and over in the Torah we are reminded to be kind, or just, or welcoming, because “you know the heart of the stranger having been strangers in Egypt.”

Further, this story has legs. It hasn’t just shaped Jews and Judaism but it has moved oppressed people all around the world. African American slaves identified with the ancient Israelites and passionately sang, “Let my people go.” In the last century, Liberation Theology, a theology based on the story of the Israelites’ redemption in the Hebrew Scriptures, became very popular in the Catholic Churches of Central and South America as they fought injustice and oppression. This story, which insists that God is on the side of the oppressed and downtrodden, has been important to many movements for freedom.

If this story is so successful, what about a sequel? Well, funny you should ask. There is a sequel, but it’s still in production.

Judaism considers the Messianic Age the sequel to the redemption from Egypt. That’s why we recite the Mi Chamochah at every service, morning and evening, praying for the greater redemption yet to come.

But even though the sequel hasn’t been released, there is a trailer for the sequel- and that’s what we read this morning in the special Haftarah for Shabbat Hagadol. Reading about Elijah who will herald in the Messianic Age, is a kind of teaser for the movie yet to be released.

What is curious to me though, is what the Haftarah sees as the first step in this final redemption. One would expect something political, something on a grand scale; after all the prophets talk about shaking up empires and reducing tyrants to dust.

Instead we have a much simpler promise: “Lo, I will send the prophet Elijah to you … He shall reconcile fathers and sons, and sons with their fathers.” Meshech Chochmah explains why reconciliation is so important that it is the start of Messianic redemption. “ Honoring parents,” he writes,” touches on the relationship between Israel and God which is passed on generation after generation. If one generation will scorn mothers and fathers and will mock the transmitters of the tradition, Torah will disappear from Israel.” Without Torah and its values, there will be no redemption.

As we sit at our seder tables this week, let us remember the significance of this transmittal from generation to generation, and the role it plays not only in the preservation of Judaism, but in the creation of a better world.