From the Creation of the World to the Creation of a People

Genesis to Exodus – from the creation of the world to the creation of a people and a homeland. Our story doesn’t begin with us as a people, it begins with the creation of the world; it begins with the first human beings, symbolically Adam and Eve, and goes on to Noah, whose covenant with God is the covenant of the rainbow (the first of 3 covenants) – “I will maintain My covenant with you: never again shall all flesh be cut off of a flood”. The story of Noah also includes the seven Noahide Laws, a set of universal moral laws given to all humanity. Then we move on to the beginning of OUR STORY. We meet Abraham, and so our story begins. Abraham is the first Jew, the father of our nation. And the first conversation, the first interchange between God and Abraham begins to expand on what being a Jew means. Abram is commanded by God to Lech Lecha, to “Go forth from your native land and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.” Our narrative begins with a man and a land! We are a people who are tied to a land, promised to us some 1800 years BCE. From the onset, being Jewish has always meant a tie to the land we now call Israel. A Jew and a Zionist are to me one in the same. Abraham understands that his people cannot survive or flourish in the land of Haran, and that he must go to a land where we can be a free people, praying to the one God .

We know there are different narratives, but this is our narrative, and we can’t forget it, or undermine it, or ignore it! As we move into the book of Exodus, we learn the lesson that, unfortunately, is the lesson that we, as Jews, have learned over and over again. It’s the lesson we learned in the story of Esther, where, on a whim, Haman decides all Jews must die, simply because he is upset with one Jew, Mordechai. And Achashverosh agrees! It’s the lesson we learned in Spain when we were expelled in the 1490’s. We learned it in the massacres and pogroms in the middle East and Eastern Europe. It’s the lesson Herzl learned when he was covering the spy trial of Dreyfus in the late 1890’s and the crowd roared, not death to the traitor but death to the Jews. And it is the tragic lesson we learned in the Holocaust where more than 1/3 of the world’s Jewish population was murdered! All of these tragedies and injustices took place well before there was the State of Israel. Jew hatred well precedes the State of Israel. As much as we want to believe that we are not only part of the fabric of other countries, and that we are we are integral to and valued in those other countries, and respected, somehow, our bubble is burst, and we find out that we are not welcome, we are not important, we are expendable and that no matter what we have accomplished, there always seems to arise another Pharoah that has forgotten (as in Exodus) what Joseph did to save Egypt from famine or what we have done in the fields of medicine, or science or art and literature to make the countries in which we live better.

Moses grows up in Egypt and realizes that it can’t be his homeland, when he sees the Egyptian taskmaster beating to death a Jewish slave. Moses knows he must leave. He understands the injustice of what he sees before him and he has to make a choice and it involves violence and the taskmaster is killed, but sometimes there are no choices. Either the slave was to be mercilessly killed, or Moses had to intercede. There are times we have to defend ourselves, a lesson we are learning now, and unfortunately, so many innocents on both sides of the conflict are suffering the repercussions of that violence that was initiated, not by us, but by those who want us dead. Moses is tasked with having to lead us out of the land that no longer remembers how much Joseph had done to keep Egypt fed and safe during the years of famine. Moses is tasked with leading people who were confused and often rebellious to a place that would be better, the land so long ago promised to Abraham.

We stop at Sinai, because in order to create this new world, this new community, we needed a set of rules: commandments, not just the universal moral laws given to Noah, but the commandments for us as a Jewish people. We needed those guidelines that would tell us how to live how to be in covenant with God. Moses does not make it into the land. It is Joshua who will carry on after Moses and it is to Joshua that the promise is reiterated: Joshua 1: 6-9 Chazak! Be strong, for you will lead these people to inherit the land I swore to their fathers to give thee.”

We are the people who have a Brit with God. We have the land that God promised us, and we have the responsibility to be a light to the nations. It’s not an easy task. We are approximately today 1/4 of 1% percent of the world population and we have discovered sadly once again that an awful lot of the rest of that world population neither values what we have done, who we are, or that we have the right to a land that’s about as big as lake Erie. Surrounding our land are 14 countries that somehow can’t abide our very existence. Israel is not a perfect land, but I don’t know any country in the world that is blameless, or that hasn’t been involved in strife or in the oppression of other people (Syria, China , Russia, Iraq, India, Canada to name a few) and yet it is our land, little Israel, that receives most of the world’s condemnation and scorn and hate. Abraham started off on a journey. Moses continued the journey, and our ancestors have been journeying from time immemorial to find peace and a small piece of land where we could live freely as Jews.

As we begin the book of Exodus and step into the new year of 2024, let us pray that the promise made to Abraham and heralded by Moses continues to be fulfilled. We have our Jewish state. We began our quest 1800 years BCE. We were voted a State by the United Nations in1948. We are not colonialist invaders: we are not all white, and we have a right to live in peace in our homeland. Let us hope that this land and all its neighbours can learn to live at peace, that the 14 Arab countries can say yes- Israel has a right to exist, and Israel can say we can live in peace. Let us pray that no more innocents die, and let us work towards dealing with the outright lies and misinformation that are echoing and reverberating through social media today. We end each book of Torah with the words has “Chazak, Chazak v’Nitchazek’ “Be strong, hold fast, and let us strengthen one another.” As a people, we have to be strong: we have to be resolute. Being Jews, we are inextricably tied to the existence of and the support of Israel, our Jewish homeland.

To a better, a safer, a kinder, a peaceful new year. Best wishes from the Botnick family.

Filed under: Educator's Message

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