The Power of the People

Assuming we’re not “in the room where it happens.”  Assuming we are not serving in one of three branches of national government, assuming that we are not in a position that gives us access to the halls of power.  How do we face each day, take our temperature, assess ourselves and our surroundings, and determine what we want to say and do given national events?

The story of the Exodus describes the showdown between two main characters, leaders on the stage in the room where it happens, leaders whose actions have the capacity to impact entire nations.

Moses and Pharaoh have an extended showdown, a dance of ego, will and destiny that the Torah describes in dramatic detail.

But of course most of the people were neither Moses nor Pharaoh.  They were figuring out how to manage each day, how not to be literally and figuratively beaten.

So one imagines that they assessed how to manage their personal affairs, whether to join the resistance or not.  The Egyptian people seem to have assessed whether they would offer material support to the Israelites since in the end, they did offer such support.

There is a subtext that appears throughout the Exodus story. Behind the Pharaoh-Moses showdown we get a glimpse of what the people are thinking and doing.

We are told that initially the Israelites could not listen to Moses due to shortness of spirit.  Gradually, some people (Pharaoh’s daughter, the midwives) began to resist.

In preparation for the actual departure, the Israelites were told to take an action that demonstrated faith and resistance. They were told קחו לכם צאן k’hu lakhem tzon, take for yourselves a lamb, prepare and eat it with your extended family and anticipate the telling of the story of your departure to generations to come.  

Here our ancestors were, heeding the voice of a humble, self-described inarticulate person who was asking for resistance to the mightiest person in the world on behalf of an unseen God.

Astonishingly they did as they were told.  They prepared, they ate, they packed quickly and they left.

Our ancestors were not Moses or Pharaoh.  They were the people.  

We’re not the president or the VP or the congressmen or the Supreme Court justices.  We are the people.  Like our ancestors we display doubt, resistance, concern for “what to tell the kids” and hopefully a willingness to move forward toward an uncertain future.  Across the generations our ancestors bequeath all of this to us as “the people’s legacy.” 

And make no mistake – it’s a powerful legacy.  Ultimately it was the people who took risks to change the status quo. Ultimately it was the people who charted the nation’s destiny. The people were quite powerful, especially as they gained the desire and the strength to move forward.

So what can we do, we who constitute today’s children of Israel and are mindful of our ancestors’ example?

First, we can speak to subsequent generations – our children and grandchildren, our nieces and nephews – to hear their perspective on current events and to offer our own.  

We can try to speak with family members about their perspectives, especially those who have different political views than we do.  As I’ve said previously, we need to engage people of good will who see things differently than we do so that we can oppose the efforts of those who have ill will, those who seek to impose their bigotry through official and unofficial means.

We need to advocate when we feel it is necessary in order to support the Jewish and American value of liberty and justice for all.  The recent demonstrations on behalf of refugees to the United States are a strong example of this and there are many others.

And we need to behave decently toward one another, to model dignified behavior as a Jewish and American value even if our leaders don’t always conduct themselves that way.

I charge us with all of that since we are the people, we are the children of Israel, and this is our legacy.

The Zohar, a classic work of Kabbalah, Jewish mysticism, describes a conversation between the Holy One and the Shekhina.  Here is the gist of it:

When the “assembly of Israel”, Knesset Yisrael, went into exile, the Shekhina turned to God and asked, How will you nurture yourself while the people are in exile?

The Holy One said, Let me do my thing and you and the people do yours.  Take care of Torah, take care of the community, take care of the children, tinokot shel beit rabban.

We don’t have complete power over everything that impacts us communally, nationally and internationally.

But there is dignity and exquisite value in our caring for community as best we can, caring for the way subsequent generations encounter the world and engage one another, determining when and how to protest large-scale and small-scale and how to be good and to model goodness.

Like the children of Israel from ancient times, we are on an ongoing journey.  We are unsure at times, we disagree with one another at times, but we have to remember that what we do in our families, what we do in the local realms in which we live, has significant value along with how we try to impact national and international policy.

קחו לכם K’hu lachem.  Take it for yourselves, the children of Israel are taught.  Take the action, the risk, the responsibility for yourself.  And I say to each of us, let’s take for ourselves our responsibility to speak and act every day with justice and holiness.

We are not Pharaoh.  We are not Moses.  We are not commander in chief.  We have not been nominated to serve on the Supreme Court.  We are the assembly of Israel.  We are the children of Israel. 

If we remember that and if we choose to act on our potential, we can and will be as powerful today as ever.  

Originally shared with the Temple Israel of Great Neck community on 2/14/17, Parashat Bo