Parashat Yitro: Clearing Time to Go up the Mountain

Very strange. We always imagine that God called Moshe to come up the mountain and that’s how he knew it was the time and place for the big event. But if you read the verses, actually what happens is that the people camp across from the mountain and Moshe goes up on his accord, without any call from God. Only after Moshe takes the first step does God then call to him and begin the process (Exodus 19:3).

This makes me wonder: Perhaps God was there on the mountain waiting for many days, years, generations even, for someone like Moshe to come up and want the Torah. Perhaps God is always simply there waiting for us to reach out, to uncover Him, to ask for His Torah, for His Presence to be revealed to us in the world. We think we are waiting for Him to show Himself. But perhaps it is for us to begin the climb up the mountain. There is a famous midrash that says that God’s voice calls out every single day from the Temple Mount: “Return, My children!” The fact that we don’t hear it has to do with our own inability to tune in. The voice is there; the Torah is there; God is on the mountain; we just have to go up.

What is it that allowed Moshe to tune in at that particular moment? The Torah tells us in its prelude to Mount Sinai. Yitro comes and sees his son-in-law serving as a judge from early morning until nightfall every day, dealing with every little squabble in the camp. Up till now Moshe was too frenetically busy to climb the mountain in search of God, to hear God’s call, or to receive His word. A person needs to open herself, to free herself, at least a little bit, in order to hear God.

What Yitro advises is that Moshe get auxiliary judges to do most of the judging so that Moshe’s time is free to serve as an emissary between God and the people, bringing their issues to God and bringing God’s laws to them. In other words, Yitro tells him – you are too busy to serve your real purpose right now! Your real job is with God! You can’t do it all. Only if you free yourself up from all of these other daily responsibilities will you be able to do the real service you are here to do – to serve as a bridge between God and the people. At the end of his advice, Yitro says to Moshe, “If you do this thing,” then vetzivekha Elokhim, literally, “God will command you (Exodus 18:23).” In other words, if you do this thing, if you free yourself in this way, then you will make yourself into a vessel for His commandments.

There are two take-aways from all of this. First, we shouldn’t be waiting for the “call.” We should start the climb, take the initiative in our relationship with God, in our search for His Torah and for His presence. He is waiting for us to approach.

Second, we need to make the time to hear God. If our lives are filled with frenetic rushing and details, we will not be serving our real purpose as a divine vessel. Obviously not everyone is Moshe, but we all have a particular divine purpose in this world, and somewhere inside us, we know what it is. Often, though, what happens is that we let life with all its details and busyness dictate how we should spend our time, rather than being clear about what our particular role is meant to be and setting our own agenda and priorities so that we can actually do it. May we find the time to set out up the mountain!

Parashat Bshallach: Let it Shine!

The end -- the culmination of the exodus -- is song. A song of spontaneous praise to the Lord. In next week’s parsha, the song will need to be turned into law, into a way of living every day with God’s presence in our actions, but for now, what is captured is the essential religious sentiment, the point of leaving Egypt – to feel the call to praise God rising up in our hearts, to feel the sense of amazement and gratitude at God’s miraculous salvation.

It is on the 7th day since the exodus that the Israelites are at the Sea and sing this Song, and so each year we celebrate this Song on the 7th day of Passover. The Sefat Emet connects this 7th day to our weekly 7th day of Shabbat, and this song to the song of that day each week -- tov lehodot laShem ulazamer leshimkha elyon. It is good to praise God and to sing to Your name, Most High. Like the seventh day of Passover, Shabbat is the telos of creation; its purpose is to pause and notice and appreciate and sing out in praise and amazement at the glories of the Lord in our world. It turns out that such songs of praise are the very purpose of our existence.

But how do we sing? How do we praise? Where is this song of praise inside us? In a discussion with some high school students last week about the phrase, Hashem sefatay Tiftah, ufi yagid tehilatekha, “O God, open my lips, so that my mouth may say Your praise,” what came out was the difficulty we all have with praise. It’s a lie, one girl said. When God opens my lips, what comes out is not praise.

But perhaps it is. Perhaps deep down, if we got rid of the obstacles and the distractions and were really present and allowed ourselves to be open to what is and to feel God’s Presence, perhaps what we would find inside ourselves – as the Israelites did at the Sea – perhaps what we would find at the very core is indeed praise, is a song of light and gratitude and amazement. Passing by the Music Room on my way out of AJA today, what wafted out was the song, “This little light of mine – I’m going to let it shine. Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine!” What would happen if we did let it shine? Sometimes I can see clearly that there is inside each and every one of us a song of such light and such brightness, such clarity and brilliance and total praise for what is – that the world would explode if we all sang at once. Perhaps this was the experience at the Sea.

The poet Mary Oliver died yesterday and it seems poignant and fitting that it was on the week of our reading of the Song at the Sea. As she wrote, “When it’s over, I want to say: all my life I was a bride married to amazement.” May we know how to see and sing with amazement as she did and as did the Israelites at the Sea. May God Himself open up the locked places inside us to let the song out. Let it shine! Let it shine! Let it shine!