Bo 5771 Plagues Rabbi Dr Andrew Goldstein 8 January 2011

As the old year ended and the new one opened it seemed as if the Ten Plagues were being replicated in different parts of the world.  Australian floods, snow in the U.K. & Europe blowing across the Atlantic to plague America. Northern Ireland without drinking water and Northwood without refuse collections.  Still in our memory Ash Clouds, earthquakes and the Pakistan floods.

As far as I can see the Queensland floods, though devastating show how a well organised society can respond; though it was chilling to read of a second plague released by the first:  a plague of deadly snakes & crocodiles.  The corruption and inefficiency in Pakistan making the disaster even harder to bear (though perhaps not as hard as the increasing religious terrorism).

All these modern plagues in so many places, even the most sophisticated of societies seem to have demonstrated how thin is the veneer of Western civilisation: ash clouds left us without planes, snow without trains and cars and water. Yet, I heard a reporter returning again from the areas devastated by floods in Pakistan and noted that life seemed to be getting back to normal, after all they had so little to lose.  Houses built of mud can be rebuilt from the flood-water mud : Western homes far more susceptible:  I’m sure you can bring to mind skips outside Cumbrian houses piled high with furniture, carpets, fridges and electronic gadgets.  But I know I oversimplify: the loss of your home is the loss of your home where-ever you live.

But to return to the plagues of old.  This week’s sedra takes us the last 3 and the saga takes on another twist:  after the bearable pain of the first 7, the plagues get really serious and for the first time Pharaoh is forced to negotiate.  “Who are the ones to go?”  And Moses says those famous words: “we will all go, young and old. We will go with our sons and our daughters, our flocks and our herds for we must observe God’s festival.”  Would it have convinced Pharaoh if Moses had omitted the animals?  Was Moses telling a white lie:  “to observe a festival” when they really meant to leave for good?  Was he just upping the ante?  Anyway Pharaoh gives him short shrift:  the men can go, but not the whole mishpocha.

So the locusts come and devastate the land, and Pharaoh calls Moses back & pleads with him to get rid of the plague, which Moses does; and, of course, Pharaoh immediately changes his mind again…or rather his heart….& so it needed the darkness and the death of the firstborn for Moses to win the argument and the whole children of Israel and all their animals go free.

Though theologically disturbing, the Plagues are a super paradigm for our modern world.  Who knows if the snows and rain and draughts are caused by Global Warming?  And what a paradox if the coldest year in the UK for a century, is caused by the earth’s atmosphere getting hotter!  This we do know, humanity’s hungry overuse of the earths natural resources, and its unchecked overpopulation, like the plague of locusts of old, must eventually bring more and more suffering on ourselves?

If we despair, if we spend longer pondering the seemingly unstoppable environmental disaster awaiting us, perhaps we can cling on to hope or perhaps it is much needed escapism to bring to mind a couple of different thoughts from the sedra.  Maybe I would have been wiser to chose as a theme and text:  “we will go with our young and old, our sons and our daughters to observe God’s festival”.  A proof text for Liberal Judaism! The first time in the Torah that in observing a religious rite, women are given equality with men.  None of the older traditional commentators I saw seemed to pick up on this fact. I wonder why? 

During the recent holidays I watched with umpteenth time with my grandchildren “Moses Prince of Egypt”.  It presents a politically correct version of the sedra, with Miriam and Zipporah playing a significant part alongside Moses.  But perhaps this is not so far-fetched.  The Torah depicts Moses as a tongue-tied, diffident character.  He must have needed some support, some encouragement, and indeed Miriam does appear as a stronger person than Aaron in her support of Moses & the Children of Israel.  “We will go with our young & our old, our sons and our daughters”: all have a part to play in the ongoing story of Israel.

But I will end, not with thoughts based on locusts, but the next plague:  the darkness and a couple of comments that are maybe the only practical response to the natural disasters.

I was reminded that the last time I gave a sermon was a month ago in Bratislava. I quoted Abraham Wolf Sofer (who died in 1871), the oldest son of Bratislava’s most illustrious rabbi, the Chatam Sofer. He said: “When a man does not see others or want to see them, there is darkness in the world.” 

Sound thought until you recall that Abraham & his father were the most implacable enemies of Reform Judaism and led the split in Central European Jewry and gave birth to ultra-Orthodox Judaism.  I therefore interpret this saying as falling into the category of: ‘we can all utter wise words but we don’t have to apply them to ourselves.’ 

Instead I will end with a similar thought: a little more pleasing to take away as a short comment on the theme of this sermon, a Chassidic comment:  The Gerer Rebbe said “The darkness was so dense that people could not see one another:  That is the worst of all darknesses: when people are unable to “see” their neighbours, that is, note their distress and help them.”

Amen

[Rabbi Dr Andrew was unwell and his sermon was delivered by Rabbi Aaron]