Parashat Va’Era: Marching Toward Liberation

Rabbi Lizz Goldstein is with IfNotNow DC

“Standing on the parted shores, we still believe what we were taught before ever we stood at Sinai’s foot; that wherever we go, it is eternally Egypt; that there is a better place, a promised land; that the winding way to that promise passes through the wilderness. That there is no way to get from here to there except by joining hands, marching together.” (Michael Walzer, as found in Mishkan Tefillah)

Our Passover Haggadah has us reciting four promises to go with each of the four cups of wine throughout the Seder: “God spoke to Moses and said to him …‘Say to the people of Israel, I am the Lord, and (1) I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, (2) I will rid you from the from their slavery, and (3) I will redeem you with an outstretched arm, and (4) I will take you to me for a people and I will be to you a God’” (Exodus 6:5–7).

This passage comes from this week’s Torah portion, Parashat Va’Eira, in which there is one more promise: “And I will bring you in to the land, concerning which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob” (Exodus 6:8). The Haggadah doesn’t include this line, and the seder doesn’t talk much about the destination of this Exodus. The passage in the parasha is being relayed to Moses to tell to the people of Israel enslaved in Egypt, but God will not bring Moses nor the generation of bondage into the land. The Torah ends with a new generation on the precipice and Moses dying overlooking a land he may never enter. Why does the Torah and the Haggadah leave us hanging like this?

Perhaps that is because, spiritually speaking, we are still in the wilderness. Sure, Joshua leads the people into the land of Israel in the immediate follow up to the Torah, the Haftarat Va’Eira talks about the return to Israel after the Babylonian Exile, and now the modern state of Israel exists ostensibly as the once-more fulfilled promise to the Jewish people. And yet our Promised Land is in the midst of trying to deport refugees seeking the same freedom and safety that Israel was supposed to be about, and is trying to keep out certain voices of dissent, even when they come from fellow Jews.

I don’t think the fifth promise isn’t just about the land. What good is the Holy Land if it is filled with hostility? It seems to me that it would be more pleasing to HaShem if we did focused on working towards freedom and dignity for all and working for racial and economic equality in each of our own communities. Wouldn’t it better honor the story of the Exodus to focus on ending modern-day slavery and oppression throughout the world, rather than on keeping control of land where only a very specific group of people can find safety and liberation?

I believe that through that work, we can make our communities, in Israel and around the world, into holy spaces, flowing with milk and honey of the heart, places where our people can be free and shine like the stars in the sky. I believe we can be the generation that is finally ready to enter the Promised Land, spiritually speaking. I believe we can all get free, but first we’ve got to join hands together and march forward to justice for everyone.