Beit Midrash this week will be an examination of issues surrounding the pandemic and the vaccine. Is there an obligation to wear a mask, or to take the vaccine? If one takes the vaccine, is there a blessing to say? Tuesday night at 8 pm.
Derasha
We normally associate bold experiments in syntax and punctuation with 20th century literature. William Faulkner wrote a 1,300 word sentence in a novel in the 1930s, and that was only a third of the length of one of the sentences in Ulysses. The Torah’s approach to sentences is more concise. Rare is the sentence in the Torah that lasts longer than one verse.
But the Torah did dabble in other avant-garde devices. Next week, the book of Shemot will begin with the word “and.” Not just to start a sentence, like the English teachers usually forbid. But an entire book beginning with the word “and.”
This week’s Parasha begins with a different device. Instead of a fresh start, it begins in mid-paragraph. The story picks up from last week but that was true for the previous two weeks also. This time, however, there was no cut-off. It ended mid-paragraph and therefore we resume right there, in the middle of things.
Rashi notes this and calls it a “closed” Parasha. Instead of the normal opening with a fresh paragraph, the first word is stuck inside -- closed off -- in the middle of a paragraph.
What is the meaning of this “closed” beginning? Rashi says it foreshadows a major theme of the Parasha, when the children of Yaakov will begin to feel themselves closed in -- trapped -- in the land of Egypt. It will result in a “‘closing off’ of their eyes and their hearts,” Rashi says. The nature of this closed off feeling goes beyond physical borders, and it harkens back to the central image at the beginning of Bereisheet.
Exile should not be approached as something like a closed door. This is a misunderstanding of it. The Jews are not in exile just because they can’t find a way back in. The horrible conflicts with the British over emigration to Palestine reinforced that image of not being able to re-enter Eretz Yisrael. But that is too literal. That wasn’t the way to frame the issue before the British were there, and it’s not the way to frame it now that Jews hold the keys, and the doors are indeed wide open.
The Jews went into exile not just as some kind of punitive punishment. They lost contact with Hashem. Now the deceptively easy task is that they must re-find Him. It seems paradoxical of course. Finding Him would seem to be easier closer to His home. Exile appears to be about making it all the more difficult. But there is one feeling that is more accessible in exile, and that is dependence on Hashem. The experience in Egypt will teach this lesson, and in each exile we need to re-learn it amidst a different culture and a different challenge. That learning depends first of all on a chance to think about what is happening.
Let’s return to the image of the way the Parasha begins in a “closed off” way, stuck in the middle of a paragraph. The paragraphs of the Torah are meant to give us a chance to digest what has been said. We pause to understand. A great teacher in Yerushalayim, R’ Shlomo Wolbe, ztz’l, used to say that his favorite cantillation sign is the Etnachta, the pause in the middle of a verse. Any pause gives one a chance to think, to absorb, he said. The same goes for the end of a verse, and all the more so the end of a paragraph.
Mid-paragraph is a place where one is unable to pause in order to think. The Torah frames the challenge of exile, therefore, as the inability to think. Settling in, mastering the host culture, getting ahead -- all of the stages of refugee wandering and then adjusting are very absorbing and very draining. The least likely thing a person can do is think about how to reconnect to Hashem.
Rashi characterizes the “closed in” feeling in exile as having one’s eyes closed. By this, he does not mean that nobody can see. Again -- that’s too literal. The ultimate sight one is missing is the sense of how to proceed in order to reach goals well down the road. That sense of “sight” is not literal but the use of what we call “Da’at,” or understanding. That’s how one plans to reach more elusive goals.
In the beginning of the Torah, the first creation is light. It was not a light that makes it possible to see what’s on the sidewalk. Rather, it’s a light that allows one to see much further than that. In Egypt and every other exile, the Jews could see what’s in front of them quite clearly. But the light of Da’at is obscured. The possibility of re-finding Hashem and connecting to that knowledge comes from Da’at -- it is that type of knowledge or understanding. That will be the key in finding their way back to a sense of dependence on Hashem. That would show a connection to the light from the beginning of creation, obscured now in Egypt, and desperately needed in order to find their way home.
Congregation Emek Beracha 4102 El Camino Real Palo Alto, CA 94306
