"Torah Lights"
 
Video Insights on the Parsha
 
 by Rabbi Shlomo Riskin

Efrat, Israel “And it happened during those many days that the King of Egypt died, and the children of Israel sighed from their work-burden and they cried out; and their cries went upwards unto G-d from their work-burden” (Exodus 2:23). 

The Sacred Zohar presents a very strange etymology for the name of our Freedom Festival Pesah (literally, the Pascal lamb): it is derived from two separate syllables, which are themselves distinct words: pe-sah, ‘a mouth which speaks.’ This is why ‘telling’ or ‘speaking’ out the story is such an important part of how we celebrate the Seder of the holiday. But what exactly does a “speaking mouth” have to do with the Festival of our Freedom? 

Secondly, the verse cited above describes the Israelite response to the death of the Pharaoh of the servitude: “…the king of Egypt died and the children of Israel sighed from their work-burden” (Ex 2:23). Given that the death of a king implies the death of his draconian policies, or at least a temporary respite, shouldn’t the response of the Israelites be more in the form of ‘rejoicing’ or even ‘exultation’ at the death of the king rather than ‘sighing’ or ‘groaning?’

Thirdly, the first “taker-outer” or redeemer in the Exodus account was Bitya, the daughter of Pharaoh (the one whose death would later engender “sighing”), who took baby Moses out of the bulrushes of the Nile River (The Hebrew Moshe means the one who takes out). The Bible describes her discovery of the “Hebrew baby” in a rather curious fashion: “And she opened the ark and she saw the small child and behold the lad was crying; and she said, he is from the Hebrews” (Exodus 2:6). Would it not have been much more logical for the text to have written, “And she heard the small child crying”? Cries are heard, not seen?! Furthermore, why change the noun in mid-stream from yeled (small child) to na’ar (older lad)? It would seem that the consistent use of yeled is the preferred usage. Moreover, how did she know that the baby was a Hebrew from the sound of his cries?  

When I visited the former Soviet Union on a mission from the Lubavitcher Rebbe in 1970, I heard the following joke from a number of my “contacts”: A visitor from America asks a ‘refusenik,’ “How is the Jewish education in Russia”? “I can’t complain,” he answers. “And how is the availability of religious articles in Russia”? “I can’t complain,” he says, “And how is your standard of living in Russia”? “I can’t complain,” he repeats. “Then why are you so anxious to leave Russia for Israel?,” asks the astonished American. “Because there at least I can complain,” he responds. 

The Piaseczno Rebbe  (known as the Eish Kodesh), a Hassidic rebbe who was a lover of Zion and who was tragically martyred in the Holocaust, explains our textual difficulties by reminding us that anti-semitic totalitarian despots often made it impossible for Jews to even cry out, to sigh in pain. During a children’s round-up (“Kinder- action”) when Nazi officers would make house-to-house searches for children to be sent to the extermination camps, parents would hide their babies and young children, stuffing up their mouths with rags to prevent their give-away crying; when families were escaping in the middle of the night, mother’s would clamp their hands over their babies mouths for the same reason. More often than not, the babies would be found dead, suffocated by their inability to breathe! And as a result of the desperation of their situation, Hebrew tots would learn easily how to cry without emitting a sigh or a weeping sob, how to cry soundlessly so as not to call any attention to their existence whereabouts.

This is how the Eish Kodesh interprets Princess Bitya’s understanding that it was a Hebrew baby she had discovered in the ark; the child had already been trained to weep soundlessly like a much older lad, so that she saw him weeping with her eyes but did not hear him weeping with her ears.  

Similarly, this is the explanation for the textual reading, “… the King of Egypt died, and the children of Israel sighed from their work-burden…” (2:23). The servitude continued, Hebrew male babies were still cast into the Nile, and so there was certainly no cause for rejoicing. But at least in one respect there was a leniency: at least the Hebrews could now cry out, could express their pain, without having to suffer extra punishment for their tears. Undoubtedly the greatest pain of suffering derives from a situation which even precludes the possibility of expressing one’s hurt, of sighing in distress. 

The Midrash teaches that when Adam was sent into exile from Eden, the Almighty granted him two gifts which would ease his pain: the Sabbath day, and the tear that falls from the eye. In the Sabbath there will always be the hope and the promise of ultimate redemption, and the tears that we shed do bring momentary relief.  Thus the Sacred Zohar teaches that we begin our celebration of freedom – the paradigm for our ultimate redemption – by speaking out with our mouths (pe-sah). No matter how deep our suffering has penetrated, no matter how often our mouths have been stuffed with rags not allowing even a momentary sigh, on this night, the night of pe-sah, we relive that very first leniency that was expressed in our ‘sighing,’ and which eventually culminated in our eventual Exodus from Egypt. And, of course, true freedom means the possibility to express ourselves freely, to agree and even disagree, to praise and to complain, openly and without fear.

Shabbat Shalom