Whitney’s Words
I remember sitting in class at the Pardes Institute of Judaic Studies in Jerusalem when I was 28 years old and being shocked at the sudden and, what should have been obvious, revelation that God is not a perfect God. My year at Pardes was the first time I had ever immersed myself in the type of deep Judaic study that most students get at yeshiva if they attended one during their schooling years. I went to public school my whole life and attended college at the College of Wooster. I started working for the Jewish community when I was 23. I was good at programming and engagement but had no background or enough of a Jewish education to be my own resource when it came to putting the “Jewish” in a program I was working on. It was for this reason---the want to be my own resource when putting the ‘Jewish’ in my programs--that I sold everything I owned and moved to Jerusalem for the year to attend Pardes.
As I sat in that class deeply studying the story of the Exodus for the first time, I faced the thing I had never been asked to face before when it came to exploring my own faith--the fact that God caused deep harm to a population of people that may or may not have been part of the mass pain of our people. As a Sunday school-attendee, I had heard of the story of our exodus from Egypt for what seemed like hundreds of times but I had never sat and really reflected on the details of the story and, most specifically, the intensity of the harm of the 10 plagues. The plague of the death of the firstborn is deeply disturbing. The loss of human and animal life appears to be extremely cruel. At the time, however, it seems to have been the necessary condition for the liberation of our ancestors from Egyptian slavery. The stark irony is that the liberation of human beings from slavery almost never comes without the loss of life. But what does that mean when it comes to how we feel about our relationship with God and how we view God?
In this week’s parsha, Bo, God sends the plagues of locusts and darkness upon Egypt and forewarns Moses about the final plague, the death of every Egyptian firstborn. Pharaoh still does not let the Israelites leave Egypt. (10:1-11:10). As I sat in that Pardes class and wrestled with this section of Exodus, the thing that I couldn’t get out of my head was the simple question of, “How could God create so much pain and suffering in the name of stopping pain and suffering?” I eventually asked this question out loud to my teacher. What he said back to me shook me to my core -- “Whitney. Is what troubles you the fact that God could do this or the fact that God isn’t the perfect ‘leader’ figure you need God to be?”
Silence.
That was the question I didn’t know I needed to hear. How many times have I been disappointed in the adults or authority figures around me for not being perfect? And, how many times did I need them to give me a break for not being perfect? I think I’ve always needed my Rabbis, my bosses, my parents, my teachers to be better than me--to be the perfection I knew I could never be and would never be. But, NEVER did I realize I needed that from my God. What a set-up to fail. Of course I would feel let down by God for causing suffering to the Egyptians on my behalf--I needed God to be the diplomat of perfect peace without pain and suffering. What that doesn’t leave room for, however, is the fact that God knows more than me and I have no idea what it is to be God or to be in the situation that Moses and Aaron find themselves in as emissaries of God giving the news to Pharaoh that pain is upon his people unless he lets the Jewish people go. Many years later, I still wrestle with the perfect I expect from the leaders around me but I am more reflective of it ever since that moment of reflection given to me so lovingly from my teacher, whom, by the way, I think is perfect.
Shabbat Shalom.
