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Drash Given on the Seventh Day of Passover

Given by Janaki Kuruppu on April 9, 2007 (21 Nissan 5767 Yom Tov Pesach (Omer 6) )

First, let me reassure everyone of two things. First, you will not be asked this morning to "close your eyes, take three deep breaths, and imagine yourself in a quiet meadow, with the sun shining, and birds chirping..." It's unusual for my meditation group to hear words like that anyway, but if you're curious about Jewish meditation - join us and check it out, but we won't be practicing here.

Second, I promise not to mention politics.

So, now we have arrived, in our readings, at one of the climactic points in the Exodus narrative, the parting of the Sea of Reeds. It's quite a dramatic scene - no wonder that Cecile B. DeMille chose to create a movie around this event. As I read through today's portion, I was struck by one verse that Robert Alter highlights in his translation with commentary, "The Five Books of Moses".

In Leviticus 14:24, Alter notes that the moment when night transitions into daylight, when "the Lord looked out over the camp of Egypt in a pillar of fire and cloud" marks the moment when the Israelites have crossed over, and the Egyptians are still in the middle of the parted Sea. So, the Israelites crossed the sea during the night, with the pillar of fire behind them (in verse 19, the pillar of cloud [and fire] moves behind the camp of Israel, and "stood behind them". As our visiting scholar, Rabbi Jeffrey Hoffman pointed out a few weeks ago, the timing of our shacharit and maariv daily services coincide with the change of light, from night to day at dawn, and from day to night, with dusk - and those times are transition of light are those times when the sky speaks to us with the wonder and presence of the Divine).

So, what happens at night? Well, at bedtime, just before sleep, we recite: "Into Your hand I entrust my spirit" (Siddur p 247). And, in the morning, the first prayer we recite on awakening: "modeh/modah ani" thanks G-d for restoring our souls to us. There is a very primitive fear, call it a primal fear, that when we sleep, our souls are released from us, out of our control - and there's no guarantee that we will recover them. The fact that we wake up, and we still have a soul, can be seen as miraculous. And it is at night that we have the greatest need of trust...

Looking back two verses in our narrative:

The children of Israel went into the midst of the sea on the dry ground (14:22)

So, the Israelites had to display their trust in G-d before - and in order for it to be that - the waters parted.

In our modern times, we retain a fear of the night - think about the latest horror movie you've seen. Don't the scariest parts always occur at night? When the sun is shining, we all relax - nothing bad happens in broad daylight. Night-time is the time for ghosts, and ghouls. The reality of our daily lives shifts in the darkness, even when our rational minds say that it is only the light that has changed, the surroundings are still the same as they were in the daytime. It is often at night that our anxieties and worries come to the fore, resulting in insomnia and nightmares.

There are other occasions when humanity encounters G-d at night - think of Jacob's wrestling with the angel:

And he was afraid, and he said: 'How fearsome is this place! This can be but the house of G-d, and this is the gate of heavens' (Genesis 28:17)

Let me now turn to another section of today's reading, Moses' Song at the Sea. In verse 2, we read a statement of faith:

"This is my G-d - I exalt Him G-d of my fathers - I exalt Him"

This verse is like a 2-way mirror - we see G-d, on the one hand, as an entity with which we have a personal connection or relationship. And on the other hand, as an entity that we inherit. But I think that many of us fall on one side of that balance or the other.

Let me relate a personal story: when I was 17 years old, my father, Nimal Kuruppu, who was from Sri Lanka, a small island in the Indian Ocean, just south of the tip of the Indian peninsula/subcontinent, returned to his homeland. The reason for that return may become the source for another drash at another time, but suffice it to say, he was very far away when I started college. We kept in touch by letter - phone was too expensive, and travel was out of the question. Two years after his departure, when I was in the middle of my sophomore year, I was called to the shared phone in my dormitory, and heard the following words: "We received this telegram from Sri Lanka, saying, "Nimal expired". I went into shock. I had no knowledge of Judaism at that time, let alone jewish bereavement customs, but I essentially sat shiva - I was reading, of all things, Dostoevsky's Crime & Punishment, and I sat in a chair in our dorm suite living room, finishing that book and crying, for a week.

For the next few years, I went through various stages of Kubler-Ross's stages of mourning - a major part of which was denial. My father died accidentally, drowned in a boating accident, and many times during the years following his death, I was convinced that he had merely "disappeared" and was wandering the planet, waiting for the right time to reemerge. Oddly enough, this notion would alternate for me with the hope that his ghost would appear to me - and this hope was most present at night, during times of stress and hardship. I would walk, or drive, in the night, and literally cry out for his ghost to appear to me and comfort me. I was willing for this to be a hallucination - anything would be better than the feeling of abandonment. And, despite my normally rational approach to the world, I would end up feeling cheated that no "ghost" had appeared. It was in the darkness that I felt most alone, and most in need, and I cried out to my father to be there for me.

Why am I telling this story? Because it was only a few years ago, during a Yizkor service, possibly one on the last morning service of Passover - I'm not 100% sure - that I had an overwhelming experience of grief over my father during the service. It was so overpowering that I had to leave, and ran to the ladies' room, where someone came in and said very comfortingly "Are you OK?" and I answered in tearful embarrassment "My father died" and this person said, "Oh, was it recent?" and I laughed, and said, again, through my tears - "No, it was more than twenty years ago!"

The liturgy that day hit me very hard, and very personally. In an unexpected way, it put to rest all the anxiety of my grief over my dad's accident and his absence from my life. It occurred to me recently that I am now the age that my father was at his death. I carry my father's name, both because it is my name, but also because my father never achieved what he was capable of when he was alive. And I know that everything that I have achieved is because of his teaching and his love and support of me. So the idea of respect for one's heritage is very close to me, but not in regards to G-d.

This G-d is NOT my father's G-d. But this G-d is my G-d.

As a "Jew by Choice", I am personally unable to conceive of embracing Judaism without an underlying belief in the Divine. And yet, when I was studying for conversion, my teacher, Rabbi Shelly Lewis, who is a very pious and observant man, stunned my classmates and me by stating that a Jew can be a "Good Jew" and not believe in G-d. As I have grown in my experience and understanding of Judaism, I have frequently encountered people who are strong in their Jewish identity, yet who disavow the existence of a Divine entity, who are put-off by the idea of G-d, and avoid discussion of G-d. The self-definition of a Jew based on love for Israel, or based on inherited culture, or traditions is clearly compelling and sustaining for many - it's simply not something that I can relate to... It would be hypocritical for me to try and adopt those identities, since they are truly not mine, and it would deny my own heritage, which I most certainly hold in high regard.

In the Haggadah, the Wicked Child asks, "What does this story mean to You?" and is scolded with the reprimand "Had you been there during the Exodus, you would have been left behind." So, we're challenged to turn the question around - "What do these stories - what does the Torah - mean to me?" And while I struggle to come to my own terms with what the words "G-d of my fathers - I exalt Him" means to me, I would challenge those who rely on that phrase - the "G-d of my fathers" - and who may be less comfortable with the idea of a personal understanding of G-d. I challenge you to ask yourself: What does: "This is my G-d" mean to you, personally

It is often said that modern man doesn't need G-d anymore - that science is answering all the unanswerable questions, that we are just atoms, and chemicals, and reactions, and that there is no more mystery. There is an assumption that scientists must be atheists. I was intrigued to note that two books are currently on sale, side by side: one is "The Language of G-d: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief" By Francis S. Collins, head of the Human Genome Project, and also "a man of unshakable faith in G-d and scripture". The other is "The G-d Delusion" By Richard Dawkins, a renowned zoology professor, who is now Oxford's Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science, who "makes a compelling case that belief in G-d is not just irrational, but potentially deadly." Scientists, like Jews, often disagree, and often with vehemence!

So, I'd like to close with a reading from Abraham Joshua Heschel's "G-d in Search of Man" where he talks of the modern distrust of faith:

"We have not only forfeited faith; we have lost our faith in the meaning of faith. All we have is a sense of horror... We are terrified by our own power. What have we done with our power? What have we done to the world?...If the world is only power to us and we are all absorbed in a gold rush, then the only G-d we may come upon is the golden calf. Nature as a tool box is a world that does not point beyond itself. It is when nature is sensed as mystery and grandeur that it calls upon us to look beyond it."

Chag Sameach!

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