“Va’yehi ba’chatzi ha’lailah – and it was midnight.” How well these words describe the feelings of our people this day. We need no Prophet of doom to tell us that these weeks have so unnerved us, so shaken us, so outraged and horrified us, that we have not felt as we do since that terrible day at the end of World War II when the headlines announced that mass obituary – “Six Million Jews Perish in Europe.” For us, the hour hand on the clock of Western Civilization has turned a complete circle – and we are back at midnight, deep in the gloom of despair at the fate of 3 million of our brothers and sisters behind the Iron Curtain. At a time of this sort it is the business of a Rabbi neither to lecture nor to preach, but to speak from the heart and to offer a shimmer of Hope and Faith to brighten the blackness of midnight.II. According to a Masorah, or Tradition, recorded by the Baal Haturim, at that fateful hour in the history of Egyptian Jewry, chardu charadah g’dolah, that midnight on the eve of the Exodus found the Israelites a frightened people, whose horizons were blackened by despair and gloom. The Israelites at that midnight were heavy-hearted indeed. Behind them were the slave-labor camps of Pithom and Rameses; in front of them – the dreaded Sahara, a wide, blazing, parched and sterile desert stretching on endlessly. They had just emerged from a plague of Darkness which took its toll among the Hebrews as well as Egyptians; they were entering into an era of bitter waters and golden calves. The Jews in the middle of that night certainly had reason for despair and gloom. He had reason to feel that this time was his midnight. Vayhi ba’chatzi ha’lailah. But just then, at the very moment of midnight, when the occasion for gloom and melancholy was greatest, G-d bared his master-stroke of the liberation of Israel – the plague of the first-born – and it came just at the twelfth hour. For as dark as things may seem, G-d does not forsake his people. …

Our Sages gave expression to a profound universal principle when they said kol has’chalos kashos, “all beginnings are difficult.” The beginning of a rabbinate, like the beginning of any human venture or endeavor, is indeed a trying and hard experience. Despite the enthusiasm, the good wishes, and the so-called “honey-moon” atmosphere, the wheels of social contact between Rabbi and Congregation have not yet been lubricated by old friendships, and the gears of acquaintanceship have not yet been greased with tried and intimate loyalties. Time, experience, familiarity and generosity must be given the chance to afford both of us smooth functioning.But whatever we may say about the difficulty of beginnings, we all admit that they are important. Just as a good part of a man’s mental make-up is determined by his early childhood experiences, according to Freud, so too is a career or life’s-work to a great extent molded by the attitudes and friendships and approaches of the beginning of that career. And therefore now, at the beginning of what I hope will be a long and fruitful association with Kodimoh, I want to think out, to wonder out loud, about the very nature of my service to this community. I want to invite you to think through, with me, the problem of what is the right kind of rabbinate for a traditional synagogue in the middle of the twentieth century.I believe that there are two great and distinct attitudes as to the conduct, the nature and the role of the Rabbi, the spiritual leader, in Israel. They are two approaches which have been current since time immemorial, two conceptions of leadership which run like parallel threads through the entire fabric of Jewish History. The first maintained that leadership involves being with the people, mingling with them and mixing with them to the fullest extent possible. It means sharing their problems, their joys, their sorrows. It means that the Rabbi must live amongst his people, work with them, toil with them. His life must …

I. At the beginning of our Torah Reading this morning we find G-d preparing Moses for the big moment of liberation. He tells Moses of the great blow against Egypt and of the memorable deliverance of Israel in the following words: למען תספר באזני בנך ובן בנך... וידעתם כי אני ד' (translate). II. In this comparatively straightforward verse, the great Hassidic teacher R. Joshua of Belz found a simple but profound and eternal truth. למען תספר etc. You shall teach it to others. And how can we be sure of his success in

From the very beginning of time, when Adam complained to G-d of his loneliness, man has regarded his solitude as a painful experience, even a curse. Modern man is especially bothered by loneliness. Despite – or maybe because of – his large cities and giant metropolises, he finds himself terribly alone in the world. He finds the silence of the universe and its indifference to his problems unbearable. He is alone and does not like it. It is perhaps this feeling of loneliness that was the essence of the ninth plague that G-d brought upon the Egyptians and of which we read in this morning’s Sidra. The choshech or darkness imposed a rigid and horrifying isolation upon the Egyptians. The effect of the plague is described by the Torah as lo rau ish es achiv – they did not see one another. All communication between a man and his friends ceased. He had no family, no friends, no society, he was completely and utterly blacked out of any contact with any other human. How lonely! What a plague!It is all the more surprising, therefore, to read the opinion of R. Yehudah, recorded in the Midrash on the ninth plague. Our Sages asked: me’hechan hayah ha’choshech hahu? – what was the source of that darkness? – where did it come from? – what is the nature and origin of loneliness? R. Nehemiah gave a credible answer: me’choshech shel gehenom, the darkness that descended upon Egypt came from the darkness of Gehenom, from the nether-world. Loneliness is a curse, hence its origin is the place of punishment. But R. Yehudah’s answer is astonishing: me’choshech shel maalah, shene’emar yashes choshech sisro, the source of that darkness was from Heaven, for it is written that (G-d) dwells in secret darkness! What unexpected origin for a plague – G-d’s dwelling place! Darkness comes – from Heaven!Astonishing, yes, but in that answer by R. Yehudah we have a new insight into the problem of loneliness, and hence into the condition of man as a whole. Darkness or solitude can become the curse of lon…

1. Happy coincidence of Pidyon Ha-Ben on Pesach. 2. Commandment of Pidyon Ha-Ben is evidently one of the most important – it is one of the four passages included in our tefillin. 3. In that passage of "Kadesh li kol bekhor," we find a strange turn of events. God tells Moses very briefly and succinctly, "Kadesh li kol bekhor peter kol rechem bivnei Yisrael ba'adam uvabehemah, li hu." And then Moses turns to Israel and gives them a whole string of three various laws, plus a reminder that God took them out of Egypt. Specifically, he recalls the mitzvot of (a) chametz and matzah, (b) korban Pesach, and then (c) bekhorot. Why this elaboration over and above what God had commanded? 4. The answer strikes at the very core of the meaning of Pidyon Ha-Ben, and also at one of the major motifs of Judaism. For the Exodus story is essentially based on the competition between Nature and History – between subservience to the natural forces and the transcending of them by the development of individuality and uniqueness, by personality and soul, by rising to a high, preordained historic purpose. According to the inexorable laws of nature that determine both physical welfare and community configuration, Israel should have remained a slave people. Yet God intruded into the scene, bypassed Nature, and took us out umah mitokh umah, to meet our destiny as the am hanivchar at Mt. Sinai. Yetziat Mitzrayim is thus the triumph of History over Nature. 5. Chametz and matzah reflect the same theme. The Jews in Egypt were sitting down to their meal – eating is the most natural of natural expressions. They were indulging their natural appetites. But History called at that moment – yetziat Mitzrayim. Which takes precedence? The answer: History. Israel had to leave bechipazon – immediately – responding to the historical challenge and at the expense of a good meal. Let the dough not rise – history was beckoning. And so: no chametz, only matzah. 6. Similarly: Pesach – the passing over of the Jewish h…

The two words “fire” and “water,” as we shall be using them, describe two supplementary modes of God’s relation with the world, and our human reactions to Him. These two terms, and the powerful ideas and the emotions they connote, come from the writings of the illustrious Rabbi Shneour Zalman of Liadi, “der alter Rebbe,” founder of the intellectual or Ḥabad school of Hassidism, and whose 150th Yahrzeit world Jewry celebrates this year. Rabbi Shneour Zalman or, “the Rav” as he is known, makes his point of departure an important verse in this morning’s Sidra. We read, le’maan tihyeh torat ha-Shem be’fikha ki be’yad ḥazakah hotziakha ha-Shem mi-mitzrayim, “in order that the Torah of the Lord be in thy mouth, for with a strong hand did the Lord take thee out of Egypt.” What, asks the Rav, is the relationship between the two halves of this verse? Why should our study of Torah be the reaction to God’s taking us out of Egypt?It is in response to this question that the Rav develops the theme of the two kinds of love, that which is compared to fire and that likened to water, (a theme which I am presenting in somewhat modified form for a modern audience).There is one kind of love that we might term “normal.” Like the flow of water, it is regular and unceasing. Like water, it never falters or changes in intensity. The objects of this kind of love are equally and indiscriminately covered with the waters of affection, like pebbles in a brook. It is a love whose evenness and constancy are reassuring. This is the ahavah that is compared to mayim, water.But there is also a second kind of love, the ahavah that is similar to esh, or fire. This fiery love lacks the consistency of the first kind. It is temperamental, flickering, shifty. Like a burning, uncertain flame, its intensity varies radically and erratically. It has the quality that the mystics call ratzo va-shov, that of alternation between love that one moment can be nothing but a dark ember, seemingly cold and lifeless, and …

There is a remarkable contrast between the key verses of the Haftorah of last week and the one we read this morning. Last week we read of the prophet Ezekiel addressing the Pharaoh of the Egypt of his day. Even in predicting Pharaoh’s downfall, the Prophet seems awed by his power and arrogance. He calls him ha-tannim ha-gadol, the great sea-monster or dragon, the one who boasts li ye’ori va-ani asitini, this river, the Nile, is mine, and I am self-made. This week, Ezekiel’s older contemporary, Jeremiah, addresses the same Pharaoh in quite different terms: karu sham, Paroh melekh Mitzrayim sha’on, “they called out there, Pharaoh the King of Egypt is but a big noise.”What a comedown! From ha-tannim ha-gadol to sha’on, from great dragon to hollow noise, from a monster to a mouse!What this juxtaposition of prophecies teaches us is that the ultimate victory of God and the forces of truth and freedom will consist not so much of destroying falsehood as of demonstrating its emptiness. Pharaoh is defeated by being deflated. More tyrants have been toppled by the weapon of irony than by iron weapons. Military victories are won by powerful arms; moral triumphs are achieved by perceptive hearts and eyes and ears which can expose the vast vacuum at the heart of evil.It is in this manner that we must understand the Ten Plagues about which we read these weeks. The plagues wrought against the Egyptians were not meant simply to satisfy the sadistic, vengeful feelings of a persecuted people paying back their tormentors in kind. Rather, they have specific moral purposes. That is what the Torah means when it says u-ve’elohei Mitzrayim e’eseh shefatim, “and against the gods of Egypt will I execute judgment.” God, in punishing the Egyptians, aims primarily at teaching them that their gods are false, their ideologies pernicious, their principles perverted. The late Prof. Casuto, that eminent Italian-Jewish Professor of Bible at the Hebrew University, has demonstrated that the Ten Plagues …

There are two universal categories of thought that are especially significant in Jewish religious consciousness: Nature and History. By Nature, I mean the whole complex of things that follow the eternal laws of the physical world in space. By History I refer to the flow of events in time, that which gives people the memory of the past, meaning in the present, and defines for them a vision of a destiny in the future. In the realm of Nature there is rigidity and sameness; once the world was created, all natural laws were fixed and one has no choice but to live within the framework of these laws. History, however, is unpredictable: men are free to shape their own future by exercising their free will.In Nature every object is the same as every other object; one fate befalls them all. There is no distinction in value between the mind of the genius and the bark of the tree, between the heart of a saint and the digestive system of a worm. In History, however, values play a key role. Some ideas are greater than others, some people better than others, some objects holier than others. It is History which contains these specifically human moments; it is that which makes man unique. Here we find the spiritual element.That both are important for Judaism can be amply illustrated. The Shabbat, for example, is celebrated – as we proclaim in our Kiddush – as a memorial for two events: זכר למעשה בראשית, the fact of the creation of Nature by God; and זכר ליציאת מצרים, the historical event of the exodus from Egypt. Similarly, each of the great holidays has both a natural and historical dimension. Passover, Sukkot, and Shavuot are all harvest festivals; they emphasize man’s religious reliance upon God, and his gratitude to Him, for the bounty of nature He has bestowed upon him. At the same time, each of the festivals celebrates a specific historic event: the crossing of the Red Sea, the protection offered to our ancestors in the desert, and the revelation on Mount Sinai.The two blessin…

In this Sidra which speaks of the exodus from Egypt, the reading of the Torah concludes with the law of the tefillin. The Torah describes the tefillin both as ote (sign) and zikaron (memorial).How is it a sign? In Egypt the laws of nature and history were reversed, the powerful were defeated and the weak prevailed – and this, because of the Divine Will. Similarly, the tefillin are placed on the left hand (yad kaheh) which is the sign of weakness, to teach us that we, too, can prevail despite our weakness if our left hand, symbol of that weakness, has on it the symbol of the fulfillment of the Divine Will. Not by might nor by power, but by the spirit of the Lord.

(Although his Bar Mitzvah was the week after, I used a passage from Bo because his Bar Mitzvah pilpul dealt with this subject matter) In your discourse you spoke of the law of Rabbi Akiva that one need not lay the teffilin on the Sabbath, because teffilin is a "sign" (ote) and the Sabbath is similarly a "sign", and therefore if one observes the Sabbath he is exempt from laying the teffilin. The great-grandson of the Besht, author of Degel Mahane Ephraim, sees this in the words of the Sidra in which God tells Moses to come to Pharoah le’maan shiti ototai be'kirbo -- in order to place my sign>against him. Literally, this means in order to perform wonders and miracles on Pharoah and the Egyptians which would testify to the power of God in redeeming Israel. However, the word ote means that only the sign in sense of a miracle, but also sign in sense of a reminder. This means, says our author, that out of the agony of Pharoah and Egypt, the source of su much -- of our bitterness and persecution, we will emerge with a great victory: two "signs" that God will give us and that will be with us till the end of days -- the Sabbath and the teffilin. May you remember this, for throughout life each man faces his Pharoah and his Egypt, not once but many times. From every such event, from every such crisis, may you emerge with the spark of holiness and nobility and sublimity -- your "sign".