Bo (Exodus 10:1-13:16) What Story Will Be Told And Who Shall Tell It?

vast desert landscape in south sinai egypt
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The tension may be mounting in this week’s portion. Again Moses confronts Pharaoh. God “hardens” the Pharaoh’s heart again. There are the plagues and THE final plague which allows for the deliverance. Much to discuss at your weekly Torah study.
Yet, I want to ask you to look at one small verse from Exodus 10. The Egyptians urge Pharaoh to let this people go as they are “a snare” to us. In a fit of anger (?) Pharaoh says to Moses and Aaron “Go worship your God”! Moses replies that “we will all go, young and old” (10:9). This little verse speaks to us now.
In the Plaut commentary, there is a little Midrash based on this verse that asks the question why is the young mentioned before the old?
“The young needed to go more urgently, for they were endangered by assimilation; the old were more secure in their tradition and their rescue therefore less urgent”. (Plaut p.454)
I was struck this year by this Midrash. It raised questions that much of the Jewish community is dealing with. Curiously, this portion comes the week that we observe the liberation of the Camps and the Holocaust. How much of this do our young understand? Boomers may be the last generation that may have some living connection with the Holocaust generation. Some of our parents and grandparents were survivors. What of our children and grandchildren for whom the story of the Holocaust may be reserved for a chapter in a book or a film? Who shall tell those stories?
This raises the question as well as to how our younger generations view their Judaism. Our Judaism has survived by adapting to new realities. Change is constant. We live in an era of radical transformation in our Jewish world; from the role of the synagogue to the support for Israel. We see generational differences. What shall survive, what shall be lost and who shall continue to tell our story?
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Richard F. Address

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