D’var Torah: Tzav – The One Book of No Moses

Written by Writings & Sermons by others — 28 March 2018

Go back a hundred years and in Western industrial countries rates of adult illiteracy, the number of people who could not read, were typically over 20% (1955 UNESCO).   This wasn’t the case for Jews.   That was because of what you just experienced Jonah – the Bar Mitzvah.  It meant that at least for men illiteracy was not an option – every young person was taught to read.   It was a great advantage for Jews in the world.   No longer though now that literacy rates are down to well under 0.5%.

Nowadays we teach our young people something just as powerful.   We teach them to be leaders, not followers.   We teach Hadrachah, so that they can be Madrichim and Madrichot while they are still teenagers and learn to guide other young people, plan for them, care for them and inspire them.  It is an awesome tool for life.

Next Shabbat will of course be Pesach and by this time next Saturday morning the vast majority of us will have enjoyed Seder night.  We will have read, sung and eaten our way through the Haggadah, the story of our people.   In the Torah Moses, the archetype of the Jewish leader merits 634 mentions.   It truly is the five books of Moses.   His brother Aaron gets 283 mentions and his sister Miriam appears far fewer times but every time it is of great significance.   In the Haggadah, of course, Moses is not mentioned even once, with one exception in Orthodox Haggadot where Moses turns up as part of a passage by Rabbi Yossi the Galilean expanding the number of plagues to from 10 to 50 (based on (Mekhilta d’Rabbi Ishmael. Beshalach 7:113)!

There are so many times when Moses could have been there in the Haggadah – the passage from the Book of Deuteronomy (Chapter 26:5-7) which we use to tell our basic Jewish story “A wandering Aramean was my father”, and which is interpreted in the Hagaddah, does not mention Moses, Aaron or Miriam in the story.   The passage from the Book of Joshua (24:2-4) which reminds us that once our ancestors were idol worshippers who came to know God and then were sent down to Egypt, deliberately stops one verse before Moses and Aaron are specifically mentioned in the Bible, but not in the Haddagah, as the leaders of the people out of Egypt.

Traditional understanding of why Moses is just not there in the Haggadah is that the omission of the human leaders of the Israelites is, as we say right after Dayenu, “Therefore we must thank God” because “God took us out of Egypt — not through an angel, not through a saraf, and not through a messenger” (Haggadah text).   It is possible that this was a polemic against the place of Jesus in Christianity or Mohammed in Islam, or just a Jewish principle that it is God who redeems us not people.

Or maybe Moses’s absence, together with Aaron and Miriam is a call to remind us that we say the Seder not for the past but for today.   “In every generation we must feel that we came out of Egypt.”    Who is to be the Moses of today who stands up against the injustice of the taskmaster who beat the Israelite slave, when everyone else turned a blind eye?   Who is to be the Aaron of today, who in the passage from Vayikra Rabbah (10:3) we studied, would not go after the crowd to spurn God but rather took matters into his own hands to try to delay making of the Golden Calf?   Who is to be the Miriam of today who resisted Pharaoh, put herself in danger to protect the baby in the bulrushes, and ensured that he was saved by Pharaoh’s daughter?    Who will be the person who partners with God in the repair of the world?

You, Jonah!  Now I don’t mean to put you on the spot here.   After all every one of us is to see ourselves as a leader out of Egypt, and no-one needs to worry, “am I Moses” before they start.   But my goodness at the age of 13 you start well.

Loved by family and your community, full of character as you showed us as the White Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan himself and the Lion who found his courage in the Wizard of Oz in Alyth’s Children Theatre.   Having enjoyed Alyth’s Summer Madness, our year 7 and year 8 trips and residentials building friendships to last a lifetime and learning from the example of our Madrichim, playing guitar and singing to a high level, strengthening yourself through sports, boxing, cricket and football with Alyth/Belsize.   You have thoroughly taken on the possibilities of young Jewish life – though all of these fun activities and also through your education.  You have the heritage of your grandparents, Linda and Michael, Lesley and Julian, and your parents Josh and Jude and the love of your sister Noa to firmly root you.

And now from here Yonah – the dove – it is your time to fly.  In every generation……we your community look forward to your journey learning to be a leader, learning the wisdom of Miriam, the bravery of Aaron and the compassion of Moses.   Every Bar and Bat Mitzvah is an opportunity to celebrate that potential of a new person.   Every Seder is an opportunity to think – who will I help to set free in my generation?