Come Into, Indeed — Rabbi Mira Rivera
Step into the mystery of G-d telling Moses: Bo el Par’oh - בא אל פרעה - “Come into Pharaoh” (Exodus 10:1). Should we not read this as "Go to Pharaoh" since, after all, Moses is demanding that an enslaved people be freed? Normally one would say, “Come to where I am, and go yonder over there.”
Rather, come into an innerscape.
The biblical commentator Rashi read this as a warning. Warning Pharaoh will surely have no effect in spite of his previous admission, “This time I have sinned” (9:27). The verse explains: “For I have hardened his heart and the hearts of his servants.” The warning is necessary for his enablers and cronies. The reason G-d did not harden their hearts sooner, waiting for the plague of hail to do so, is that the verse stated, “he that feared the word of G-d . . . made his servants and his livestock flee” (9:20). If G-d had not hardened the hearts of his courtiers at that time, they would have insisted that Pharaoh release the Israelites.
Maybe shock and awe would penetrate their leathered liver-ed hearts. The resistance against freedom, the holding on to power even when all signs indicate that it is time to let go - from the tyrants to the beneficent ones, there seems to be suspension in the intoxicating brew of benevolent/maleficent.
The drama of Parashat Bo beat in my heart as I listened to poet Amanda Gorman at the Inauguration of the new leadership in our country. She demanded our attention:
“When day comes we ask ourselves where can we find light in this never-ending shade?
The loss we carry a sea we must wade.
We’ve braved the belly of the beast.
We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace.
In the norms and notions of what just is isn’t always justice.
And yet, the dawn is ours before we knew it.
Somehow we do it.
Somehow we’ve weathered and witnessed a nation that isn’t broken, but simply unfinished.
We, the successors of a country and a time where a skinny black girl descended from slaves and raised by a single mother can dream of becoming president only to find herself reciting for one.”
It is now several mornings after the Inauguration, yet the words of Amanda Gorman continue to pulse in my temples. While we have seen a tyrant go, we know tyranny’s scaffoldings stand. Systems of oppression are seen and unseen. For those who are at the forefront of the fight for our lives in this pandemic, for those who are on forefronts for justice, for those who hold steady on the sidelines, and for allies everywhere, I am aware of the legacy of slavery on which lives today stand. Less than a week ago I celebrated and I joined a national sigh of relief. On this new morning after, I breathe in resolve and rededicate.
Yes, it is our Torah narrative that we are B’nei Yisrael struggling for freedom from the narrow straits of Mitzrayim. And yet, this narrative is not only biblical metaphor. I live in a country shaped on the lives of those brought to these shores as slaves. The struggle to be recognized and accorded the rights of one who is fully human and equal continues. On this new morning after as the hours draw closer to Shabbat, I align with the resolve to cut off the chain of hate and move in pursuit of peace, love of humanity, drawing near to a lived and living Torah. Bo, come in. Come into, indeed.
Rabbi Mira Rivera is the Rabbinic Mentor at Ammud: The Jews of Color Torah Academy
