(Shout out to Gerald Marks and Seymour Simons)
Ex. 10:9
We will all go, young and old: we will go with our sons and daughters, our flocks and herds; for we must observe the Lord’s festival.
As we begin our parashah, the Egyptians have
experienced the first 7 plagues. Pharaoh’s courtiers understand that they have
encountered the most powerful deity ever. Pharaoh still clings to the illusion
of his power; he has no idea that he has gone
beyond the point of redemption and still thinks he holds some cosmic
bargaining chip.
And God’s agent, Moses, who once might have been
willing to bargain, is now no longer willing to discuss terms. When Pharaoh
asks who Moses will take out of Egypt to worship the Israelite god, Moses says
this:
Ex. 10:9
We will all go, young and old: we will go with our sons and
daughters, our flocks and herds; for we must observe the Lord’s festival.
And of course Pharaoh retorts that he wants the old
people to go while the young people stay in Egypt – and abruptly dismisses
Moses.
What a curious answer from Moses. Listen again:
“We will all go …
Young and old:
We will go with our sons and daughters …
For we must observe the Lord’s festival.”
Why didn’t Moses simply say, “We will all go …” and
leave it at that? Why does he name “young and old?” And then why continue with
“we will go with our sons and daughters…; for we must observe the Lord’s
festival?”
In Torah, verbal repetition is not just for emphasis.
Moses may be slow of speech, but he is no fool. And
his deliberate speech pattern lets him think before he speaks. By now Moses
knows Pharaoh’s mind and his evil intent, suspecting in this case the
possibility of Egypt holding the young people hostage hoping that the adults
would be too horrified to stay away.
I don’t think that’s what’s going on, though.
Taking hostages may make for good movie plots, but
Moses’ answer is much more profound and significant. It’s not just all of us,
it’s not just the young and the old, it’s not just our sons and our daughters;
it’s all of the above, making the sum greater than the parts.
In a few weeks we will all be delivered from
Egyptian bondage and eventually stand at Sinai to receive Torah; it will be all
of us, young and old, sons and daughters. And Torah will be given to us in 70
languages so no one can ever say they didn’t understand or they were left out. All
of us have inherited this gift of being a Jew, from someone born into the
religion to those who have converted. No one is going to be left behind in
Egypt.
Judaism is – must be – multigenerational. While
that was a buzzword from a few years back, the reality is that if generations
of a community are divided, if our older generation decides that they aren’t
interested in the youths, if our youth decide that elders have nothing to teach
them, we lose. If our youths don’t mature, if our elders don’t maintain their
inner youth, we lose.
We can’t focus too much on the next generation, either by
making them the point of maintaining a Jewish community, as in “it’s all about
the children,” or by suggesting to them that Jewish tradition and practice is
something only old people do. Both approaches allow our youth to divorce
themselves from their spiritual foundation; they will soon be back in Egypt,
the narrow place of spiritual slavery.
Nor can we grownups abandon Judaism; our kids from the
infant to the millennial generation need to know that grownup Judaism is joyful
in its mature practice. We must join in the public celebrations of Purim,
Passover, and Chanukah, not abandoning them to a pediatric audience.
If I were queen, I would focus my Jewish community on, yes,
kids and young people because that’s how we grow and maintain numbers … but
also on those who walked out after their kids’ b’nei mitzvah because Judaism
can be something vibrant and wonderful for them but they just don’t know it
because it’s never been about them – it’s been about the children. I would
focus on our older Jews who assume there’s nothing here for them; they’re so
wrong, and it’s so sad.
When we all leave Egypt as one community, we don’t
need to worry about who will turn out the light and close the door behind us;
our community will thrive and be nourished.
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