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Exodus 1:1-5:23

Isaiah 27:6-28:13; 29:22-3

by Rabbi Amy Eilberg

This parashah moves us into the epic founding narrative of our people, as we begin the book of Sh'mot. Within the early part of the story is the tale of the burning bush, offering us a wellspring of wisdom for living, as individuals and as a people.

Moses was in the midst of a busy workday, tending his father-in-law's sheep in a desolate place (which was, unbeknownst to Moses, to become a sacred place). The text tells us, "The angel of God appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush" (Ex. 3:2).

Lingering over this phrase, many wonderful questions arise. What exactly did Moses see? Was there a physical figure of an angel (the kind with wings) hovering in the midst of the flame? Alternatively, did Moses sense some kind of Presence within the flame? Or did Moses somehow understand that this flame itself was a manifestation of God's Presence?

I learned long ago from Rabbi Lawrence Kushner that the "miracle" in the story of the burning bush may not be that something objectively remarkable was happening. In fact, brush fires in the midst of a desolate wilderness area are completely ordinary. What was extraordinary in this case was that Moses could recognize that this little brushfire was profoundly significant, in fact, that it somehow embodied the presence of God.

In the eyes of one midrash, this is the essence of the story: "There is no place devoid of the Divine Presence — not even a thornbush" (Shir Hashirim Rabbah 2:5). The midrash finds in this story a teaching about recognizing that the Divine resides in every place, in every moment, in the apparently trivial as well as in the grand times and places of life, if only (and this, of course, is a big "if") we can recognize it.

The Gerer Rebbe takes the midrashic insight a step further. "This is the purpose of exile; that Israel make visible God's kingdom, which is indeed everywhere. The true meaning of the word galut (exile) is hitgalut (revelation), that the glory of God's kingdom be revealed in every place. This task is completed by the souls of Israel in this world…" ("The Language of Truth: The Torah Commentary of the Sefat Emet," translated by Arthur Green).

In this stunning piece of commentary, the Gerer Rebbe makes an enormous leap of imagination, connecting the everyday task of spiritual living in the life of the individual with the national, even cosmic, work of our people moving through time. He accepts the midrashic insight that the story of the bush teaches us to seek out the presence of the divine everywhere and in every moment. No place is too trivial, no moment so devoid of meaning that divinity is absent from it. And, he asserts, the same is true for times of great national suffering.

When our people are in exile — that is, in times of darkness, vulnerability, and distance from any sense of direction or purpose, we must remember that, in fact, the Divine is present here, too. The proof: the Hebrew word for exile (galut ) is related to the word for revelation (hitgalut ). Like gazing deeply into a flame, if we only look deeply enough into the experience of exile, pain and fear, we may be able to recognize the revelation hidden within it; we may be able to perceive what may emerge from this dark time.

The Gerer Rebbe sees something similar in the words of Exodus 2:11, "And it came to pass in those days, when Moses was grown, that he went out to his brothers, and saw their suffering." Based on these words, the rebbe imagines that God enabled Moses to look deeply into the suffering of his people in slavery, and see within it "the special hidden light that was to be born out of this suffering." Looking deeply at his people in a time of despair, Moses could see beyond the pain of the moment to the time of redemption yet to come.

In times of darkness –whether in our personal lives or in the life of our people, it can seem impossible to perceive "the hidden light" that may lie hidden deep beneath the surface of painful experience. We may have difficulty believing that there is a spark of "revelation" buried deep within the times of greatest pain. Yet it is part of the task of holy living, and perhaps, the task of our people, to try.