Exodus - Cycle One - 0602-0935 - VaEra

God is a glorious parade. There is so much expansion from generation to generation, name to name, hope to hope that it’s hard to see it all. Then, the parade gets placed into one balloon and it’s a miracle…it’s ours to hold.

Today was the inauguration of our first black president, Barack Obama. Last night was the memorial service for a friend of friends. I feel like all the shouts of joy and chants of grieving have been consolidated into one blink of an eye. It works that way. In one moment, tragic and/or joyous, you realize you are being rewarded an epiphany, the crux and fist of God’s heart, there in your very lap.

I teach fiction at a community college. One day, I wanted to wake up a few students. I placed chairs on tables, tables on sides, created a maze of a once sterile scholastic environment.

“Who wants to go first?” I asked.
The students (with no place to sit) were clinging to the wall.
A man raised his hand a few inches.
“You sure?” I asked.
He nodded.
“You begin here, crawl under there, shimmy through there…”
He nodded again. I wondered if he was expecting extra credit.
“Oh, I almost forgot,” I said. I opened a bag of M and Ms and filled his cupped hands. “This is some stuff you may want to keep along the way.”

Of course some of the candy went flying, some got squooshed. When he finished, about ten remained. As I watched him eat them (his reward) it was clear they were that much sweeter. What does all of this have to do with the plagues upon Egypt? Well, more than meets the eye (or the intestines). VaEra is not all frogs and blood. It’s about the miracle of bringing the beyond words into our human experience, about turning expanse into the solid, about the energy and work that goes into that transformation, a power so great that the result can break our manacles to darkness. It can invert darkness into light, and merge us to a radiance that travels light years beyond the clasp of any known vibration.

First, let’s look at the diction in the parasha. Let’s look at the path of action that lead us to the title, VaEra. The first word is vaDebar meaning God spoke. Then we read vaOmar meaning God said. Finally, we get to vaEra meaning God revealed (himself).

God spoke. God said. God revealed. In that order. God spoke. We envision an expanse of meaning, depth, sounds and silences. God said. The expanse becomes a few words. God revealed (himself). There’s a continuum of the same energy, a creating of an even finer point, one that solidifies so much light that it can be seen, heard, tasted, smelled and known so beyond human experience that it is a miracle, a revelation. This explains the title because no doubt, VaEra is about miracles. Even in Exodus Rabbah it says that God does all things together. God puts to death and brings to life at the same time. God wounds and heals at the same time. In VaEra we learn that if we bring the energy of all into one heart, then our earthly boundaries are suddenly gone and we are free.

Here’s more on freedom. In 6:6 we get the four steps. God will bring us out from burdens (out from the earthly). Then, God will deliver us from bondage (out from the chains). Then God will free us with an outstretched arm (into the heavens we fly). Finally, I will take you to myself as a nation (we merge with great love and light).

It’s beautiful. God shines radiance on the earth to enable us to return the same radiance to creation. There’s movement and flow beyond good and evil, beyond joy and grief. Even the plagues in VaEra seem to move from expanse towards a single point, from the blood in the Nile to the hail that kills every living thing outdoors. Darkness here is brought into one point that can hammer away at the very chains that bond us to it.

When my students were jumping around the room that day we were all having fun. Yes, they were jumping through life while trying to hold onto meaning. But they were losing their candy instead of turning all into one. Their expanse, in short, was not being transformed but lost along the way. Ah, though, we are not magicians or sorcerers on our community college campus. And even if we are, it takes a much larger maze before we can even try to bring in a vibration that could refine the shadows that fill our world today.

So, may we pray for Obama in his huge maze. May we recognize the miracle that placed him in office. May we feel the eternal cries of grief as they (like a fist) break the chains that bind us to one. May we practice the transformation of expanse to revelation…and make it as simple as showing love to a husband or to a friend. May we welcome all light without judging the container in which it comes. May we have patience for those who only see the container…who grieve it or praise it and are not yet free. And may we help them and help ourselves as we all march with colorful banners and the sound of shofars into the radiant pulse of God.