By Deborah Secular

"Go, worship the Lord your God. Who and who are going?"

That’s how Pharaoh tells Moses and Aaron they can leave Egypt, after they threaten him with locusts at the beginning of this week’s parshah. The command, “Go,” is one Pharaoh will rescind as soon as G-d again hardens his heart, a pattern that began in last week’s parshah. The question, “Who and who are going?” is new.

Why does Pharaoh ask who will be leaving? Hasn’t Moses made it clear he is asking for freedom from slavery for all his people?

Moses replies calmly to Pharaoh’s question. "With our youth and with our elders we will go, with our sons and with our daughters, with our flocks and with our cattle we will go, for it is a festival of the Lord to us."

At this, Pharaoh balks. “Let the men go now and worship the Lord, for that is what you request.”

This exchange surprised me. I always thought the conversation between Moses and Pharaoh was straightforward. Moses asked for liberation for the Jewish people, and Pharaoh refused. Repeat x 9.

Not so, I realized, as I read back over their conversations. Instead, from the beginning, Moses phrases his requests to Pharaoh according to G-d’s instructions: "Send forth My people, so that they may serve Me in the desert." Whether or not Moses is secretly seeking liberation, he uses words that lead Pharaoh to believe he just wants to leave for a few days to perform a religious rite.

When Moses asks for the chance to serve G-d in the desert, Pharaoh hears what he wants to hear: that Moses wants to lead some men on a weekend retreat, burn some entrails, sing some songs, and then return to positions of subservience refreshed and renewed.

This disparity between what Moses meant to enact and what he meant for Pharaoh to hear made me question our communication with the world outside the movement. What messages do we send and receive about the movement, and how do these choices enable or prohibit us from liberating the Jewish community?

How do we phrase our intentions to outsiders? Do we, like Moses, limit ourselves when we create expectations that differ from the reality we want to create?

When we “market” our machanot as “summer camps,” we cast a broad net and allow parents to soften their hearts to our message. But in a reimagined recruiting, our message to parents and guardians could be just as political as our message to chanichim. We don’t have to assume hard hearts. When we do, we miss a moment of education, when our chanichim’s caretakers could be brought into our fold, informed of our true intentions, and become powerful partners in the Jewish community we want to create.

Moses realizes the Jewish community will not be liberated until all categories of its people can leave Egypt ("with our youth and with our elders we will go”). Do we?

How do we hear outsiders’ intentions? Do we, like Moses, assume unchanging opposition from those in positions of power, even among powerful structures within the Jewish community? How does this limit us from placing ourselves at its center?

Two weeks ago, I had the chance to do something cool. Thanks to an email to this very listserv, I found myself working at a retreat for the Jewish educators who plan Cornerstone, an annual conference for Jewish summer

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