By Rachel Sacks
Hey movement! Here are some thoughts on both Parashat Shemot from last week and Parashat Vaera from this week!
In Shemot and Vaera, memory is a centerpiece of Moses’s story. The Exodus narrative describes Moses’s birth to an Israelite family, then shifts to his Egyptian childhood in Pharoah’s home. After killing an Egyptian worker for beating an Israelite slave, Moses flees to Midian. At this point, Moses leaves behind his former identities as Israelite and Egyptian, and immerses himself in Midianite culture. It isn’t until Moses stumbles upon a burning bush radiating G-D’s presence that Moses is shaken with the memory of his previous life. Moses remembers the Israelites and his life back in Egypt. Deciding to take responsibility over the Israelites, Moses chooses to return to Egypt and appeal to pharaoh to let his people go.
Moses’s appeal to pharaoh is rejected, and the writers of the bible describe the ten plagues as a method through which G-D attempts to prove superiority to pharaoh and his Egyptian gods. With each plague hurled at pharaoh and his people, the Egyptians fail to conjure a comparable plague and ultimately announce that the G-D of the Israelites is most powerful. Here, the writers of the bible remember G-D’s greatness as the ultimate truth, and G-D’s quest to release the Israelites from “cruel bondage” as victorious. Later, however, this memory is changed. In Parashat Be-Ha’alotekha, the Israelites—now freed from slavery and out on the 40 year journey to the promised land—suffer from hunger and cry out “We remember the fish we used to eat free in Egypt, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic.” The memory of a noble G-D who freed the poor Israelites from ruthless oppression is twisted to one of a spiteful G-D forcing the Israelites to leave their Egyptian haven. A very different memory indeed.