Pharoah at first will let the people go . . . and then abruptly pursues them to reinstate their humiliation and reestablish a kingdom of captivity, rape, and murder over the People of Israel.
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And yet, it would appear as if the need “to humiliate and traumatize” will be the very fuel which now drives his modern contemporaries forward . . .
This is not 1945, nor is this 1200 BCE — this is this week. Try not to look away — look at her face, know her name, Arbel Yahoud . . . look familiar, she is our daughter, of all of us.
Israeli Women are seized as booty, raped, and disregarded by the world, apparently reminiscent and tangent to the well-watered metaphor continuously reexperienced by the Jewish People. Pharoah along with his henchmen will continue their torment all the way to the sea, and then some. The fact of rape easily transforms into ‘rape as metaphor’ — the never-ending trauma of being continuously raped over and over again and remaining with us, all of us . . . to this day — traumatizing us and simultaneously tantalizing the non Jewish world at large.
As we have discussed, memory has an unusual quality of hiding and then reappearing continuously throughout our lives. The world neither believes her, Arbel Yehud pictured, nor the Jewish people — disregarding her story and ours, and not surprising for us, many of the world revel in the pain and continued trauma experienced by the Jewish People, in Israel and around the world.
Ultimately it is not possible to disregard the Angel of Death and the crushing waters of the Sea of Reeds.
Apparently, the rape of the Israelite women, the death of Israelite babies cast into the Nile, or in microwave ovens, nor even a visit by the Angel of Death . . . . all were just not sufficient.
We are all witnessing the wheels of time . . . we can even say, the cycles of time, reoccurring over and over again.
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Exodus 14:5 — Pharoah sees the Israelite captives as in “our service” — our slaves — our slavery — מֵעׇבְדֵֽנוּ — time will tell as to who owns Gd’s People — and who owns the narrative —
וַיֻּגַּד֙ לְמֶ֣לֶךְ מִצְרַ֔יִם כִּ֥י בָרַ֖ח הָעָ֑ם וַ֠יֵּהָפֵ֠ךְ לְבַ֨ב פַּרְעֹ֤ה וַעֲבָדָיו֙ אֶל־הָעָ֔ם וַיֹּֽאמְרוּ֙ מַה־זֹּ֣את עָשִׂ֔ינוּ כִּֽי־שִׁלַּ֥חְנוּ אֶת־יִשְׂרָאֵ֖ל מֵעׇבְדֵֽנוּ׃
When the king of Egypt was told that the people had fled, Pharaoh and his courtiers had a change of heart about the people and said, “What is this we have done, releasing Israel from our service?”
וַיֶּאְסֹ֖ר אֶת־רִכְבּ֑וֹ וְאֶת־עַמּ֖וֹ לָקַ֥ח עִמּֽוֹ׃
He ordered his chariot and took his force with him;
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This evening at 7:30 PM, please be there, we live in a difficult time of transition, not over the river and through the woods, but through a Sea, not just of reeds, but one of life and death.
I must say, it is a miracle that we have made it thus far.
At the very least, may the Angel of Death, pass over us . . . . and may we continue to make it to the other side, homeward bound.
