Moshe, Empathy, and the Path to Justice
Sometimes when I read the week’s parasha, I have to stop and think about what it can teach me in that moment. This isn’t one of those weeks; this week feels like the parashah is speaking directly to our current moment. God has just chosen Moshe to be God’s emissary to help lead the Israelites to freedom, pitting Moshe against an oppressive leader who is making life miserable for his people.
The parashah picks up in the middle of a conversation that isn’t going well: At the end Parashat Shemot, God instructs Moshe to ask Pharaoh to free the Israelites, and Pharaoh responds by increasing their labor. “Why did you bring harm to this people?” Moshe asks God. “Since I spoke to Pharaoh in your name, he has made things worse for the Israelites!”
So this week, at the beginning of Parashat Va-era, God hits reset. God tells Moshe that God will reveal more of Godself to Moshe than was revealed to any previous human, or any human to follow.
Why, the commentators ask? Because Moshe has proven that he is a person of deep empathy. When he saw an Egyptian beating an Israelite, he intervened; when he saw Yitro’s daughters in a dispute over water access, he stepped in; when the bush was burning he went closer to inspect.
God, it seems, values people who are not afraid to look right at a problem and get involved.
On Tuesday morning, I returned from a trip to Arizona with our 8th and 9th graders. We spent the long weekend learning about immigration in America: listening to stories of migrants who had traveled to this country fleeing violence, engaging with border patrol and ICE officers who have served on the US-Mexico border, and volunteering at a church that offers shelter and aid to newly arrived migrants. By listening to these stories, we took responsibility for them. Many of our speakers asked and exhorted the teens to remember what they heard and saw so they could advocate for immigration reform when they returned home.
But we did not just listen, and we did not only volunteer where it was safe and comfortable. On Sunday afternoon, we set out just before sunset to hike into the Sonoran desert, following a rough trail often used by migrants as they enter the United States. Every year, hundreds of migrants die on trails like these from dehydration, starvation, exhaustion, and heat stroke. So we hiked in with big jugs of water and cans of food to drop along the route. As we hiked, I was reminded of the line we repeat every Passover: “In each and every generation, a person must see themself as if they personally went out of Egypt.” Our water drop hike felt like an empathy walk, putting ourselves literally in the path others take in pursuit of freedom.
Listening to the personal, often traumatic experiences of migrants, walking in their shoes, even challenging viewpoints that didn’t align with their own, our students’ empathy for the experience of immigrants to the United States grew. They proved themselves to be the kind of people who don’t look away from a tough situation. As we closed out our journey, many of them said that they want to get more involved in our migrant work at BJ. They were changed by their proximity to suffering in a way that prompted them to lean in, just as Moshe does in response to the injustices he encounters.
We don’t know what will happen to the thousands of migrants currently in our community, to the hundreds of thousands who are fleeing violence and persecution, or even those who believe in the American dream and long for a day when they can pursue it. But I do know that the coming years will demand that we pay attention. We must continue to feel empathy even against vast pain, and we must, like Moshe, and like our teens, be willing to answer the call to speak up or act.
Shabbat shalom,
Rabbi Deena Cowans