Shabbat shalom. Thank you all for coming to my bat mitzvah. In this part of the service, I'm going to be telling you about my Torah portion and what I thought about it. If you don’t know what a Torah portion is, it is a part of the Torah that someone chants to the congregation. The Torah is part of the Jewish Bible, and it contains the five books of Moses. As you can tell, Moses is very important. My portion is about God telling Moses to go tell Pharaoh everything God tells him to. This is right after the burning bush, so Moses has been convinced that he’s talking to God and that this is important. God tells Moses to go tell the Israelite people that what’s happening isn’t fair and that God’s going to make it possible for them to leave and escape slavery. So Moses did that. In the Torah, it says:
וַיְדַבֵּר מֹשֶׁה כֵּן, אֶל־בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל, וְלֹא שָֽׁמְעוּ אֶל־מֹשֶׁה, מִקֹּצֶר רוּחַ, וּמֵעֲבֹדָה קָשָֽׁה׃
which translates into English: “But when Moses told this to the Israelites, they would not listen to Moses, because of their shortness of breath and hard labor.”
I also wonder if the reason that they would not listen to Moses is because they didn’t exactly trust him.
Before God talked to Moses, he wasn’t the best person to lead the Israelite people. In an earlier Torah portion, the text says that Moses kills an Egyptian after seeing that same Egyptian whipping an Israelite slave, which tells us that he tends to handle situations with violence. He also has a speech impediment, meaning he can’t talk well, and to be the leader of the Israelites, you’d think he would need to be a good public speaker. There are many reasons why God maybe shouldn’t have chosen Moses or why God might have had second thoughts about choosing him.
In a book of midrash called Shmot Rabbah, there’s an example of why God would choose Moses. We see Moses caring for a lamb that he shepherded. The midrash goes like this: “Our teachers have said: Once, while Moses our teacher was tending [his father-in-law] Yitro’s sheep, one of the sheep ran away. Moses ran after it until it reached a small, shaded place. There, the lamb came across a pool and began to drink. As Moses approached the lamb, he said, ‘I did not know you ran away because you were thirsty. You are so exhausted!’ He then put the lamb on his shoulders and carried him back. The Holy One said, ‘Since you tend the sheep of human beings with such overwhelming love - by your life, I swear you shall be the shepherd of My sheep, Israel.’” (Shmot Rabbah 2:2). This showed God that Moses was a good and natural leader despite his other challenges.
God also potentially chose Moses because he didn’t want godly power or knowledge. We know this because when Moses faced God for the first time at the burning bush, he covered his face. Why did he cover his face? Because he was afraid that, in the words of Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, by “coming close to infinity, he would lose his humanity.” This phrase means that understanding the reason bad things happen, the way that God understands these things, would make Moses complacent and less of a leader because he would understand why bad things happen and therefore not fight for them to get better. God saw Moses kill an Egyptian because he was unjust to an Israelite. This showed that Moses cared about injustices towards people. God looked at Moses and saw a leader who was willing to fight against the injustices experienced by the Israelites and knew that Moses was the man for the job. I bet that if all the gods of all the world's religions were hanging out, God would be bragging about picking Moses because Moses is someone that wasn’t perfect but still was good at heart.
As you all might know, Martin Luther King Jr. Day is Monday, so I thought I would talk a little bit about how Dr. King and Moses are connected. As I briefly said earlier Moses was the speaker for God and was the one to speak for the Israelites and tell Pharaoh to let them go. I also said that Moses stood up for the Israelites because he saw that they were being treated unfairly. This made me think of Dr. King because he also spoke out against injustice, specifically injustices against Black people. He spoke to leaders and the government just like Moses spoke to Pharaoh and asked for the Israelite people’s freedom. During this whole process I kept thinking of the part God played in this whole story and why God did the things God did. While I was thinking of Dr. King, someone else came to mind: Bayard Rustin. Now I want to do a little experiment. Ok - raise your hand if you know who Bayard Rustin is. Alright put your hands down. Now I want you to raise your hand if you learned about who he was in school. Ok- hands down. This is not surprising because most people don’t know who he is and haven’t learned about him in school. I had too much homework to prepare for these 2 and half hours of my life, so after Shabbat is over, you have some homework. I want you to go home and watch the movie “Rustin” on Netflix and learn about who this man was and his important role in U.S. history.
The reason I bring him up is because, when I was thinking about my Torah portion, and how Dr. King was the speaker and Bayard was the organizer, it reminded me of God and Moses. Moses would go to Pharaoh because God would tell him to and God had Moses do some magic tricks that helped the Israelites trust Moses, because before when Moses told the Israelites that God said that they will be free, they didn’t believe him and thought he was crazy. Now Bayard didn’t have magic powers like God, but he did make things happen for Dr. King. For example, he organized the March on Washington. He got everyone there and made sure it happened. And I'm sure that we all learned that no matter what, Dr. King never used violence and was strongly against it. Actually, in the beginning he wasn’t - he wanted to go out and fight, but it was Bayard who suggested that it wouldn’t be the best idea to fight fire with fire, because in the end the government would just accuse them of being violent and hostile. This is kind of like Moses - as I said before, Moses killed an Egyptian, and even though it showed that he cared about the Israelites, it also showed that he could be a violent person who handled things with violence. Another similarity between Moses and Dr. King is they both were really connected to God: Moses because he spoke to God and Dr. King because he believed in God and preached from his religion. They also both had an idea of the Promised Land in their minds: for Moses, God told him that he would be the one to lead the Israelites to the Promised Land, and for Dr. King, he had the idea that the Promised Land was less of an actual place and more of a community that accepted everyone for who they were.
What I have learned from studying my Torah portion and comparing Moses with Dr. King is that, even though someone might struggle in areas such as anger management like Moses and Dr. King, Moses showed us in the Torah and Dr. King showed us every time he preached, we should always notice when there is injustice, and try to better ourselves and the world.
I've been a member of this temple since I was 3 years old and it has become a type of home to me, so first I would like to thank this community for being a great community and being there for everyone in it.
I would also like to thank:
Missie/Beth Polasky for making me ready for today and being a great and caring tutor.
Abby, Mia, Teddy, Micah, and Anna for being great friends
Rabbi Noyo for guidance around this whole process
Rabbi Barbara for support and guidance throughout the years.
My mom and dad for being amazing and trying to learn as much as they could about this process and helping me through it.
My family for coming here today and supporting me. I love you.
All my past Hebrew school teachers who taught me about my religion and how to honor it.
All the people that showed up today either on Zoom or in person to back me. Thank you for coming and showing your support.
Lynne May, Audrey and Melanie for dress shopping with me and making sure I look good.
Everyone that participated in this service today for helping me today and contributing.
Shabbat shalom!