With Our Youth and Our Elders

At the beginning of Parshat Bo, Pharaoh’s advisers urge him to acquiesce to Moshe’s demand to allow the Jews a three day spiritual retreat. Taking their advice, Pharaoh tells Moshe that the Jews can go, but then he asks “Mi VaMi HaHolchim?” ie “Who are you taking with you on this three day journey?” Moshe responds (10:9): 

יֹּ֣אמֶר משֶׁ֔ה בִּנְעָרֵ֥ינוּ וּבִזְקֵנֵ֖ינוּ נֵלֵ֑ךְ בְּבָנֵ֨ינוּ וּבִבְנוֹתֵ֜נוּ בְּצֹאנֵ֤נוּ וּבִבְקָרֵ֨נוּ֙ נֵלֵ֔ךְ כִּ֥י חַג־ה, לָֽנוּ:

Moses said, “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.”

      In Egyptian society, knowledge and religious service was reserved for the elite class. Knowledge is power. Spirituality provides meaning and purpose to one’s life. In a democracy, we have come to expect everyone to have the freedom to learn as they wish and to worship as they wish.  Yet we know that that is not the case, even today, in many parts of the world. That was certainly not the case in ancient Egypt. The Egyptian nobility wanted to keep the masses ignorant so that they would not challenge their authority. Even when Pharaoh agrees to allow the Jews to leave, he assumes that Moshe will be going with just a select group of the Jewish men. Even if Moshe was proposing the radical notion that all men should be allowed on this excursion, Pharaoh could not fathom any good reason to include women and children. In his response, Moshe makes clear the difference between Egyptian and Jewish society. In Egyptian society, there are important people who rule and the rest of the people are forced into an obedient, lesser role. In Judaism, everyone is important. Different people may have different roles, different specialties, and different focuses, but everyone is special and integral and needed: men, women and children.

      Moshe’s call for inclusion and the importance of every member of the community resonates with me each year on this Shabbat. According to Halacha once ten men gather in prayer they can constitute a minyan. Do we care if an eleventh or twelfth man comes to shul? What about women who do not count towards the minyan? Is there any reason for them to attend? Do we care if children (of either gender) participate in Jewish communal life, or do we not care until they reach Bar/ Bat Mitzvah? From Moshe’s response to Pharaoh the answers are clear. We were not leaving Egypt without everyone. We need everyone’s presence and participation in order to function our best as a community.

      Many people have not been to shul since last March. Due to the pandemic we are still unable to offer youth groups and babysitting on Shabbat morning.  Much of our programming has been moved online. Some who have returned to shul like it the way it is now. There are no “noisy kids” in shul. There’s no noise at all, as people sit too far apart to talk to their neighbor during davening, not to mention the masks. I am here to tell you that we committed to the charge, first expressed by Moshe in this morning’s Parsha. We will not be satisfied until we are able to welcome back all of our community members, men and women, young and old. We know that we must remain patient. It will take time for people to feel comfortable enough to come back. Others may have found alternate prayer arrangements for themselves during the pandemic. We must look to accommodate different prayer preferences as we invite everyone back to shul, over the weeks and months ahead. Only when we are able to accommodate all segments of our community can we declare a festival to Hashem, may it happen soon B’Ezrat Hashem.