This week’s Torah portion, Va-eira, begins with God and Moses working on the plan to free the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. They have been suffering in Egypt, Mitzrayim, the narrow place, for 430 years. It has been a long time. They are beginning to feel forgotten. But God says, “I have now heard the cries of the Israelites because the Egyptians are holding them in bondage, and I have remembered My covenant. Say, therefore, to the Israelite people: I am Adonai. I will free you from the labors of the Egyptians and deliver you from their bondage. I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and through extraordinary judgments. (Ex. 6:5-6)”
In our Jewish scripture and liturgy, memory and covenant go hand in hand. A covenant is a partnership, a two-way promise, and we have to work to keep it at the forefront of our minds so we can fulfill our obligations.
For more than four hundred and seventy days, we have been crying out and promising not to forget the hostages held in Gaza after the brutal terror attack on Israel on October 7th, 2023. It has been exhausting. Israelis and the Jewish community around the world have cried out their tears, and have often felt like no one has heard them. International organizations have not held up their ends of their covenants; the Red Cross never visited or cared for the hostages. But finally, our cries have been heard and there is a breath of hope. A fragile, imperfect ceasefire deal has led to the release of Romi Gonen, Emily Damari, and Doron Steinbrecher, and promises to lead to a phased release of thirty more hostages.
We don’t know who will be released alive or dead. We don’t even know if the deal will hold long enough to be fully realized. We don’t know how the more than 60 hostages not accounted for in the current deal will come home. We don’t know how and when this horrible war will come to a true end, allowing the Israeli soldiers to go back to their lives and the people of Gaza to begin to rebuild their shattered homes. We are not yet in a place of peace and wholeness. But we have taken a step in that direction.
Our Torah teaches us that journeys from a narrow space to freedom are long, hard, painful, and full of loss. The Exodus from Egypt starts coming into motion in this week’s Torah portion, Va-eira, which features the first seven plagues. Next week, in Bo, we read of the next three plagues, and then in Beshallach the following week, they finally cross the sea. It takes four parashiyot from the time God calls Moses to action at the burning bush to when the Israelites finally escape. And then it takes forty more years and the whole rest of the Torah for them to reach the promised land. The journey is filled with steps forward and steps back. It is filled with moments of despair and moments of hope.
We have been living in a narrow place for far too long. It feels like so many of us are carrying traumas and wounds that have just barely scabbed over, ready to reopen and start bleeding at the slightest scratch. In “Hope is not a Bird, Emily, It’s a Sewer Rat,” by Caitlin Seida, which Rabbi Cohen shared in his Yom Kippur sermon, it says “[Hope] thrives in the discards, And survives in the ugliest parts of our world.” The world is dark and ugly and we need to search deep for our scrappiest hopes in the moments when we feel the most bloody and bruised. There was an image circulating last Sunday of a note from IDF soldiers written for Emily, Doron, & Romi on a concrete slab propped against the ruins of bombed out buildings in Gaza that said “Welcome home. We have turned worlds for you.” That seems to be the very image of hope in the discards.
We have to keep remembering that our work is not done – that journeys toward peace and wholeness and freedom are never over. But each step along the way is important. Our work toward a better world is fueled by memory and hope. May we keep hearing the cry to fulfill our part of the covenant to make the world a freer and more just place. Don’t forget those who are crying out in pain.