Exodus: Gift of Light

As the people of Israel are leaving Egypt, the Lord is present as a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.[footnote:Ex. 13:21.] This is a very touching gesture, He does not just lead Moses, or tell Moses where to go, the presence of the Lord is manifest --- visible --- for the whole people. The Lord is not the “light at the end of the tunnel,” He is the light that immediately illuminates and guides along the path. The Lord is not at the end of the journey, the Lord is present as a guide. The Lord does not refuse to be with His people until they go out to meet Him, He is already present, but guides His people towards a new plenitude, the possession of His gift. In order for the children of Israel to enter into possession of the gift of God --- the promised land --- they must be guided by the Lord. The Lord Himself is present along the way in order to prove, in a manner of speaking, the sweetness of life with Him and the goodness of the gifts He has to give. The pillar of cloud, according to Rabbinical tradition, made the painful and burdensome desert life more pleasant: “What is that coming up from the desert like a cloud of smoke, perfumed with myrrh and frankincense, with all the fragrant powders of the merchant.”[footnote:The Song of Songs, 3:6; Voix de la Thora: l'Exode, p. 139; Ex. 13:21.] The Lord gives a destination to the journey, but He does not simply wait for the people in the promised land. The children of Israel are going to Canaan to worship the Eternal, but not because that is where He lives.

Exodus: Gift of Favor

The next moment we see the gift of God appear in Exodus is when the people are leaving Egypt. Exodus 12:36, “... and the Lord had given the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians.” The word favor could also be translated grace. According to the Targoum, this grace given to the Israelites caused their adversaries to give them over and beyond what they asked for. The Egyptians see their slaves in a new light --- the light of God, a light given by God --- and as the Egyptians see them in this new way, they give the Israelites twice as much as they ask.[footnote:Pentateuch with Rachi: Exodus, p. 88; Ex. 12:36.] Israel does not escape from Egypt, they are released and even thrown out --- and yet there is no violence --- no war or battle. Yet, without violent means, Israel receives twice the goods they asked for from their former masters and enemies. Israel leaves Egypt in complete dignity, and their oppressors recognize the favor that comes to them from the Lord, and in a certain way the Egyptians pay homage by giving their wealth away freely to the children of Israel. God promises this in Exodus 3:21. And we see that before the last plague, grace is given abundantly to Moses, causing him to appear great among the people of Egypt.[footnote:Ex. 11:3.] This is quite shocking and miraculous for Moses to appear such before a nation plagued at his hands, Moses was in no way an object of terror or collective hatred. His face was, on the contrary, such that the people, even the king's servants, revered his extraordinary personality and recognized his wisdom, his loyalty, and the righteousness of his cause. Neither Pharaoh nor his subjects dreamed of laying a hand on him.[footnote:Voice of the Thora: Exodus, p. 104; Ex. 11:3.]

Exodus: Introduction

Exodus presents a very different side of God's gift. The Hebrews left the land they were promised because of famine, and took up residence in Egypt. We find out at the beginning of Exodus that the people of Israel have become strong and numerous, and that a king who does not remember Joseph enslaves the people.[footnote:Ex. 1:8--10.] The problem of Exodus is how God will enable the Israelites to come into the possession of the land of promise. When Abraham first sojourned in that land, the Hebrews were not mighty enough or numerous enough to truly possess the land --- they did not inhabit it. When Jacob finally returns to Canaan it would seem like the time has finally come for peace and settlement of the country of Canaan, but as God foretold when speaking to Abram, “Know this, your descendants will be foreigners in a land that is not their own...”[footnote:Gn. 15:13.] For one thing, the promised land is still impure because of the Amorites[footnote:Gn. 15:16.] --- but God respects even the freedom of those who oppose His will. If God gives the Amorites four-hundred years to “fill the measure of sin,” it isn't because He wants their sin to worsen. Meïr Simcha of Dunabourg comments on Rachi, “Either the Amorite will fill up the measure of his perversion --- then his [Abram's] descendants will be allowed to conquer his [the Amorite's], or he [the Amorite] will come back to God and obey on his own the divine will, giving the land to the children of the Patriarch, in conformity with the ancestral tradition held since the days of Noah.”[footnote:La Voix de la Thora: Genèse, p. 152; Gn. 15:16.]

It is amazing to see that God allows the free will of people who are not Abraham's offspring, who are not heirs or members of the covenant to “interfere” with the realization of His promises --- with Him giving the gift of a land. If human gestures must be realized within a lifetime, the gestures of God often span a much longer period. God acts with wisdom, He acts at the most favorable time and in the most significant way to reveal as deeply as possible His love. It is not the material gift of land to the sons of Abraham that is important, it is the way God gives that land to them. God gives them that land in order to establish and develop a relationship with them. Their motivation for getting back to Canaan is a strange mixture of things. Whereas Abram left his land to go to the land God wanted to give him, the Israelites are stuck in a land that is not their own --- slaves in a foreign land. Now the people cry out to the Eternal for help and God responds.When God does respond to Israel however, He does not respond by immediately changing their circumstances; He responds by drawing closer to them.[footnote:Ex. 2:24.] The compassion of God, or closeness of God is described by four verbs which, according to the commentator Maharal, represent four degrees of divine help:1. Hears, means that their imploring has been “perceived” and that the wall separating creature from creator has fallen. 2. Remembers, is a higher degree: God will not forget, because he holds on to the memory of their father's merits. These first two stages are due to the divine grace accorded to the children of Israel suffering in exile. 3. The next stage brings with it a new progression, “God saw the people of Israel,” which implies that their distress was brought before His eyes and that His intervention becomes, consequentially, no longer an act of grace, but and act of justice. 4. Finally, God knew, He alone, the secrets which have not been made known openly, which include both the intimate sufferings unknown to others and the deep feelings of repentance and return to God that are born in the depths of the heart. [footnote:La voix de la Thora: l'Exode; p. 23, °24 ] The beginning of God's help is God coming closer to those who cry out to Him. The beginning of God's help is compassion. The beginning of God's help is an intensification of His presence. From the last passage we also learn what attracts God's presence and saving help. God draws close to those who cry out, to those with whom He has made a covenant, to those who are victims of injustice, to those who repent and return to Him. And yet, if we compare the reaction of Got to the reaction of a man confronted with evil, there is a troubling difference. A human reaction to the suffering of a loved one is immediately active and involves doing everything in one's power to eliminate or reduce that suffering. God is certainly in a position of power high enough to immediately remove the suffering of Israel --- and God has also revealed His preference and love for Israel. There are two points which may help understand how God could allow the suffering to continue: First, the Egyptians, who are oppressing Israel, are also created by God and created free. If God has willed them to be free, He will not go back on it. Second, without changing the free will of Pharaoh, God could still make it impossible, naturally, for Egypt to oppress Israel --- which He does, only not right away. So, if God allows so much time to pass before delivering Israel from oppression, it is because Israel's suffering is not an absolute evil. Israel's suffering causes them to call out to God, to return to Him --- and God, in turn, comes down to Israel. God does not want suffering for its own sake, but He allows it because He created men free, and because it causes Israel to reassess what is truly essential in their lives --- their covenant with the Lord.

Genesis: Gift of Heirs

The final gift I want to look at in Genesis is the gift of offspring. Though children are considered a blessing from God, they are given through the natural process of conception and generation. In other words, if the nature of the individuals trying to have a child is not damaged, there is no reason to suppose that they will not eventually have one. So, since generation is a fundamentally natural vital operation, it can be difficult to understand each child as a gift from God and not simply a natural result of God's creation. Of course, being in the modern world, we are much more easily tempted to separate the work of God from the work of nature than they were in ancient times. Every problem with the natural world has a scientific  explanation, and the medical sciences seek to fix these problems with procedures and technology that restores or repairs natural deficiencies. The more ultimate question of why nature is sometimes broken does not surface nearly as often as the unchecked hope we have in being able to fix the brokenness when it appears. In the ancient world, when nature does what it ought to do, it is a sign of God's blessing --- and when it doesn't, it is considered a curse. One of the most terrible curses is sterility, especially the sterility of a woman. It goes directly against the command of God to “be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth...”

So when we look at the cases of sterility in Genesis we are faced with something traumatic and incomprehensible. Sarai is sterile, but God has made it clear to Abram that he would give the promised land to his descendants.[footnote:Gn. 12:7.] And God further clarifies that it will be Abram's own son who will be his heir.[footnote:Gn. 15:3.] Sarai is convinced at this point that in order for God's promise to be fulfilled, he must take a different wife --- Sarai is convinced that the Lord has prevented her from having children. Abraham even laughs at God when God says that He will give him a son by Sarah. But this promise is made after God changes their names. Sarai --- my princess --- becomes Sarah, which means “princess for all” --- no longer belonging to Abram alone.[footnote:Pentateuch avec Rachi. I: La Genèse, p. 97 v. 15 comm.] Sarah will not be fruitful for Abram alone, she will be fruitful because of a special gift of God, and not by mere
natural capacity. This child, Issac, is a miraculous conception in the womb of a woman who was sterile. With the change of Sarai's name comes the opening of her womb. And the name of her child will be a constant reminder of how surprising and miraculous the conception of this child was. The Lord gives the true heir not just through Abraham, but through Abraham and his wife Sarah. God reveals that the true lineage passes by the true spouse. The one who will inherit the fullness of God's promises to Abraham must be born of his true spouse.

We could summarize what God has done for Abraham by looking at the witness given by his servant. Laban hears from Abraham's servant, who has come to bring a wife back for Issac --- Rachel --- the extraordinary things the Lord has done for Abraham. At the end of his witness, the servant says that the Lord, “Has given him (Abraham) all that He has.[footnote:Gn. 24:36.]” In other words, the Lord has shown to Abraham and Sarah the act of giving.[footnote:Rashi: Genesis, 151.] The Lord has held nothing back in this gesture. The Lord has given all the goods of the earth, the goods of land, and of posterity, to Abraham. And Abraham ends his life with the same generosity, the same act of giving: “Abraham gave everything he owned to Issac.[footnote:Gn. 25:5.]” Abraham did not split up his possessions among all his children, which shows that the gift of God is not simply material --- it cannot be divided up into pieces. Rabbi Nehemia said while commenting that verse, “[Abraham gave Issac] the gift of hereditary blessing. The blessings of the Lord are yours to give to whom you please: be a blessing.[footnote:Gn. 12:2.]”[footnote:Rashi: Genesis 159.] God gives to Abraham to make Abraham a gift for humanity. And the gift (blessing) given to Issac by Abraham is nothing less than the gift of God.

Genesis: Gift of Land

When the Lord appears to Abram, the Lord promises to give land to his descendants.[footnote:Gn. 12:7] Then, the Lord says He will give the land to Abram and his descendants, and finally, the Lord says, “...walk through the length and breadth of the land, for I will give it to you.”[footnote:Gn. 13:17.] This land, the  Promised Land, is the first land explicitly given to man by God since he was kicked out of the Garden of
Eden. Noah is invited, like the first man, to “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill all the earth.”[footnote:Gn. 1:28, 9:1.] But Abram is invited by God to go beyond his own country and land to the land that God will show him. God does not ask Abram to make a sacrifice, He asks Abram to trust Him and promises three blessings, three gifts: children, prosperity, and fame --- the three goods that a nomadic life would otherwise decrease.[footnote:Le Pentateuque avec Rachi I: La Genèse, p 69.] By giving Abram land, we can also see that this is a way by which God intends to give Himself. The Lord of Heaven becomes the Lord of the earth by the witness of Abraham within the promised land, and his teaching the creatures therein to proclaim His name.[footnote:
Le Pent. avec Rachi I, p. 145.] Man (Adam) cuts God off from the earth by his sin, but God begins His own pilgrimage to earth, progressively reconciling it to Himself. Abraham freely accepts the gift of God, God's promise of land and descendants, and opens the way --- by his faith --- to a new communion between God and man. Abram can be seen as an image of the Word, who is sent forth from the bosom of the Father to dwell in the land of promise --- in the heart and the womb of the Virgin Mary. God reveals that the way He intends to reestablish communion with man is to journey with man, on a path similar to the one man must take himself. The Promised Land, which is given by the Eternal to Abraham and his descendants, is something which must progressively be taken possession of by the chosen people. To truly possess a land one must live on it, one must cultivate it, one must be able to defend it, etc. --- and to truly possess the promised land, everything and everyone in it must be consecrated to the Lord. And this consecration --- setting apart --- to be a holy people is characterized by the Sabbath. The more the chosen people possess the land and  consecrate themselves to the Lord, the more deeply they receive the gift of God, and the more profoundly God is present in their midst.

Genesis: Gift of Food

Light brings fullness of life to plants, and plants are food for the animals. Light is given to the earth for the plants who become food --- mediators of life --- for all with the breath (spirit) of life. Moving beings are also given as food to man, only not to be eaten while the blood --- the life --- remains in the flesh. Life does not feed on life, living beings feed on the fruits of the green plants and on the flesh of the moving beings.

Anyone who has been paying attention to the construction of modern myths will notice that the myth of the  vampire has been the object of reconstruction lately. From Twilight to all the various television series, there is a modern fascination with the idea of “good vampires.” What makes this a modern myth? It has to do with blurring the lines between good and evil. The whole drama of nature vs. person is set to redefine the problem of good and evil. Can someone be evil by nature? Can someone be good or evil simply by obeying their nature? Is it right to choose to live in accord with one's nature when one's nature is profoundly broken?
Is it right to negate one's nature in the attempt to rise above it? Is it even possible to rise above one's nature? Heroes are not all good, villains are not all evil --- humanity is as profoundly good as it is broken. Virtue is gone, and since no one is truly virtuous, the only good thing left to do is hope that love will be strong enough to conquer evil most of the time.

Without looking more deeply at the myth about vampires, and its modern spin, why does the Word of God specifically disallow consuming flesh while it still contains the blood? The scriptures reject feeding on blood in the flesh because of what it symbolizes and implies practically speaking. Blood is the symbol of life, and the lives of animals have not been given to man for his consumption --- the life must be drained from the body before it can be considered food given by the Creator to man. Jesus gives us his flesh as true food and his blood as true drink --- but the two are separated. If blood symbolizes the soul of the living being in the Bible, with the heart at the vital center, the gift of Christ's blood to us as true drink reveals God's desire for us to be nourished by his very life --- His heart is opened to us.

The gift of every moving thing as food --- with the exception of man of course --- is given to Noah and his descendants. For anyone who kills a man shall be killed by men. Both man and beast are held accountable for the shedding of blood. The blood of man has something sacred about it because man is made in the image of
God.[footnote: Gn. 9: 5--6.] So why does God give the animals as food to Noah? Noah saved God's creation at His command, and offered a pleasing sacrifice of these animals before the Lord. As a response to this, God gives the animals of creation to man in a new way, as food. And this itself is connected to God lifting the curse of the ground. Indeed, it is already a kind of prophesy where the Word of God promises to bear the brokenness of humanity, “The Lord said in his heart, ‘I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth.’”[footnote:Gn. 8: 21.]

Chasidic thought provides another reason as to why God gives the flesh of animals as food after the flood. This reason has to do with the natural qualities of flesh as food itself. Just an aside, but it is interesting to note that in the Eucharist, the Body (flesh) of Christ is given under the appearance of bread, the manna which is flesh indeed. According to Chasidic thought, creation itself reaches a new degree of subtlety after the flood
--- one “theological-empirical” explanation for why there weren't any rainbows in the sky until then --- and therefore matter itself loses its coarser edge and becomes more supple. The underlying spiritual revolution at the time of the flood is a general predisposition among men for repentance. Meat is a coarser food and would have plunged the pre-flood era into a hedonistic physicality void of conscience. The purification of the world by the flood is both physical and spiritual --- the physical becoming more refined, the spirit of man becoming
disposed to repentance.[footnote:See “The Gutnick Edition Chumash: Genesis” p 59.] The importance of this idea has to do with the increasing subtlety of the food given by God: from the plants, to flesh, to the manna and the quails, to the Word of God (the Thora), to the Word made flesh (the Eucharist).

Genesis: Gift of Light

At the very beginning of the scriptures, in the book of Genesis, we get a first glance at the gift of God. The first gift revealed by God is the gift of light. God creates, and His creation is realized in the light and in the cycle between night and day. Perhaps one of the most surprising things about the gift of light is that it is a mediated gift. The first principle of God's government revealed in Genesis is that He gives to His creation by means of the mediators He has created. God is not the physical light of creation, a light which is nonetheless His gift and a metaphor for the true light of which He is the source. God created the lights in the heavens to give light upon the earth.[footnote: Gn. 1: 15, 17.] God gives light by creating other luminous realities. From the very beginning of creation, God creates mediators --- in fact, God's creation is itself a mediation of God's goodness, “And God saw that it was good.”[footnote: Gn. 1: 12, 18, 21, 25, 31. ]

Light is given by the heavenly bodies to all the earth. As we know from experience, living beings depend upon light in a very radical way. Plants depend upon light in order to live and grow. The plants become the food for everything that has the breath of life. [footnote: Gn. 1:29--30. ]