Sanctification

By Sophie Libow

Every Friday afternoon is a hurried frenzy. Plata plugged, Table set, Directions drawn. It will have to be what it will be. Nothing in the natural world corresponds to my candle lighting no special moon no special season It matters only because we Say it does.

Only because

We choose to live in cycles of sacred and mundane kodesh and hol

Of rest and work

Menucha, melacha

Over and over and over again.

Fixing time is for the free. Choice, scheduling- it’s all mastery.

Pharoah’s calendar was enslaving was oppressive

Time wasn’t ours. God said We are starting over This is the beginning This is the first month of every year afterwards Nissan comes in the Spring.

I imagine what it must have been like to stand at the sea Water ahead, chariots behind And to say: this is the beginning of time.

About Sophie

Sophie Libow comes to Pardes for the Year Program after graduating from Washington University in St. Louis with a degree in Environmental Studies. On campus, she was a committed Jewish organizer, facilitating the weekly egalitarian minyan and founding the community newsletter, The Shtick. This is Sophie’s first time being engrossed in serious Torah study and she loves the way it challenges, excites, and exhausts her. Sophie is a writer with her online Substack called exclamation!, where she writes about all things personal, reflective, and, of course, Jewish.

Three Months from Egypt

By Yehudit Reishtein

In honor of the generations of women whose strength and faith have sustained the Jewish people throughout history

It's the waiting that's hard. The waiting and the heat.

It was hot in Egypt too, ghastly hot, with no relief because we were working, always working. Making bricks, building, out in the open, with the sun beating down, not a bit of shade, nowhere to sit. Even if you were lucky enough to find a spot in the shadow of a building, one of the overseers would be on you, chasing you back out into the heat. The only relief was at night, when it would cool off. If it got cold, which it did even in the dry season, we were too exhausted to do anything but sleep. Or beyond exhaustion, we would lie there, shivering, just waiting for the morning when it would start all over again.

The desert here is different, yet somehow the same. The heat is unrelenting, except at night when it is cold. When Hashem spoke to us, it was overwhelming. The shofars sounded louder and louder, and when you thought they were as loud as they could be, they became louder still. And the lightning and thunder—it was as if we could see His words, as if they were being burned into our eyes. I'm told He said ten things. I heard only one, maybe two. I'm still not sure. We were all so crowded at the foot of the mountain, it was hard to breathe. Whenever I ask anyone about that day, it's always the same. It was terrifying, hot, and crowded. They know Hashem said ten things because that's what Moshe reported He said, but they heard one or two, or at the most, three things. He took us out of Egypt, we should not have other Gods...and what else?

Moshe knows, but he went back up on that terrible and frightening mountain and disappeared. It's been almost six weeks, and where is he? For all we know, he could have starved to death. Nothing grows up there, and he did not take any food or water with him. He could have climbed up to the top—to listen to Hashem, he said—and gone right down the other side and back to Egypt. He could be sitting by the Nile now, eating cucumbers and onions and watermelon in the shade of a fig tree, while we sit out here in this wretched desert, parched and frightened.

Yes, his God showed us many wonders before taking us out of slavery, but what has He done since He drowned Pharaoh’s army? Other than send us manna, that is? He's left us to sit out under the merciless sun in the oppressive heat.

We do have water, from a well. Some of the women have started calling it “Miriam’s Well.” No matter how early I go, Miriam has already been there to draw water for her family. Even if there is already a line, we let her be the first. When she discovered this well, we worried that with so many people needing water, it would soon go dry.

Then someone pointed out that Miriam had also discovered wells at our other camps, at the overnight stops where we didn’t even take the time to erect our tents, but just slept out on the sand.

Work would be a welcome distraction, almost any work, even making bricks. Instead we sit here, day after day after day. The lack of attention from Moshe's God is getting on everyone's nerves. People are starting to snap at each other and get angry over little nothings, because no one has anything worth getting angry about. Some of the outsiders who left Egypt with us, the ones who are not of our families, are talking about finding a new god, or making one, that will pay attention to us, give us some relief from this endless heat, bring us some good food instead of the boring manna, some shade, some token of caring.

I tell Yitzchak, my husband, to stay away from them. Nothing good ever came from mixing with that crowd. We're B’nai Yisrael, more sensible stock. I tell him he should know his place, and take care of his own, not grab someone else's troubles.

But he says that at least they're trying to do something. Moshe's abandoned us, Aaron is powerless, and Hashem is silent. "The outsiders have a plan," Yitzhak tells me. "Anything would be better than just sitting here, waiting."

"And for what?" he yells at me. He never yelled at me before, not even when I was so exhausted I couldn't pour water into his brick mixture without spilling half of it onto the sand. His face is red and unrecognizable. I am shocked—who is this man? After so many years and so much suffering, I thought I knew him. But now I don't.

Tonight he said the men were gathering all the gold we brought from Egypt. They were going to get Aaron to make them a god. I refused to give him my rings and earrings. I didn’t simply refuse, I screamed at him.

I yelled that he had no right to take my jewelry, he had done nothing to get it. He had slunk into our hut that evening and would not look at me. I finally got him to admit that he had not even knocked on an Egyptian door. Yitzchak said he was a slave and the Egyptians would slam their door in his face, probably after beating him first.

So it had been me. I was the one who discovered my courage and wrapped myself in it as if it were a blanket. I had gone to the Egyptian woman and asked her for jewelry. She gave me her jewelry box and even took off the rings and earrings she was wearing—she could not give them to me fast enough. She only wanted Moshe and his angry God to leave them alone. She actually cowered in front of me!

And now Yitzchak wants me to give him my gold to make a new god? I'd sooner go back to making bricks. Yes, I would wear gold earrings and mix mud and straw. Now I know my true strength comes from Hashem, not from some gold statue that Aaron can make.

I ask him what did Aaron say, exactly? He smiles, because he knows more than I do, he knows a secret. Aaron said that if they want a new god, he will give them one, a calf, like the Egyptians have, golden. He will even make it for them. Aaron doesn't want anyone's help, he will do all the work himself, Yitzchak says.

"Aaron said he will make you a golden god?"

I feel myself starting to smile for the first time in weeks.

Yitzchak's smile turns to a smirk. "If we want a new god, Aaron told us, he will make us one, perfect, as a proper god should be made."

I don't believe Yitzchak. No matter how perfect a golden statue is, it cannot be my God, I tell him. And I can’t believe Aaron has requested my golden bracelets and rings and earrings. Aaron, the brother of Moshe, the one who faced Pharaoh and spoke Hashem’s words? He can’t be promising a better god.

I start to think about that. Moshe and Aaron—brothers, two of a kind. Neither one says much, and what he says, you need to listen to carefully. Every word counts.

Aaron told the men he would make a god for them. For them, not for himself, not for us. A god, not G-d. He says he will make it by himself, without any help. Help would make the work easier, make it go faster. How better to delay work than to do it all yourself, insisting on perfection at every step? Aaron must know something, something he's not telling the rest of us. Or perhaps his faith is just stronger than ours.

It doesn't matter to me at the moment. If Aaron does not believe in the golden god he is making, it is enough. But it will be made without my earrings.

Yitzchak runs out of the tent—I think he is more afraid of my smile than my anger. But he'll be back, demanding again.

I'm afraid, more afraid than when Hashem spoke in thunder and lightning from the mountain.

I pray to Him, to the one G-d who saved us from Egypt, to the One who commanded us to have no other gods before Him. Give me strength God, I say, guard my strength.

The heat is unbearable. It even hurts to breathe.

Moshe, hurry back.

Notes: speaking: “You speak to us,” they said to

Dedication: Rabbi Avirah says “In the merit of the righteous women of that generation, Israel was redeemed from Egypt” (Masekhet Sotah: page 11a).

1. The shofar sound and synesthesia experienced during the revelation at Har Sinai: The blare of the horn (Hebrew: shofar) grew louder and louder. As Moses spoke, God answered him in thunder (Shemot 19:19). All the people witnessed the thunder and lightning, the blare of the horn and the mountain smoking; and when the people saw it, they fell back and stood at a distance (Shemot 20:15).

2. The people were afraid to hear God speaking: “You speak to us,” they said to Moses, “and we will obey; but let not God speak to us, lest we die” (Shemot 20:16). Rashi comments that we learn from the first two commandments being written in the first-person plural and the last eight in the singular...that God proclaimed the first two commandments to Israel and the last eight to Moses (Shemot 20:1).

3. The people ate cucumbers, melons, and onions in Egypt, and continued to long for them even after they had were eating the manna (B’midbar 11:5).

4. In recognition of Miriam’s watching Moshe in the Nile River and her praise of God after the crossing to the Sea of Reeds, as long as she lived a well traveled with Bnai Yisrael in the desert (Midrash, Bamidbar Rabbah 1:2).

5. Aaron asked “[You men,] take off the gold rings that are on the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me” (Shemot 32:2). Rashi says that Aaron thought because women and children love ornaments, they would hesitate to give them up, and in the meantime Moses might arrive. The men, however, did not wait until the women and children made up their minds but they took off their own earrings; there is no reference to the women’s earrings (Midrash Tanchuma Ki Tisa 21).

6. Asking the Egyptians for jewelry: [God said to Moshe] “Each woman shall borrow from her neighbor and the lodger in her house objects of silver and gold, and clothing, and you shall put these on your sons and daughters.” (Shemot 3:22)

“...Tell the people to borrow, each man from his neighbor and each woman from hers, objects of silver and gold.” (Shemot 11:2)

The Israelites had done Moses’ bidding and borrowed from the Egyptians objects of silver and gold, and clothing. And Hashem had disposed the Egyptians favorably toward the people, and they let them have their request; thus they stripped the Egyptians (Shemot 12:3536).

7. Aaron and Moshe going together to confront Pharaoh, and Aaron telling Pharaoh what God has said: Hashem replied to Moses, “See, I place you in the role of God to Pharaoh, with your brother Aaron as your prophet. You shall repeat all that I command you, and your brother Aaron shall speak to Pharaoh to let the Israelites depart from his land…So Moses and Aaron came before Pharaoh and did just as Hashem had commanded” (Shemot 7:1-2, 10).

8. People gave Aaron their jewelry and Aaron made the Golden Calf by himself: “And all the people took off the gold rings that were in their ears and brought them to Aaron. This he took from them and cast in a mold, and made it into a molten calf (Shemot 32:3-4).

About Yehudit

After many years working as a critical care nurse and nurse-educator, Yehudit Reishtein made aliyah to be closer to her family. She then began a second career as a life-long student at Pardes, primarily learning Torah and Gemara. In order to exorcise the ghosts that had accumulated in her mind, she began writing stories. "Three Months From Egypt" was written to pay tribute to the women whose strength and faith carried our people through slavery to redemption, through the desert into the land promised to our ancestors, and through all history to the present day.

Wandering in the Wilderness

By Emma Richter

a precariously-placed cactus, teetering over the edge, knocks over, and the needles come raining down.

a shabbos meal, which is a shiva, (whispers flood the room: “nisht shabbos gurecht”) strikes a painfully ochre, syrupy chord: listen.

the guests stuff their faces — as if the world is ending — and drink from merriment into oblivion; dead tired bodies lay splayed across the couches, the pale light illuminating tears, in mourning’s choreography: no one knows what to do next. when i get home, i unshackle myself as others cannot and fall into bed plagued by the knowledge that i have nowhere left to run.

These are some of my experiences with loss, fear, and panic from this year. You may notice how I reference in both the feeling of not knowing where to go next. I imagine this is how Jews have felt throughout Jewish history: stranded in the wilderness after leaving Egypt, emptiness and uncertainty stretched before them; after the destruction of the Second Temple and the loss of their home and religious practices; after the Second World War and the Holocaust, and the destruction of their communities of hundreds of years. A central part of my personal belief system is the home as a cornerstone as well-being: when you lose your home, whether it is physical, emotional, or intellectual, you experience a great loss. Through these poem I hope to convey the vastness of that loss, and its ability to unravel.

About Emma

Emma Richter graduated from CUNY Queens College with a BA in English. While there she completed an honors thesis in her major that utilized a nontraditional, creative argumentative structure in the shape of a honeycomb. At Pardes, she is the Rabbinic Literature Research Fellow, as well as the sole administrator of the acclaimed “pardes chat o’ whimsy,” for which she has much affection. She adores Wes Anderson movies, collecting vintage clothing, and slowly combing through her collection of 997 video games. In the fall of 2023, she will begin law school to fulfill her dream of becoming a housing lawyer.