After the eighth plague, Pharaoh finally agrees to let the Israelites go worship God in the wilderness, but he wants to know who exactly is going – mi vami hahalkhim (Exodus 10:8). Moshe says:
בִּנְעָרֵ֥ינוּ וּבִזְקֵנֵ֖ינוּ נֵלֵ֑ךְ בְּבָנֵ֨ינוּ וּבִבְנוֹתֵ֜נוּ בְּצֹאנֵ֤נוּ וּבִבְקָרֵ֙נוּ֙ נֵלֵ֔ךְ כִּ֥י חַג ה’ לָֽנוּ׃
With our young and our old we will go; with our sons and our daughters, with our sheep and our cattle we will go, for it is a festival of God for us (Exodus 10:9).
Pharaoh responds: lo khen, not that way, that’s not right. It should be only the gevarim, the full grown men, who go. No one else.
Pharaoh vs God’s Visions of Redemption
I believe there is a deep underlying disagreement here between the divine vision and Pharaoh’s vision of who is included in both divine service and in ultimate redemption. For Pharaon it is only the gevarim, that word for “men” which implies strength, only the strong full grown males, the norm, the ideal. Everyone else is excluded. But for God it is always everyone, all ages, all sexes, both human and animal. While the world often functions along Pharaoh’s lines, preferring some and excluding others, God’s vision of redemption is one of radical inclusivity. We are all gathered up by God.
Imagining Pharaoh’s Circle
Pausing here to feel into this difference. First imagining a circle of dancers that is tightly monitored by Pharaoh-like bouncers. Your id and qualifications, your age and sex and ethnicity, are checked before you can join the circle, and many are rejected and sit forlornly on the outside of the circle, not allowed entrance, gazing longingly at the inner ones. Whether you imagine yourself on the inside or the outside of the circle, sensing the whole feel of the scenario. We have all been excluded or left out at some point. And even when we are included, if others are on the outside, there is a deep sense of loss and incompleteness, something missing, something painfully wrong. This is the Pharaoh world which unfortunately we often do inhabit.
Imagining God’s Circle
But God’s vision of ultimate redemption is of radical inclusivity. We gather everyone of all shapes and sizes and colors and ages and bring them along. Otherwise it is not complete. So imagining now a wide circle, maybe a bit messier, maybe a lot messier, a giant swirl of interlocking circles of old and young, some real little ones who can barely walk and babies in their parents’ arms, the elderly hobbling along with a cane or a walker, male and female and maybe nonbinary, too, and a few sheep bahhing and prancing amidst the crowd, see all that swarming mass and let yourself belong to it. There is no danger of exclusion for you or anyone else. There is a sense of wholeness in the inclusion, even if at times it is disorderly and difficult. But there is also a sense of interlocking aid and support, the old calming the very young and the young ones brightening everyone with their enthusiasm, the strong ones offering to carry those who can no longer walk, and everyone laughing at the antics of the sheep and marveling at the talent of some unknown singers among them. Feel in your heart your own yearning for such a world, your yearning for the radical embrace, the welcome, the belonging of it, let that yearning fill your body. We bring it about by at least first envisioning it and yearning for it. No one left out.
God’s Yes
This vision is one of a giant ken, a giant “yes” to all. Pharaoh here says – lo ken, literally, “no yes,” no to this yes, no to this big yes of God. Later in the desert the daughters of Tzolfhad bring up a question of women’s inheritance and God says to them, to these women, – ken, yes (Numbers 27:7). Yes, you, too, belong. This is the ken that Pharaoh rejects, this yes of inclusion. Maybe feeling inside you the possibility of such a giant divine yes, what it would mean to feel that yes for yourself and everyone you meet. Yes to you and to you and to you. It is only Pharaoh who wants to say no to all those yeses, to close the doors. But we can keep the divine yes in our hearts.
Slower, At the Pace of the Young Ones
Acknowledging, too, that it wouldn’t always be easy to live in such a yes world. If we think back to Yaakov, he travels in such an inclusive caravan with all his many children and wives and animals, and when he meets up with Esav who is travelling only with men, 400 strong fighting men, Yaakov understands that he can’t keep up, and (after they reconcile) tells Esav to go on ahead (Genesis 33:12-14). We are forced to slow down, to go at the pace of the slowest among us, the tender little ones and the elderly who cannot be rushed. Sensing the stragglers in your own circle and feeling the commitment to slow down and bring them along, not to leave them behind.
A Joyous Festival
There is a price to pay for such radical inclusivity, but also great rewards. When Moshe says that we will all be leaving together, he isn’t just imagining a jailbreak, a release from enslavement. He is envisioning a joyous celebration, a chag Hashem, a festival of God. And the definition of such a chag is an ingathering of all different types of people. As it says in Devarim: veesamachta bechagekha atah uvinkha uvietkha, avdekha, . . . “And you shall rejoice in your festival, you, and your son, and your daughter, and your male and female servants, and the Levite, and the stranger, and the orphan, and the widow who are in your gates” (Deuteronomy 16:14). . Joy comes from inclusion, the radical inclusion of a full table with no one missing. Sensing in your own heart that capacity, that inkling, the opening and overflowing of love and embrace and welcome. Sensing, too, maybe the closed hearted Pharaoh inside you who wants to close doors, and if you can, offering that Pharaoh a tiny taste of this overflowing love and inclusivity, welcoming him, too, even as we take away some of his power to exclude.
Explosion of Light
As we enter this welcoming divine space more and more, we feel the radiance of the light generated by the joining of all these beings in a circle of connection. Each of us brings our own unique light into the world and together there is an exponential explosion of brilliance. When we close the door to some of us, we are losing that light, saying no to a particular spectrum of divine light, so that our own access becomes limited and incomplete, the light dimmed and dulled, diminished.
Each a Microcosm
Everything that is true on the outside is also true on the inside. Internally, we are each a microcosm of the larger society. We all have inside us young and old parts, male and female parts, embodied animal parts as well as many other diverse parts. We also often have inside us a Pharaoh that closes our hearts and blocks access to some of these parts, insisting that the only one that matters is the gever, the strong invincible stereotypical male, society’s norm and perfect ideal, denigrating and exiling the others.
Who Is Being Excluded Inside
Maybe you can ask yourself – of all these parts, who has my Pharaoh been excluding? How have I, through my Pharaoh’s closed heart, limited who I am, limited my access to the divine light, closed my own inner circle to certain parts of myself? Sometimes we ask ourselves – what am I experiencing right now. But I think another question we might ask is – what am I NOT experiencing right now? What am I not allowing myself to feel? Who have I not allowed into the dance of my existence? When we close off certain parts of ourselves, we become less alive, our dance less colorful and vibrant. So what have you currently closed the circle to inside you? It may be difficult emotions like fear or hurt or rage or anxiety or deep sadness or grief. And surprisingly, it may also be experiences like love or joy or gentleness or strength or self care, qualities that may have been considered dangerous to manifest when you were growing up. Perhaps in this moment there is a part of you, perhaps a young child with an aching wound, who has been knocking on your door. Or maybe you have never fully allowed in what might be considered your gever male part, a sense of your own empowerment and strength and confidence, the permission to take up space and assert yourself. Feeling the loss of light in not allowing those parts in and maybe opening the door, opening the circle, letting in some of both their pain and their light. And taking this question with you: Who has been missing at my table?
Saying Yes
Noticing the Pharaoh inside you that has been saying no, and turning instead to the divine force of ken, of yes, of radical inclusivity, knowing that it is all divine, all sacred, every part of you deserving honor and welcome, every part a precious piece of the larger puzzle without which you are incomplete, making the world incomplete. Redemption comes on a macro and a micro level with each greater “yes” we can offer inside and outside us. Right now letting some of that divine yes permeate your system and beckon home some of the lost parts of you from the far flung corners of the universe, an ingathering of exiles. Sensing how the yes draws them back home, and sensing the possibility of that vibrant wide and wild circle of inclusive dancing inside you as well as outside. We are integrating, drawing in, balancing opposing forces, making ourselves and our world more whole. Leshem yichud kudsha brikh hu ushekhintei. For the sake of the reunification of the Holy One Blessed Be He and His female part, the Shekhinah, the divine presence. We offer this yes, this embrace, for God’s integration as well. Male and female, old and young, sorrow and joy, strength and vulnerability, bringing them all into the circle in one big joyful divine festival, a chag, a celebration of radical inclusivity and welcome. See all your parts holding hands and feel your own wholeness, and through you, a movement toward God’s wholeness and the world’s wholeness. .
Image by Pixabay at Pexels
