Shemot - Don’t be afraid to look at pain
Exodus 1:1 - 6:1 | Isaiah 27:6 - 28:13, 29:22 - 23
Summary: Transformation often requires to look squarely at the thing that is in the way, the thing that hurts. To look directly at pain and keep hold of faith, hope, purpose, and love - this is the key.
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A newish form of sacred art became popular toward the end of the 18th century called a ‘shiviti.’ The words ‘shiviti’ is from Psalm 16, where King David writes, “I have placed (‘shiviti’) God’s Name before me at all times.” These works of art provide ways to literally have God’s name before one’s eyes as a form of meditation. A person could stare at these holy letters (often adorned on the parchment of poster with other combinations of letters reflection additional permutations of God’s name) and be reminded of the realness and closeness of God, and this would help a person focus properly during prayer and contemplation.
How wonderful to have something you could look at that gets you there every time, that reminds you of what it’s all about it and helps you focus, and perhaps helps you to act virtuously. Some people have a photograph or a work of art, a sticker on their computer or a screensaver or even a tattoo that reminds them, every time they see it, what it’s all about.
But we need not buy posters and bumper stickers or pin up photographs - and we certainly do not need to get tattoos (though I’ve always secretly wanted one) - in order to find visual reminders of what it’s all about. We are literally surrounded by such reminders. You can usually get there pretty quickly by opening your heart a bit and then opening a newspaper, or looking into the eyes of someone you love, or taking in the full experience of another person. Let the pains and joys and dreams and disappointments of a fellow human reach you, and you will see what it is all about, and you will have no problem focusing in your prayers and contemplations. But who wants to look?
The problem isn’t a lack of reminders. The problem comes from an unwillingness to look at them. Why not look at them? It’s just too painful. Who wants to see, really see, that someone they love is suffering? Who wants to look at such a reality squarely and let it in? Maybe we choose not to because it makes us feel helpless, or stupid, or both. Amplify that toward taking in the reality of entire families, communities, tribes, nations, peoples, races, genders, species - who can take it?
And what if a person who believes that, more or less, such suffering is caused, or at least allowed, by the God - who could bear to look into the heart of such a devastatingly confusing paradox?
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So you can understand why Moses didn’t want to look at what he saw at the heart of the burning bush. Here is a shrub that symbolizes the Jewish people and it is on fire. These people - his family - they are suffering. These noble people have been in Egypt for 200 years. They do not even remember their homeland. Their children have been taken from them and murdered. They feel forgotten and forsaken by the God Who sent them there. It is too difficult to look.
It is too difficult to look at the suffering and also remember that it, too, comes from the Source. I can either look and forget the Source or close my eyes and remember the Source. But to see both - this is too difficult.
But literally redemption, salvation, transformation, evolution, compassion, connection, love, peace - all of this depends on being able to look and to remember at the same time. To look into the heart of darkness and see light, to look directly at pain and keep hold of faith, hope, purpose, and love - this is the key.
Moses’ job isn’t to permanently rescue these people from misery. That’s not possible. He will not end death or suffering. His job is to teach them how to stay connected - to themselves, to each other, to their senses of purpose, to the Source - through all the things they will experience. He cannot protect them from life but he can teach them how to live prayerfully, with awareness, purposefully.
So, yes. We should write ‘shiviti’ on a poster and hang it up in the synagogue. That sound fine. Let’s just make sure we also put them above hospital beds, at the entrances of memory wards, on the backs of traffic tickets, prominently on the letterhead of college rejection letters, and immediately below the headlines of the most angsty newspapers.