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MAGID 5784 All Eyes on Rafah
It is written in the torah diverse multitudes left mitzryim, diverse multitudes resisted oppression together grassroots ruby rousers made beautiful trouble inside the house of the oppressor, defiant doulas refused to cooperate with the hands of death. They had their own plans. The diverse multitudes stood at Sinai. The exodus story was never about one people, it was always about a universal common cause, pushing together against freedom’s gate shouting to the rest of the world and each other, ‘Open, open the gates of freedom. Do you see us? We are human beings.’ Like the people of Gaza, watching their children die and the shores of the red sea seem far away, and they have already walked and walked like Mother Hajar who ran from place to place With her dying child in her arms, crying out. The divine heard her cry and water rose from the ground under her feet. But, Israel has turned off the tap of life and there is no water to drink, No food to eat, no safe place to sleep, no sanitation, no medicine, no rest from the smell of death. In our name, the Mashkheet stalks the land of the the innocent and Israel has become a destroyer of worlds, Creator of an assassination zone, a death camp, a ruined world, Where no child is safe. To what can this be compared: to the ancient oral narrative that sparked an uprising, as our ancestors tell it, as it was passed down and came to rest in Pesikta De Rebbe Eleazar, A young mother named Rachel bat Shutelah was one of the poor Hebrews forced to gather and mix straw and mud to make bricks for the granaries of Pharaoh. The coarse stubble pierced their heels, mingling their blood with clay. A task master with a hard heart beat Rachel without mercy, even though birth pangs shook her body and she cried out in labor. As the rod fell upon her back, Rachel bat Shutelah’s infant child fell from her womb into the mud and drowned. The defiant doulas and their guardian angel pulled the child from the mud and began keening and “Shekinah heard our cry, saw our affliction, our misery, our oppression,” and the time of freedom was soon upon us. Nisan 5784, we step into the task of defiant doulas And refuse to turn away from the cry of the people of Gaza, Tonight we consecrate the spirit of intifada Intifada born in the desire of liberation from oppression Like Miriam who was called Puah because of her defiant voice We unleash the roar of solidarity’s thunder, loud as the crashing waves of the sea upon the shore. We pledge our faithfulness and will not surrender our resistance until Palestine is free from the river to the sea. Tonight, renew the ancient spirit of the mixed multitudes singing open the waters of the sea, so everyone can pass through.
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