SERMON: Parashat Bo 10 Shevat 5781 Jan 22, 2021 Rabbi David Edleson Temple Sinai, S. Burlington, Vermont

A DARKNESS THAT CAN BE TOUCHED

In this week’s Torah Portion, Bo, we hear of the final two plagues brought against Pharaoh, plagues that lead in this portion to the first Passover and the beginning of the Exodus.

The ninth plague is darkness. After rivers of blood, locusts, hail, dead frog soup, and boils, darkness doesn’t seem all that bad. Yet it is the plague just before the death of the first born, and so was a plague that seen as the most severe possible other than massive death.

In our tradition, darkness is not evil. We read in our evening and morning prayers that God creates light and darkness, so what sort of darkness is this in Egypt?

The Torah says it was a “darkness that can be touched.” We also read that it was so dark that “the people could not see one another, and for three days no one could get up from where he was.”

What sort of darkness could keep us from even getting up from where we are?

Of course, the rabbis asked the same question. Some say it was dark even at noonday and people were so terrified they were paralyzed.

Others like the medieval commentator Sforno argue that this darkness was utterly unlike normal darkness. Normal darkness is always ready to be lit up, so a flare lights up the darkness, but that this darkness was so thick that a lit flare wouldn’t be seen.

But there is another stream of interpretation that perhaps speaks to us more directly. This stream sees this darkness not as being within us.

Rabbeinu Nissim of Gerondi, in 14th Century Spain, observed:

People could not see one another: The darkness increased until no one could see another person, so no two people partnered together due to the great difficulty, as the verse says "no one saw their brother." This is the result: when I do not feel the pain of my friend, I dull my senses--as the verse says "no one was able to arise from under it." Chidushei HaRan Al HaTorah 2:1:1:f

Reb Hanoch of Alexander, a 19th Century Hassidic Rabbi saw it this way: People could not see one another: That is to say, each individual only worried about themselves and only looked to save themselves and the members of their households – and, thus, “did not rise from under the darkness for three days.” Not a single one of them succeeded in rising above the degraded spiritual level that they were caught in. Parpera’ot La-Torah p 43

In the last century, Rabbi Issen Zalman Meltzer wrote this about the same verse:

People could not see one another, and a person could not arise from his spot, for three days: The greatest darkness is when a person does not see his fellow, and does not participate in the distress of others. They did not feel the other's distress. Their senses were dulled - "a man could not rise from his spot." This is what our Sages meant when they stated in Exodus Rabbah that "the darkness was as thick as a golden coin" Running after gold increases one's egocentrism, dulls one’s eyes, and makes it difficult for us to feel the distress of others.

So, this terrible plague was not a physical darkness, but a spiritual darkness of greed, of relationships, or empathy. It is a darkness in which people could not see one another; they could not see one another’s suffering and experience; they could not see one another’s humanity.

This is not an ancient plague in an ancient story. Just as Egypt is always with us, the “narrow place” where we are stuck longing for freedom, so this plague of darkness is always there, waiting to descend when we stop being able to see one another as human beings, and be motivated to help one another out of the mirror relationships provide. .

I often speak of the importance of SHEMA, of listening deeply, but here we are taught the value of SEEING one another, of opening our eyes and seeing one another, witnessing one another, seeing those things we like to overlook. We are also taught the importance of being seen, of allowing ourselves to be seen more fully by others. At its best, community provides us a safe and caring place to be witnessed, to feel seen.

These verses about the plague of darkness end with this:

but all the Israelites enjoyed light in their dwellings.

May that be our aspiration, to see one another more fully and to be seen more fully in this spiritual community. Let’s try and see those people in our community that get on our nerves, that we always disagree with, let’s get in the habit of seeing them, seeing them as complex full human beings with good intentions and love to give and a desire to be loved. If we can do that, we can keep the worst of the darkness at bay and have light in our dwellings. Then we must let that light spread outward in ever widening rings of being.

Ken Y’hi Ratzon.