Dvar Torah Shmot - Am I alive?

Am I alive?

Dvar Torah- Shmot, 5773/2013

Rabbi Neil A. Tow©

In my high school years, years of staying up late doing homework, listening to Monday night football on the radio while pretending to go to sleep, dragging out of bed to get to school at 7 every morning, my brother Jeff would often do the ‘job’ of the older brother and try and ‘wake me up’ a little by saying, “Hey, are you alive?”

On days even when we have a good night’s sleep and we are fully functioning, we may wonder what it means to ‘be alive’ other than simply moving through time and space as we function as human beings, working, interacting with others, exercising, listening to music. 

To discuss ‘the meaning of life’ is a question that usually leads to nowhere since it is so vague, but to discuss the question of what it means ‘to be alive’ has real potential for relevance to us.

We hear the words of Moses speaking to his father in law in the opening lines of this week’s parsha, Shmot, the first in Sefer Shemot, the Book of Exodus.

“Moses went to Jethro his father in law and said, ‘I would like to go and return to my people in Egypt, and to see ha’odam chayim – whether they still live.’”

Whether they still live?  Moses may be aware of Pharaoh’s  sinister plans he carried out once against the Israelite children, events that occurred when he was just a baby himself.  However, God has told him to return to Egypt already to free the people.  It seems unnecessary for Moses to say, “I need to go and see if they are alive.”  So, what might Moshe Rabenu, Moses our Teacher, be teaching us in what he says to Jethro his father in law?

Saadiah Ga’on reads ha’odam chayim, whether they are alive, as ‘whether they are still living there in Egypt’ - surviving, thriving.  Moses is asking not about whether they are physically alive, but whether they are full of life and spirit, wondering whether they may be open to God’s message or closed-down, depressed, and in the mind-set of the slave whose only hope is to live out the day, whose only conception of being alive is mere survival at the whim of Pharaoh, a ruler who is a god to his own people and has absolute power over slave and citizen alike.

‘Whether they are alive’ is also a poignant allusion to the moment when Joseph, some time ago, asks his brothers whether his father Jacob is still alive, a moment that, as with Moses, seeks to reaffirm a loving relationship despite the distance of a long elapsed time and geography.(See Robert Alter, 5 Books, p. 329)

We find inspiration for answering ‘what it means to be alive’ in Jewish thinking, “Choose life, that you may live,” It is up to us to not only survive but to register connection with the world, to be aware, to feel the pain of the suffering, to join in the rising music of celebration, to feel the conflict of salty tears shed in a moment when doubt turns certainty and predictability into question marks that fill our hearts. 

We could all benefit from asking ourselves every day, ‘Am I alive?’ Am I alive to those I care about – fully present and engaged, hitting the ‘stop’ button on my own internal monologue long enough to hear and appreciate their beauty, wonders, interests, and dreams?   Am I alive to myself, honest with myself about how I am feeling, what I value and whether I am doing something about what I value, whether I am doing something about the world in which I wish I could live?  Am I alive to my community, interested and engaged in its hopes and struggles, patient with its idiosyncrasies and struggles, with its projects?  Am I alive to God, aware of the colors and sounds of the winter wind, the way the Torah story catches my attention and draws my eyes back each time from the cacophony of petty distractions that surround us.  Can I hear the call to justice that rings out every moment?

When Moses speaks to his father in law, following God’s commission of Moses as co-ambassador to Pharaoh with his brother Aaron, we have a key turning point when Moses himself takes up the mission and does something proactive to get it started, the first step in the journey of a thousand miles.  In this dialogue with Jethro, Moses affirms that he is alive, that he is aware of what he must do and is now determined to begin.

May this Shabbat be the energizing step forward into being alive that will circulate through our souls what we have discussed so that each day, whether it is covered in the hard shells of despair, or sparkling and sending light into the world, will be a day when we choose to be fully alive.

Shabbat Shalom.