What is your drug of choice?
We’re at the end of Shemot, Exodus, during which we fled Egypt, began our journey out of slavery to the Promised Land, witnessed many miracles, and experienced the greatest theophany: the receiving of the Torah (The Ten Commandments) at Mt. Sinai. Before I share a modern parable, let me tell you that this narrative doesn’t end here. The next book, Vayikra, covers only a one-month period, revealing the various korbanot, offerings about which there are many misunderstandings, and used by theologians to justify their interpretations and traditions that were never God’s intention.
Over the last few years, I have been teaching about Paradigm Shifts. You would be surprised at how difficult it is to change our way of thinking when we are totally convinced about what we have accepted as truth. I do not believe that religious people intentionally choose to lie to us. I think they just don’t want to look within; they are very comfortable with who they are and what they know, and they refuse to be moved from their place, especially for those who are extremely stubborn or very religious.
This stems from pride, from which we need to run. Humility is a characteristic of people who walk with God, like Moses and Yeshua. Religious people show off how good they are compared to others. We need to be who we are. Keeping up appearances means nothing to Him; He sees our hearts. Believing blindly is not what Torah teaches. Our Creator gave us Free Will – Bechirah Chofshit – so that we can make the right choices. Both Abraham and Moses were friends of the Creator, and both were very humble, with no need to show off. This is the true characteristic of a person who truly walks with the Creator. Religiosity is a way of showing off before others. Let’s just be who we are! Our beloved Rabbi Yeshua told us that everything comes from within, not from outside. Are we living a life in which appearances are more important than being real? Religious people may say that it is better to keep up appearances even if we don’t believe them; to believe in the dogmas even if we don’t believe them, until we become robots.
We will see the transition of the Israelites from slaves to free, but the change of paradigm is very difficult. The generation that left Egypt would spend forty years in the desert and would still be unable to enter and take the Promised Land. It would be the new generation to do that. It is important to me that I help you understand that change is a process. Each new part of the journey for the people of Israel would take time; it was a “weaning” process, like a mother weaning her baby from nursing. Little by little, the child becomes more self-aware and starts to separate itself from the mother; that is what the Creator was doing with Israel. Many of the religious paraphernalia were copies of what they had experienced in the past, but now they would begin to transition away from them. In Egypt, idolatry had been part of everyday life, so now they would slowly transition from the heavy “drug of idolatry”. A heroin addict is not wrenched away from his addiction in one shot, but is given methadone, a lesser drug in decreasing doses. Israel was leaving a very heavy, drug-like religious setting and little by little, the Creator would remove the paraphernalia attached to that life of idolatry so that they could slowly turn their gaze from those elements onto Him alone. The Egyptians had opulent temples for their gods, with priests dressed in splendid garments, which the people of Israel saw as the epitome and wanted for themselves.
Israel was immature, like a child who wants to touch everything. They had grown up with beautiful gods, images, sculptures, pictures, paintings, palaces, and temples, and now they were being asked to accept an invisible, transcendental God they could neither see nor touch. Even Moses himself cried out to God to show him His Face, but the first thing our Creator told Israel was to not make any likeness or image of Him. He was telling us that He is the God of history, who brought them out of the land of Egypt. He was showing them that He was the real God, that He would be with them, and they could no longer turn back to those things. It would take courage and time for the people of Israel to adjust.
In Vayikra, we will learn about the differences between the sacrifices to the gods of Egypt and the offerings to the God of Israel – a weaning process to point them in a new direction. A Paradigm shift is never easy. When I first came to Montreal in 1992 to found this community, I was interviewed by a journalist from the Jewish Newspaper. The first thing I told him was: “I am not a Christian”. That is how people see anyone who believes Yeshua’s teachings. From then on, I was blacklisted by both the Jewish and Christian communities, who had no idea what I really believed. People love to categorize and put us in a box. God is not asking us to classify ourselves according to the dogmas of the many religions; He wants a relationship with us.
People have asked me why the Creator didn’t wave His “magic wand” and immediately erase from their minds all that the Israelites had learned in Egypt? My answer to them is “Free Will”. He respects us and doesn’t want us to be robots.
We are now ending the Book of Exodus with this double parashah, Vayakhel-Pekudei. We finished reading Terumah, Tetzaveh, and in the middle, Ki Tissa, we read about the Golden Calf and return again from chapters 25-31 to the building of the Mikdash: “You shall make me a dwelling in which I will dwell among them.” The Creator would always be among us, but everything changed with the golden calf incident. Now we would spend the rest of our journey toward the Promised Land rebuilding trust by doing teshuva and reconciliation.
Before I continue, I would like to give you a modern-day Midrash to help understand this parashah. There is a typical young couple who decide to live together before the wedding; whether we like it or not, this is the mode of the day. They are preparing their house and buying everything they need to furnish it; then they set the date for their wedding. Since they were already living together, the wedding is simply to make it official. The understanding of the sanctity of the bride and groom coming together for the first time after the wedding has been lost in this day and age.
Soon, the groom tells the bride he has to go on a business trip, but before he leaves, he gives her a special framed picture of the vows of love they will share. He put it on display in the center of their living room wall, which she accepts as a sign of their deep commitment to each other. He leaves on his business trip, and while she is preparing the house, an old flame of hers shows up. He asks about her future husband and learns that he is away on business. During this time, he invites her out, sends her flowers and comforts her in her loneliness. The groom hadn’t contacted her for over a month, so she began to fear that he was never coming back. In a moment of weakness and desperation, she had a short affair with this old flame of hers. At that moment, the happy groom returns, and looking forward to seeing him, discovers his bride with her friend. In a fit of rage, he takes their framed picture of their vows off the wall and tears it to shreds. The bride breaks into tears, sorry for what she has done, sobbing that she didn’t know whether he would ever come back. The groom pities the bride and says that he would renew their vows, but this time she would have to make some changes because he no longer trusts her. This is a modern parable of that ancient story of the process between Israel and her God. Who needed to rebuild trust – the groom or the bride? We might say both. There would need to be reconciliation and total forgiveness from the groom, so that he wouldn’t constantly throw this incident back in her face.
These pictures help us to better understand our Creator and how much He loves Israel. The bride not only repented, but we now understand why they wanted to bring so much to the building of the Mikdash, to the point that the Creator had to tell them to stop. They all gave with a glad and willing heart. This is a true relationship. In this picture are all the ingredients of true love, accepting reconciliation and true teshuvah. The only way to be forgiven is not by tearing ourselves into little pieces or blaming someone else or looking for someone else to die for us, or an animal whose neck is cut, and putting its blood on the altar, but the only way for the Creator to give absolution is through “true teshuva” – turning back to Him. Our Creator knows our hearts. We can fool anyone; we are great at lying, even to ourselves. We invented and have believed our own lies. That is what happens in the religious world. We create lies and make them truth. What happens when we do that? We destroy the truth!
Our Messiah, our Rabbi Yeshua, taught us many wonderful sayings that were already part of our traditions and folklore, like the modern-midrash that I brought you today. I didn’t make it up. I read it and told it to you today. Yeshua was a very brilliant teacher and prophet, and my messiah. He told the people not to follow religion but to come back to God. At his time, religiosity was a drug. Whoever didn’t follow the religious factions’ instructions was the odd man out. My nature was born to go against the current. I don’t do things because I like to; when someone tells me something, I take my time and analyze it to see if it holds water. I am so glad that I had a revelation from the Creator because I don’t believe even in my own shadow. A little faith to me is a miracle. Our Creator is so gracious and wonderful
Here is my point, Yeshua said, “You shall know the Truth and the Truth shall make you free.” We need to understand what true freedom is. It is not about being libertine. True freedom is the opposite: it means we are responsible and care about others. Truth in Hebrew is EMET, and is one of the terms used by our sages to say the name of God out loud without pronouncing the Tetragrammaton YHVH. They made this a law so that we would not break the Third Commandment, which warns us not to take His name in vain. God wasn’t telling us that we cannot utter His name. That is religiosity, which puts people in a prison as if we can’t trust in a relationship with the Creator. What kind of God do we have if He cannot hear us or is too busy? Religious people are constantly trying to appease their gods to gain their favor. Can I gain the favor of the Creator? Doesn’t He know who I am at the core of my being? He is not our enemy waiting to point a finger at us. He is a loving father (or even mother) who wants the best for us and is on our side. The only time He is our enemy is when we are being destructive of all that He has given us.
This is why we need to change our paradigms. That is what getting out of Egypt means. Slavery means you don’t need to think for yourself, but you obey your taskmasters. Don’t follow men, follow the Creator. Our prophet Jeremiah said, “…cursed is the man who trusts in man and blessed is the man who trusts in God.”
Where are you in your process of getting rid of the drugs of your past? When I was young, one of my heroes was Karl Marx. He said that “Religion is the opiate of the people”. Today I understand what he meant. Drugs destroy our brain cells, but we are always given a second chance. My God is the God of beginning again. Are you changing your way of thinking, open to shifting your paradigms? It may not be easy, but it is doable.
Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi Netanel ben Yochanan (Ranebi) Z” l