Rereading Torah Towards Liberation

The Passover week and the first week of the Omer journey, from Passover to Shavuot, offer opportunities to reflect on what kind of “getting out from under” this season is fostering and what kind of Exodus telling might support a more universal experience of “I will bring you out from under.” Images of pathways, wonders, and engraving — from the first verse of Sefer Yetzirah — suggest new ways of considering the Exodus story, how it shapes us, and how we shape it.

The material below is from Retelling Exodus for New Pathways: Seven Exploratory Journeys (TRIAL RUN), a work-in-progress shared here for the Passover-Shavuot season 5785 in hope of sparking steps toward Liberation for all.

Background on Sefer Yetzirah and R’ Jill Hammer’s Return to the Place: The Magic, Meditation, and Mystery of Sefer Yetzirah. Link to DRAFT (pdf) of Introduction/first chapter of Retelling Exodus.

This is a selection from the closing of chapter 1,”Crossroads and Carving: I will bring you out from under” in Retelling Exodus for New Pathways:

…Returning to the juncture of Isa 55:1 [“All who are thirsty, come for water!”] and Exod 15:22ff [“they traveled through the wilderness for three days, and found no water”], what can this interaction teach us about retelling Exodus more generally? When things are toughest, for us personally and for our communities, can we figure out what really nourishes us and what quenches our true thirst? How can we help one another access what really supports us?

Mycelial network. As noted above, choq is used in post-biblical Hebrew — including the language of Sefer Yetzirah — to mean fixed customs. This very usage suggests newly engraved pathways for the root chet-kuf-kuf. The concept of “fixed rule” — or statute, decree, etc., as in Exodus 12:24 and 15:25 — something immutable, engraved in stone, has shifted to include something that communities craft together, ways of being that are no less formative but far more responsive.

Chaqaq is also used, post-biblically, to mean “following in someone’s customs or footsteps.” And this brings to mind the concept, explored in the Introduction above, of Miriam’s dance as embodied prophecy. Whether conscious of our choices at every point or not, we are always following in others’ steps in our learning and practice and influencing others’ steps, too. We are, as R’ Hammer says [in Return to the Place, p.4], operating within an entity with a “mycelial feel. . .because, as we will learn, every path in the web connects to every other path.”

The appearance of Miriam’s dance/prophecy juxtaposed with God’s offering of a choq as a thirst-quencher seems worth considering here. [Check out “Miriam’s Dance as Embodied Prophecy (Exodus 15:21-22)” by Anathea Portier-Young in Journal of Biblical Literature 143:2 — cited in the Introduction — find it through your local library.] Perhaps the image of dance as prophecy help us be more conscious of what steps we are taking in our laws and customs, in our teaching and being, how our own steps contribute to the shape of the dance.

What steps are needed now? Whom do we need to follow? If we start moving in whatever ways are available to us, what effect will that have on the pathways Judaism is engraving? And, of course: If not now, when?

In closing, a thought experiment: How does the dance change if, instead of moving to we move to (1) “Mi Khamokha (“Who is like You?” from the Song at the Sea), we danced to (2) “Everything for Everyone/Todo Para Todos” ? If we move to (3) “Our Power,” how does that relate to “. . .horse and rider tossed into the sea. . .” (Exod 15:1 and 15:21)

(1) “Mi Khamokha” part of the morning liturgy

“Who is like You, יהוה, among the celestials; [Mi khamokah ba’eilim…]
Who is like You, majestic in holiness,
Awesome in splendor, working wonders [oseh feleh]!” [Exod 15:11]

With a new song, the redeemed people praised [Shira chadasha…]
Your name at the seashore.
Together they all gave thanks,
proclaimed Your kingship,
and declared: YHVH will reign for ever and ever” [Exod 15:18]
— translation borrowed from Koren siddur;
different translation of paragraph two below in (3)

There are many musical settings for these words. Hadar Institute offers a selection of Mi Khamokha tunes. R’ David Shneyer’s composition — #6 on this album at Recorded Sound Archives — seems to me to convey joy of the moment without losing a sense of the weighty, grief-filled journey around the Exodus words; recorded with members of Fabrangen Fiddlers, “Psalms Songs at Rock Creek Park” (1996), has been used in countless worship services over the decades.

(2) “Everything for Everyone/Todo Para Todos” by Adam Gottlieb

[lyrics same as title — lifting up the words of the novel by O’Brien & Abdelhadi]

This protest chant by Adam Gottlieb was inspired by Everything for Everyone: An Oral History of the New York Commune, 2052–2072 by M. E. O’Brien and Eman Abdelhadi (Common Notions, 2022).

(3) “Our Power” by Rena Branson

We will not underestimate our power any longer
We know that together we are strong (x2)

Like drops of water shape the rocks
As they rush down the falls
We know that together we are strong

שִׁירָה חֲדָשָׁה שִׁבְּ֒חוּ גְאוּלִים לְשִׁמְךָ עַל־שְׂפַת הַיָּם יַֽחַד כֻּלָּם הוֹדוּ
Shira chadasha shibchu ge’ulim l’shimcha al sfat hayam, yachad kulam hodu
[With newborn song, liberated people praised Your name on the lip of the sea. All were one in thanks.]
(May it be so!)

Find Rena Branson on Bandcamp. Check out their website for more.

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May images of pathways and wonders and engraving, dance and music and text, foster new ideas about Judaism’s central narrative and how it can foster Liberation.

May the mycelial network of Jewish learning and custom around Exodus
be shaped by new pathways,
and by a more universal experience of “I will bring you out from under.”