
The symmetry is staggering. The Exodus begins tomorrow. And
so it did and so does. It was the Sabbath that is called in the Jewish calendar
Shabbat Ha’Gadol/the Great Sabbath,
the Sabbath before Passover. It is the portal, the starting point of the
Exodus. It is the day on which we gather all of the sparks of intention,
committing ourselves to the journey. Thoughts and prayers on this day are meant
to be stimulus to action, to leaving Egypt. The Exodus is not a cognitive
exercise, our lives hang in the balance, and whether we come out of Egypt
depends on each one of us. The slavery has never ended because, as the prophet
Martin Luther King taught, if all are not free, then none are free. The
ultimate liberation, the complete redemption still awaits, waiting for us to
act, waiting for us to bring it. Rabbi Eliyahu Guttmacher, a remarkable 19th
century rabbi on whom I wrote a thesis many years ago, many Egypts ago, taught
that we are not waiting for the Messiah, the Messiah is waiting for us.
In the very first Chassidic
teaching that I ever learned, from my teacher, friend, and mentor, Rabbi
Everett Gendler, the Gerer Rebbe, the S’fas
Emes, teaches, in every generation
there is an exodus from Egypt according to the issue of the generation and all
of this was (contained) in the moment of the exodus from Egypt. The
challenge is illumined in the light that the S’fas Emes shines on the powerful
obligation in the Haggadah, that in
every generation a person is obligated to see himself or herself as having personally
come out of Egypt. Through the lens of the rebbe’s teaching, the obligation put
forward in the Haggadah is clear, as
free people we are not free to step back from helping to bring liberation in
the face of the the issue of the
generation.
The are so many issues today, so many inyanei ha’dor/issues of the generation, so much that threatens,
that holds us all enslaved, that holds back the ultimate redemption. We do our
best, remembering that none among us can do it all, that none of us can do it
alone. I often think of the old song that gave inspiration in those ancient
days of “the sixties,” if you can’t go on
any longer take the hand held by another….

And now that hand is extended by young people, the young
people leading the “March for Our Lives,” standing up to the idolatry of the
gun and of the Second Amendment. Whether on the long march in Washington, or in
Boston, or anywhere else across the land, every step that echoed told of the
essence of that Shabbat,
Shabbat Ha’Gadol.
That essence is about the “little child who shall lead,” as the prophet Isaiah
teaches, of the children, not so little, leading the way to that time whose
coming depends on us,
when the wolf shall
dwell with the lamb, and the leopard
shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling
together; and a little child shall lead them…(Is. 11:6-9).
Telling us of the way, of the first steps in the March for Our
Lives, we chanted through tears of yearning that Sabbath from the prophet
Malachai, Lo, I will send you Elijah the
Prophet before the great and awesome day of God, that he may turn the heart of
the parents back to the children, and the heart of the children back to their
parents…(Mal. 3:23-24).

The symmetry is staggering, of children leading the trek to
freedom. In their own words, organizers of the March for Our Lives bring
immediacy to the challenge of the
Haggadah,
reminding us that the time is now:
March
for our Lives: Boston is created by, inspired by, and led by students across
Boston who will no longer risk their lives waiting for someone else to take
action to stop the epidemic of mass school shootings and the gun violence that
has become all too familiar. In the tragic wake of the seventeen lives brutally
cut short in Florida, politicians are telling us that now is not the time to
talk about guns. March for Our Lives believes the time is now.
Believing that the time is now, as in truth it always has
been, the Massachusetts Board of Rabbis issued this week a revised version of
its statement on gun violence, originally released five years ago. Its
introduction draws on the power of Shabbat
Ha’Gadol:
Issued in February
2013, the Statement on Gun Violence of the Massachusetts Board of Rabbis is
painfully incomplete. The list of place names where mass shootings have
occurred continues to grow, and so too the list of lives taken daily by urban
gun violence. It is equally painful that recommendations made then remain
unfulfilled, continuing to be our call today.
There is also reason
for new hope today in the leadership of young people, whose courage and
commitment the Mass Board of Rabbis honors. Affirming our own continuing
commitment, we reach across the generations to help end the plague of gun
violence in America. With the hearts of parents turning to the children, and of
the children to their parents, with words very familiar to us, we will walk
together and say “Never Again.”

It is hard to keep going, even as we take the hand held by
another. On the name of that week’s Torah reading, the portion
Tzav (Lev. 6:1-8:36), as it precedes
the call of Malachi, the great commentator called Rashi speaks of the word
tzav/command and says it is
lashon zeruz/the language of encouragement.
That is the way of our words to each other now, of our reaching out across the
generations, encouraging us all to take the next step, to know that the time to
end gun violence is now. Whether physically present together or joined in
spirit across the land, wherever we find our place in this great gathering of
humanity, may our hearts turn to each other as we begin the trek to freedom
that is the March for Our Lives.
Rabbi Victor Reinstein
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