Why We SHOULD Speak Out About The TRUTH： Faith Talk
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153.28047
Summary
When the death of the firstborn occurs, Pharaoh can t resist any longer, and tells the Israelites to get out of his land. They leave so quickly that there is no time for their dough to rise, and all they can bring is matzot.
Transcript
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So if you haven't listened to the podcast before, quick explanation of what this section is of my
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podcast. Every week we do a Torah portion and I talk about what is going on in this week's
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Parsha. Parsha means Torah portion in Hebrew and it's it's I love doing this section of the
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podcast because I love talking about the Torah. I think it's so fascinating. I did realize that
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because I record a week in advance, you all are hearing last week's Torah portion each week. So
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I'll say this week's Torah portion, but truly you're hearing last week's Torah portion. But
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in any case, in today's Torah portion, we're talking about bow, which means come as in come
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to Pharaoh. So in this week's Parsha, God brings the last three plagues upon the Egyptians.
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Locusts, which eat all the crops, a darkness so thick and palpable the Egyptians can't even move
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within it and the death of all the firstborn in Egypt at midnight. Before God brings the last
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plague, he tells Moses that after this after this plague, Pharaoh will drive them out of the land
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of Egypt. He'll shoo them out. He'll say, get out of here. He won't just let them go. He will
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legitimately tell them to, you must leave. Before they leave, the Jews are told that they should
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ask the Egyptians for their gold, silver, and anything of value. The Israelites are also told
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that they should bring a Passover offering to God, a kid goat to be slaughtered. And it's a lamb or a
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kid goat to be slaughtered. And the blood should be sprinkled on the doorposts of Israelite homes so that
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God should pass over them when he comes to bring the plague of killing the Egyptian firstborns.
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And the roasted meat of that offering is to be eaten together with matzah that night and bitter
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herbs. Are you getting where we are? We're getting Passover. This is the story of
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Passover. And these are the laws. And it's very interesting because in the Torah, we're getting
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actual laws that we use during the Seder on Passover. When the death of the firstborn occurs,
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Pharaoh can't resist any longer. And he tells the Israelites to get out of his land. They leave so
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quickly that there is no time for their dough to rise and all they can bring is matzah. There's also
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a few different commandments, mitzvot, that are shared in this Torah portion. But I have a question.
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So my question this week is, why did the Jews need to put blood on their doorposts? Wouldn't God know
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who the Israelites were? Why did they need to delineate themselves as Israelites, separate from
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the Egyptians? God knows who we are. He knows I live here and Sarah lives next door. He knows
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where we all who we all are, where we all are. So why are we doing something to like clarify it to
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God? God knows. I always found that funny, right? Is we're going to put blood on the doorposts. So
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I'll know to Passover. Come on. God knows. Like, why do we have to do that? Why did we have to do that
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extra step? So there's a good reason. God was asking the Israelites to show who believed and trusted in
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him. And not only that, he was doing it so that they could show each other who believed and trusted
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in him. So why is this true? So number one, the animals that the Jews were supposed, the Israelites
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were supposed to kill and put the blood on their door, those were actually gods to the Egyptians.
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So that was frightening. We're going to kill your gods and we're going to put, take their blood
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and put them on our doorposts so that God, our God, the God, the God who's been bringing all these
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plagues upon you, will know to pass over us and not put, and not bring this plague of the death of
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the firstborns on our children. Like, that's a little terrifying is we're going to take your God
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and sacrifice it to the God. So that's number one. I mean, that's dangerous. The Egyptians are much more
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powerful than the Israelites, right? That's why they could enslave them. So that's a scary thing to do.
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But number two, this seems weird, right? You're not only killing an animal and you're taking its blood
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and then putting it on your doorframe. It's a weird thing that God is asking them to do. And
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you have to trust in God and do it, even though it seemed odd. Like, would you,
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would you trust in God enough to do that? So God wanted to see that the Israelites,
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the Israelites who did this were the ones who got to leave Egypt. They were the ones who trusted in
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God and believed in God. They were the ones who, even though this was an odd thing to do and scary
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thing to do, they did it. And it showed their faith. Now, why did God need to know that they're,
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that they're, that they had faith in him? The truth is he didn't. They needed to know.
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They needed to know themselves. They needed to prove to themselves that they had that faith in God.
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And I always think that's an interesting thing because we always say things like God needed us
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to prove or show our faith in him. But really, God doesn't need to know anything. He wants us to do it
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for our own sake. I want you to do this thing because it is scary. And if you do it, you'll know
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that you can, you can trust in me. You know that you do trust in me. You are proving it to yourself.
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And then there's the second part of this, which is showing each other.
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If you were the only person in Egypt who was putting blood on your doorframe,
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that'd be a lot scarier than looking across the street and seeing your neighbor doing it too.
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And seeing the guy down the block and seeing two people, two houses down.
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Now, that communal strength that they drew from each other allowed them to do something so hard
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and so scary and so kind of weird without as much fear.
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We have to be brave and show what we believe in for the world to learn from.
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Right? We need to be brave in what we know is good and right.
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Even when it's hard, even when everyone else is fighting against it or telling us that we're bad or wrong.
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And by taking the steps to do that, by doing it ourselves, we are proving to ourselves that we can do this,
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that we are brave enough to do it, but it's not enough to do it on your own.
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We need one another to lean on when we do the scary thing of standing up against what's wrong in the world.
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When you know that somebody else is on your side and is doing the same thing with you,
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you are so much stronger in the stance that you take.
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So that means that A, build up and shore up your own support systems,
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but B, if you can, speak out because somebody may feel more brave about speaking out themselves because you did.
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And that multiplies, that grows the movement, both for God and for conservative values, traditional values.
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Being brave publicly about our faith strengthens our faith, our own faith and then others' faith.
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So I think that's a really great lesson that we can learn this week is sometimes being brave,
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showing what we believe, even when it's a little scary, is really important for ourselves,
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Strengthening our communities, strengthening our movements.