Rabbi Carl M. Perkins
Interim Rabbi Leslie Gordon
Cantor Jamie Gloth 
David A. Farbman, President

From Exodus to Genesis -- and Back Again

April 8, 2019 | 3 Nisan 5779
Dear Friends, 

Shalom! Like, I’m sure, many of us, I have been thinking a lot about Exodus this week. That’s obvious: Pesach is coming!  
But I’ve also been thinking a lot about Genesis . Why is that?
Well, first of all, because over the past month or so, I’ve had the wonderful opportunity to study in New York and Boston with Rabbi Shai Held, a gifted contemporary Jewish scholar -- who, incidentally, during graduate school taught classes at Temple Aliyah!  

During a recent lecture at Harvard Law School, Shai spoke about how closely related Exodus and Genesis are. He presented and developed the thesis that the Exodus story is in fact the fulfillment of the story of creation told in the book of Genesis. In Genesis, God creates a new world by separating “the waters above from the waters below,” allowing a new world to flourish on the “dry land” between them. In Exodus, God re-enacts this creative process by separating “the waters to the left from the waters to the right,” giving birth to the new nation of Israel, as it walks on the exposed “dry land” between them. 

There are many other common elements to the two stories, on which Rabbi Held offered refreshing perspectives. One message of the recapitulation of the Genesis narrative in Exodus seems to be that the struggle with the forces of chaos and death remains a challenge we must face in each and every generation.

But I’m thinking about Genesis (Beresheet, in Hebrew) for another reason as well. Let me explain.  

This is a special week in Israel.

Yes, tomorrow is Election Day. As we may be aware, a new centrist party has arisen that threatens to unseat Benjamin Netanyahu, who has served as Israel's Prime Minister for ten years. (I should point out that the creation of new parties is not a novel thing in Israel; it happens in just about every election cycle.) Voting in Israel is a big deal. I have an Israeli friend who was just in New York for a series of meetings. He flew to Boston for a day or so, and would have stayed longer -- but he knew he had to return to Israel in order to vote.

No one knows how the election will turn out until after it's over.

But Election Day is not why I am thinking about Genesis. I’m thinking about Genesis not because of what is due to happen on Tuesday, April 9th, but on what is due to happen on Thursday, April 11th.  

On that day, the Israeli spacecraft known as Beresheet (“Genesis”) is due to land on the moon.

In case you missed it, the flight took off, just about six weeks ago, on February 22nd:  
Why, you may ask, has it taken so long for Beresheet to approach the moon?

Well, the Israelis couldn’t afford a gigantic Saturn V rocket. So they “hitched a ride” (or, more accurately, “shared a ride”) with a few other satellites (one from Indonesia; another from the U.S.) on board a rocket that a private company was sending up into earth’s orbit. Once there, after a forty day journey (yes, a “forty-day” journey; I’m not making this up!), they were able to “sling it” off toward the moon’s gravitational pull. (Very ingenious, inexpensive, and biblically allusive.)

If you want to see a terrific, four-minute animated depiction of the journey, click here .

Now, all Israel awaits the anticipated landing on Thursday. 

Israelis have long been interested in space exploration. We may remember the pride they felt when one of their own, Ilan Ramon , was selected to be included in the crew of the Columbia. 
We may also remember the pain when that ship was incinerated during re-entry into the earth’s atmosphere, killing the entire crew. 

Ilan Ramon’s death was felt very deeply by Israelis. He had brought with him into space several artifacts, including a copy of a drawing called "Moon Landscape" that was sketched by 16-year old Petr Ginz, who was murdered in Auschwitz in 1944.  
(Note: Ramon had brought a copy of this sketch with him on board the Columbia. The original sketch can still be found at the Yad Vashem Museum in Jerusalem. Ramon also carried with him a miniature Torah that had been given to him by Professor Yehoyachin Yosef, a Holocaust survivor of Bergen-Belsen. The sefer torah did not survive the crash.)

Needless to say, many Israelis see the flight of Beresheet as a new beginning. So far, it has managed to avoid several mishaps. And the craft has already taken beautiful pictures of the far side of the moon, such as this one:
And so, I hope that, like me, you’ll be looking at a screen at around 4 pm on Thursday, April 11th, as Beresheet is due to land in the fortuitously named, Mare Serenitatis, “The Sea of Serenity.” 

Note: The craft is expected to shoot video on its descent to the moon's surface. If you are “into” astronomy, and you would like to know precisely what to expect, click here .

I hope that all of us will be looking at a very different scene on Friday, April 19th, as we re-enact and celebrate the beginning of another great voyage, one taken not by a single solitary capsule flying through space, but by our entire people, young and old alike, as we made our way from the dehumanizing oppression of slavery, braving hostile conditions and insidious foes, to the exhilarating serenity of freedom.



That is a journey that we are called upon to imagine ourselves taking every day and every night, each and every year, so that we never forget it. It's a journey that, with our help, promises new beginnings for the oppressed and the enslaved of every generation.

Hag Sameach!

Sincerely,

Rabbi Carl Perkins