The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars
But in ourselves that we are underlings.
There are many things this parsha brings to mind for me and I thought about writing each of them so long that I only just started to write this morning.
For example, how I dislike the God portrayed in Exodus, who sometimes seems more like a court magician than adonai tzevaot, the lord of hosts, or like someone trying desperately to attract a lover. Or how I sometimes think of this reading as "I kvetch, therefore I am" as the Israelites seem unable to keep the idea of God before them even after taking part in an event as impressive as the parting of the waters.
I grew up knowing this story even though my family did not have traditional seders with the retelling. I saw "The Ten Commandments" at the Radio City Music Hall when it first came out. I went to Sunday school, where we got coloring books for all the Jewish holidays. I learned the spiritual "Let My People Go" early in elementary school.
My family even has its own Passover story. My father's father, with whom we lived, had had to leave Russia in a hurry. He had been in the 1905 revolution, and got word that the Czar's police were coming one day in the spring when he was 17; he didn't have time to say good-bye to his mother, who was at a communal bakery making matzos before Pesach.
And yet, when it came to actually sitting down to write, all that came to mind was the fact that we respond to events in our lives as the people that we are. The Israelites have been slaves for generations; all they know is dependence, and dependence on oppressors distorts our thinking. They had just lived through the plagues in Egypt and come out unscathed. In this parsha they have left Egypt and come to the Red Sea (the Sea of Reeds) when the Egyptian armies approach to try and take them back. God appears as a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night, staying between them and the soldiers and chariots. They were able, by a miracle, to cross the sea on dry land, and then to see the waters close over the powerful armies of the Pharaoh.
But they were still slaves. Freedom cannot be given to us, we must reach it ourselves.
This week I have been thinking a lot about the story of Marissa Alexander, who through a plea bargain was able to go home to her children rather than face 60 years of prison at trial. And yet she is still not "free." She is under house arrest for another two years. The prosecutor in the case has pursued her with all the fury of Pharaoh's armies and wanted even more, asking for an additional two years probation after that, which was not granted.
What crime had she committed that inspired such prosecutorial zeal?
She had, just days after giving birth, defended herself against an abusive husband, who freely admits that he would have seriously injured or killed her if she had not fired the warning shot that got her into such trouble.
She actually harmed no one. She killed no one. But she was not allowed to plead stand your ground; the prosecutor insisted that she could have left the house. But stand your ground was conceived as the right to stay in your house and defend it and yourself.
Perhaps her real crime was taking a leap to freedom.
A black woman in Florida standing her ground. An abused woman who refused finally to be abused. An abused black woman in the south who fought back, who refused the role allotted her.
Marissa Alexander became free when she fired that warning shot. So she clearly had to be locked up. She has been in prison more than 1000 days, and will be under house arrest for another two years with severely limited movement.
All for the crime of becoming free.