The Midwives started it. The Book of Genesis recounts that the midwives refused Pharaoh’s edict to kill the Hebrew baby boys. A birthing mother followed them. She saw her baby son and used the word, good, tov, recalling God’s word in creation. God saw creation and “it was good.” The word good gave the mother strength to disobey the Pharaoh; she put her baby on the Nile where high ranking women bathed. What did a mother/all mothers hope when the life of their children is threatened? That people would see a child/all children created in God’s image. It was the daughter of Pharaoh, the third in the story to act in civil disobedience. She adopted the Hebrew-forbidden-baby and named him Moses. The women’s disobedience was how Moses came to lead a slave revolt – Let My People Go.
This is our inheritance. Resisting the Pharaohs belongs to us. At times we are tempted to forget it. There are those among us who want to be Pharaoh. To deny freedom, to trample on the rights of others. To deny that we are all created in God’s image and obliterate human rights. In every generation there are those like the protesters in Israel who remember and say: dayenu. Enough. The protesters, like Moses see the burning bush – democracy and the fulfillment of Israel’s Declaration of Independence. The protesters call on us, here in America and around the world to stand with them in signing Israel’s Declaration “The state of Israel will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.
THE JEWISH PLURALIST STANDS WITH THE PROTESTERS, THE DECLARATION AND DEMOCRACY
WE WISH OUR READERS AND ALL THE INHABITANTS OF THE LAND AND THE WORLD
A joyous and meaningful Passover חג חירות שמח
A happy and fulfilling Easter
A peaceful Ramadan Mubarak رمضان مبارك مسالم
And peace and freedom to Ukraine МИРУ ТА СВОБОДИ УКРАЇНІ!