Last Shabbat, an extraordinary guest speaker named Alexis Kashar delivered the Dvar Torah during services at my synagogue. She spoke of the need to remove the obstacles that exclude some people from participating fully in the joys and responsibilities of Jewish community. As we read the Master Story of our people - the journey from slavery to freedom - we should take note of other forms of bondage that cry out for liberation. A Jewish community that is concerned with such matters is a community that others will want to join, she said, because it speaks to everyone's primary interests and desires about community.

 

This message was made all the more poignant by the person delivering it. Alexis is an accomplished lawyer, wife and mother of three beautiful young children. She is a civil rights attorney and an innovative self-starter. She advocates on behalf of those who have no voice, because like her, they are deaf - perhaps the most isolated and under-represented segment of the Jewish community.  She delivered this speech in ASL, with an interpreter speaking off-stage, so all we saw was Alexis.  We watched her amazingly expressive hands, but it was her  inspiring work for  this underserved community that spoke volumes.

 

There are many reasons for expanding our methodology of inclusion in the Jewish community today, beyond the very basic quest for survival. We will survive, as we always have, so there needs to be something more. We must open our tent because that is what a thriving, and not merely surviving, community does. Yet, we often fall short of this obvious, and easily ameliorated, goal. So we need to look for guidance in our actions, and as usual, it is to be found in the blueprint of our existence as a people.

 

This week's parashah, Bo, continues the narrative of our Master Story. It contains the last three plagues, the exchanges with Pharaoh, and then the culmination into a Levitical description of Pesach and our requirements for re-experiencing our story in perpetuity. But at the heart of this episode is a very interesting and telling exchange between Moses and Pharaoh. Moses implores Pharaoh to let the people go - all the people. Pharaoh offers to let just the men go to worship in the wilderness, but the women and children must stay behind. But that would never do. Freedom is for all the people; worship is for all the people. Moses speaks these words: "We will all go, young and old; we will go with our sons and our daughters; our flocks and herds..." No one is to be left behind.

 

This emphasis on bringing along all the people, no matter their station, ability or identity - forms the paradigm for peoplehood that was established in those moments and continues to this day. We may not always be true to this principle, but here you see it; in the very core of the hour of our deliverance. It’s all or nothing. Even in the face of the final three plagues, the offer to divide the people would not do. For this, there could be no compromise. Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson describes it this way: "That spirit of inclusion began at the very beginning, in the heated arguments between Moses and Pharaoh. And from the start, Moses taught us that a Judaism that cannot make room for all Jews is no Judaism at all."

 

Those who lead in the Jewish community must make this part of our mantra, as much as any other worthwhile endeavor. Especially for those of us concerned with sustaining and building Jewish community through philanthropy and service - the call to inclusion must be paramount in our efforts. We come from diverse backgrounds and perspectives, but we share a common bond: we were all slaves in Egypt, and then we were all redeemed from Egypt. We must earn that redemption each and every day through our very actions in perpetuating Jewish community.

 

The Torah tells us that 600,000 people left Egypt within hours of the last exchange between Moses and Pharaoh. It is an interesting number for us in the UJC/Federation system, because it is approximately the number of participants we count today amongst all our federations. And just as our ancestors went forth into the wilderness to worship, we must go forth through our own wilderness with equal purpose and optimism. It will only work if we all journey together, and encourage more and more to join our ranks. And they will only join our ranks if we make ourselves open and inviting. The equation is simple; the solution is in our hands.

 

Hands that say a thousand words.
 
Shabbat Shalom!