Divrei Rav Josh- Parshat Bo: Drum Majors for God

As we approach Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and celebrate the illustrious career of this civil rights leader, many of us will see videos and hear recitations of his famous “I Have a Dream” speech.  While I would never discount the importance of that most important public address by Dr. King, my favorite speech by King is actually a speech he gave in 1968 called “The Drum Major Instinct,” where he speaks about what it means to be a leader, and what it means to move people forward to achieve a goal.   In the conclusion of the sermon, King states the following:

“Yes, if you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice...Say that I was a drum major for peace...I was a drum major for righteousness. And all of the other shallow things will not matter...I won't have any money to leave behind. I won't have the fine and luxurious things of life to leave behind. But I just want to leave a committed life behind...And that's all I want to say” (Martin Luther King Jr., “The Drum Major Instinct,” 1968).

In this passage, King asks us to view leadership not as a process of being the center of attention for the sake of attention, but causing others to take notice when a person embodies and represents certain core values to society.   This lesson is reflected in this week’s Parshat Bo, where the parasha’s description of the Korban Pesah leads our rabbinic commentators to teach about leadership and the willingness to publicize our most sacred values.

In chapter 12 of Parshat Bo, God commands Moses with the sacrifice of the Korban Pesah, the ritual slaughtering of the lamb that will forever be connected with the holiday of Pesah.  The parasha states the following:

“The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in Egypt,   “This month is to be for you the first month, the first month of your year.   Tell the whole community of Israel that on the tenth day of this month each man is to take a lamb for his family, one for each household.  If any household is too small for a whole lamb, they must share one with their nearest neighbor, having taken into account the number of people there are. You are to determine the amount of lamb needed in accordance with what each person will eat.  The animals you choose must be year-old males without defect, and you may take them from the sheep or the goats.  Take care of them until the fourteenth day of the month, when all the members of the community of Israel must slaughter them at twilight” (Shemot 12:1-6).

In this passage, the Israelites exodus from Egypt is now linked to a particular mitzvah that they must perform each year.  However, it is not immediately as to the purpose of this mitzvah, and how performing it will forever link the Jewish people with their experience in Egypt, a question closely examined by our rabbinic commentators.

In an early midrash, the commandment of the Korban Pesah is linked to the relationship of the Israelites to God more generally, and the midrash argues that the command sought to move the Israelites away from idolatry, and towards worship of their God.   The midrash states:

“So it was with Israel when they were in Egypt that they were given to idolatry and did not forsake it, as it is written: “But they did not every man cast away the abominations of their eyes” (Ezekiel 20:8).  Said the Holy One Blessed be God to Moses: “As long as the Israelites worship the Egyptian gods, they shall be redeemed.  Go and tell them to forsake their every ways and repudiate idolatry- as it is written: “Draw out and take you”- that is to say: Withdraw your hands from idolatry and take you a lamb, and slaughter thereby the gods of Egypt and make the Passover”” (Shemot Rabbah 16:2).

According to the midrash, centuries of living under Egyptian rule made the Israelites too familiar with idolatrous practices.  Furthermore, after assuming that it was their lot in life to be enslaved, and most likely believing that their God was nowhere to be found, the midrash also assumes that the Israelites’ experience in Egypt drew them away from the service of their God.  As result, the midrash reasons that the Korban Pesah exists for the purpose of transitioning the Israelites from a desolate spiritual relationship to God to a newfound relationship with God that will sustain the test of time.

In a later commentary from the nineteenth century, Rabbi Yaakov Tzvi Mecklenburg, whose commentary is known as Ha-Ketev V’HaKabbalah, argues that the Korban Pesah fits into a larger series of actions by God intended to help the Israelites see what possibilities can exist in the divine-human relationship, following the release of the Israelites from Egyptian bondage.   The commentary states:

“The Israelites themselves were responsible in part for deferring their own redemption.  First they had to be purified and show by some outstanding act of self-sacrifice that they had repented of their ways.  If they were willing to place their lives in danger in order to carry out the wishes of the Almighty, that would be a true token of their love of God.  Consequently, God commanded them to slay the Egyptian god under conditions of the widest publicity.  First they had to procure the lamb, lead it through the streets without fear of Egyptian reaction, second, to slaughter it family by family, in groups and finally they had to sprinkle its blood on the doorposts for every Egyptian passer-by to see, braving the vengeance of their former persecutors.  Their fulfillment of every detail of this rite would be a proof of their complete faith in God.  In the words of the Sages, the blood would be a token “to you” and not to others”  (HaKetev V’Ha-Kabbalah).

Mecklenburg’s commentary emphasizes the way in which the Korban Pesah can be seen as an act of civil disobedience, where the Israelites show they willingness to defy the Egyptians’ god, people, and societal conventions all through the performance of this sacrifice.   As a result, the Korban Pesah can be seen as both a public statement of the Israelites’ relationship with their God, and a public refutation of the societal values of a society that gave them such hardship for generations.  Each year that the Israelites make this offering before God, they are renewing their belief in the values that God wanted them to “shout” from the rooftops as the Israelites stood on the precipice of leaving Egypt.

When Dr. King spoke about the “Drum Major Instinct,” he challenged us to think about when we will take the plunge and represent the values that can change society and the world.   Similar to the way in which God’s command of the Korban Pesah challenges the Israelites to speak out about the values they are rejecting in Egyptian society, we have the responsibility to teach our children about how they can be upstanders and represent the values we want to teach them, even when our children face others that may want to reject those values.  As we celebrate Martin Luther King Day, may we help our children see what it means to be drum majors for God, Torah, and the Jewish People, and represent the values that will change them, and change the world.

Shabbat Shalom!