Inauguration

January 23, 2009
Rabbi Seymour Rossel

     Whether you are a donkey or an elephant, this past week was bound to be a momentous change for the history of the United States of America. If the elephants had managed to have their way, it would mark the first time that a woman was elected to the office of Vice-President. Since the donkeys had their way, the first black President was sworn in to office this past Tuesday. Throughout the election, as you know if you have been following my sporadic commentary, I have been excited by the opportunity which the presidential candidates had to speak to so many avid listeners. I say this because most presidential elections in my lifetime have proven less than providential for the country. But do not get me wrong, the fact is that the office of president has never gone necessarily to the best person in any period of our national history. But the presidency is only one-third of the structure of this great nation, so we manage to survive even when the best person does not occupy the Oval Office.

     What I have most complained about in this particular presidential election was the low quality of the rhetoric on both sides. My belief is that the president is above all a spokesperson for the people of the United States. So I look for the voice and the words that might best represent me. Despite my leanings toward the left, I have tried to be judicious in my voting and I would have to confess to having voted at one time or another for the candidate and not for the party. In other words, I hope it will not disappoint you or disillusion you to learn that I have on occasion been an elephant.

     We need not dwell on the subject of for whom I voted in the past or even whom I supported in the most current election. For one thing, neither of these is a predictor of whom I shall vote for in the next election. But, more essentially, because my concern and yours should be less for any particular party than for the good of the country, the state, the city, and even the local government. The salient point is that we can and should only be guided in our personal selections by the platforms and the rhetoric of the candidates themselves. The spoken word and the written word, these are the yardsticks by which our people, the Jewish people, have measured leadership since our earliest days.

     In this week's Torah portion, we read about the first seven plagues in Egypt. In one sense, the plagues were an event which, so the Torah tells us, was visited upon all the people of Egypt. Of course, it is unlikely that the account is accurate in any way. But let us assume for a moment that it reflects a real set of events. At the heart of the struggle was Pharaoh and a few dozen of his officials, another dozen or so of the magician-priests of Egypt, and Moses and Aaron. A plague would be threatened, then Pharaoh would harden his heart, and then the whole people of Egypt would be affected by their water turning to blood, their hair crawling with lice, frogs and flies infesting their homes. But there was no mass media in those days, so the people of Egypt, the rank and file, Marty the Builder and Joe the Plumber, would have had little if any warning before a plague struck. More importantly, they would have had only the vaguest idea of why all these things were happening to them.

     We celebrate the plagues in our Torah, but they fell mainly on innocent victims, on average folk who had no power to vote for or against the enslavement of the Israelites, average folk who were powerless to effect any change through their opinions or their lives. Except for a few taskmasters, most of the average Egyptians were also slaves in bondage to Pharaoh, and their conditions were not much better than those depicted for the Israelite slaves.

     What we witnessed on Tuesday was something far different. More than one and a half million Americans gathered in Washington to hear the words of a new President, even as citizens of our country have gathered on inaugural days 43 times before. Through television and mass media, millions more were present at the event. No one can say that we are not involved, that we, the average folk, are not the ones who truly govern our country. It is not what the new president will or will not do over the next four years that makes the practical difference in our lives. It is what we choose to do. Will we have plagues or will we have justice? Will we visit disaster upon ourselves or will we defend the constitution of our United States to protect one another and share our democracy with all who are citizens of our land?

     The immediate problems of our economy, of employment and mortgages, of war on terrorism, and of the environment and its resources being fast depleted, along with all other immediate problems, all have one thing in common. They are problems which can only be resolved with long-term solutions. A president can guide us, a congress can legislate and provide funds for us, a judiciary can balance our actions against wisdom, but, as the new President explained in his inauguration speech, we cannot expect quick fixes.

     In the meanwhile what is most important is that we speak and hear and read words that inspire us, words that fashion new meanings for us, words that bring us hope. Language is God's special gift to us. Only words can shape the values that we must reconstruct with each new generation. Only words hold the power to move us and drive us forward. Only words can express our dreams and our visions, so only words can communicate the architecture of our future actions.

     There would be no point to the plagues if the words of the Torah did not describe in them a struggle between a new vision and an old vision. The plagues are obviously a literary device. They are not what happened in the land of Egypt, but the envisioning of how bankrupt the old system was and how rich was the prospect for a new nation. God lifted us out of Egypt, but we were delivered to the words of the Torah. Therefore, I say to you today, be mindful of what you say, be mindful of the words you speak to one another, be careful to choose words that will inspire you, not words that will confine you. Be enthusiastic to share your visions for a better tomorrow, for there can only be a better tomorrow if we express it today. Do not allow your words to diminish your hopes, because in diminishing your hopes they will diminish your actions and in the end they will diminish you.

     You can be what you dream you can be, you can achieve what goals you set for yourself, you can shape your destiny through what you say and what you pray. Your future always belongs to you, your future always depends on what you say and what you do. Speak boldly to yourself, do not be shy about making promises to yourself. You are no longer enslaved in some Egypt of the mind. You are free in these great United States to dream and to vision, to pray and to speak, to listen and to read and study, to be heard. And let us say: Amen.