Redemption From Poverty

Another short video sermon

‘Tis the season for short Passover video sermons! Youtube link below, and text follows. The Torah reading for the seventh day of Passover is the story of the crossing of the Reed Sea (Exodus 13:17–15:26) - which, according to tradition is the anniversary of that miracle. Curiously, the reading extends a few verses after that episode ends, into the following story:

Then Moses caused Israel to set out from the Sea of Reeds. They went on into the wilderness of Shur; they traveled three days in the wilderness and found no water.
They came to Marah, but they could not drink the water of Marah because it was bitter; that is why it was named Marah.
And the people grumbled against Moses, saying, “What shall we drink?”
So he cried out to God, and God showed him a piece of wood; he threw it into the water and the water became sweet. There [God] made for them a fixed rule; there they were put to the test.
[God] said, “If you will heed your God diligently, doing what is upright in God’s sight, giving ear to God’s commandments and keeping all God’s laws, then I will not bring upon you any of the diseases that I brought upon the Egyptians, for I, God, am your healer.”

Text below:
After the Exodus story dramatically concludes with the Israelites miraculously crossing the Sea of Reeds, the Torah describes how they traveled for three days in the wilderness without finding potable water. They begin to complain of thirst. Moses cries out to God, who commands him to throw a tree into the bitter waters, which sweetens them to the point where the people were finally able to drink.

The rabbis of the Talmud understand the water in this story as an allegorical reference to Torah. The nation went three days without any engagement in Torah study, and this led them to a spiritual crisis. It was thus instituted at that time, explain the rabbis, that the Torah should be read in the synagogue each Shabbat, Monday and Thursday, so that another three days should not go by without Torah study in the public square.

This rabbinic understanding notwithstanding, clearly, the simple meaning of this episode is that the Israelites found themselves without drinking water. And yet, our sages understood that there was something more happening – namely, that the people experienced a spiritual thirst.

Perhaps for our sages the point is that spiritual and physical needs very often overlap. It may have been true that the people were in the midst of a spiritual crisis - after the centuries of oppression they had endured and the world-changing events they had just lived through, this should not be surprising! On the other hand, it was ALSO true that they were physically thirsty, and their physical thirst exacerbated whatever spiritual or emotional issues they were trying to deal with. It would have been impossible for God to heal them spiritually without first ensuring that their physical needs were met.

In his book Poverty, By America, Princeton Professor Matthew Desmond makes this same point when discussing the claims of those who argue that poverty is the result of bad life decisions by individuals, or, in the aggregate, the result of a culture that plagues certain communities where poverty is endemic and persistent. This argument is used to limit spending on anti-poverty and social welfare programs; why waste public funds on people who will only squander it without improving their lot - after all, if poor people would only take responsibility for their lives and do the right thing, they would not need these programs in the first place.

Desmond takes the position that the behaviors in question are not the causes of poverty, but are really the self-reinforcing results of poverty. So the best way to break the cycle, he concludes, is to fund a resilient, comprehensive social safety net to keep people from falling into poverty in the first place and quickly lift them out of it in the case of emergencies.

The rabbis of the Mishna encapsulate this principle in the aphorism “Im ein kemech, ein torah; Im ein torah ein kemach - if there is no bread, there is no Torah; if there is no Torah, there is no bread.” Poverty, hunger, and poor culture are self-reinforcing problems that require a two-pronged relief effort. The Israelites, having just left Egypt, needed both. If America’s poor are to be redeemed as well, we must provide them the same.