I can still remember the piles of laundry, the hot steamy iron, the scarf tied around my mother’s head and the two daughters sitting, listening to her stories. In my family both of my parent’s were story tellers. They related their histories, to their children orally which made us pay attention, ask questions, and memorize our shared history.
Let me just share one of my favorites from my mother on how she came to New York from Puerto Rico. She was a young woman in Puerto Rico when a family expressed interest in her becoming married to a young man who was already in New York. Arrangements were made that she would go to New York, meet the man and marry him. The only way that she was allowed to travel to New York was because her sister and husband already lived in the city and would act as chaperones for my mother. When she arrived in New York, she was excited about meeting the young man and insisted on going over to his apartment unannounced. When she arrived there, the door was not locked and after knocking on it no one answered, so she walked in. Imagine her surprise as she met her groom to be in bed with another woman! The man begged for forgiveness but, my mother said, “If he cheated on me before we were married, can you imagine how he would treat me after?” She decided that she would not return to Puerto Rico but, would instead make a new life for herself in New York.
We begged my mother to retell this story as young girls. This story displayed a lot about her strengths, and encouraged us to take initiative when opportunities presented themselves.
Lately, our Torah portions are dealing with Moses, the plagues, the deliverance of the Israelites and the Red Sea. After reading these stories so many times, and then again at Passover, we can get a little dis-interested in them. We roll our eyes and think, again? The same reaction was felt as my mom would re-tell stories to us after we were adults. We knew her stories well, or did we? The same thing is true for these stories that we read in our bibles. These are origin stories. An origin story is “an account or backstory revealing how a character or a group of people become a protagonist or antagonist”. The definition for a protagonist and antagonist is: “A Protagonist is the main character in a story, and the person that the story is usually written about. The writer usually develops the plot around the protagonist, for instance with some problem that needs solving. An Antagonist is a person that opposes or fights against another character (usually the protagonist).”
In Exodus, there are so many layers to the stories that we are still discovering them today. Israel is the protagonist in the Exodus story and Egypt is the antagonist but, God has inserted so much more in these verses. We may spiritually roll our eyes when we get to these portions, but instead, we need to pray for a new, fresh insight into these stories, that God will open our eyes to fresh manna! How will these stories deepen our walk with God? What new insights into the character of God does it display?
This year, as we read the words that we have read so many times before let’s remember Psalm 12:6, “And the words of the LORD are flawless, like silver purified in a crucible, like gold refined seven times”.