{Originally posted to Rabbi Weinberg’s website, The Foundation Stone}
Theirs was a world that would never change. Born into slavery, they did not expect anything from life other than suffering. Parents looked at their children and saw only slavery stretching out forever into the future. They prayed to the distant God spoken of by their grandparents. They cried in their suffering and humiliation. The prayers and cries, they were certain, floated about ineffectively, silently unheard somewhere in space. In a world without change, prayer is meaningless.
Moses appeared, proclaimed that their cries were heard, and that change was coming. “Change” was not in their vocabulary. Change began: The waters of the Nile became blood. Frogs swarmed over their Egyptian masters. One plague after another touched deep inside the hearts of these forlorn people who had ceased to pay attention to anything other than their suffering, reminding them that nature itself constantly changes. Their dictionaries were updated to include “Change,” but only in passive form.
The Passover offering introduced them to the idea that they could change. The Exodus proved that their active change could affect a response from God. Prayers for salvation, water and food were all miraculously answered. People who have learned that change is possible can pray and expect a response. Revelation, the Golden Calf, repentance, forgiveness, and the Tabernacle, trained these people born into a sempiternal world in the infinite possibilities for Changers. They were ready to enter Israel and live the unexpected.
Almost ready. They would have to send spies as would any invading army. They had to hear that as much as they had grown, they were not prepared to conquer the land on their own. They had to mourn their limitations, so painful after almost two years of unlimited existence unlocked by their belief in their potential. Would they cry as they had lifetimes ago in Egypt, empty tears that sunk into the ground unheard, or as the Changers they had become? Their tears were gathered and studied. They were empty. These were not people prepared to build an Israel unfettered and expansive. After everything they experienced, they were the same people who prayed into empty Egyptian air. We are taught that God said, “Let them wander the desert for forty years until they die out. Perhaps the next generation will be ready to enter Israel.”
This was their real test: Would they accept their sentence without attempting to change it? Would they wander forty years without constantly challenging God to change His decision; “It was You Who taught us about change!”? Is it possible to spend forty years in the desert without being desperate to change their future? We pray three times daily for redemption. How are we to accept that they did not pray once in forty years?
We begin our Shabbat welcome with, “For forty years I was angry with the generation (Psalms 95)!” Was God angry all forty years? Why would we welcome Shabbat with such a devastating memory?
There is no Shabbat, infinite and unexpected, for those who will wait for forty years without praying! They did pray. They made offerings. They did not believe that their prayers mattered. Their words were as empty as their tears. They did not cry as Changers. They did not pray as Changers. They were too busy mourning their failures and limitations. The same people who would run to the best doctors and hospitals to join the war on cancer did not run to Moses even once in forty years to ask for help in changing the diagnosis. They were too busy mourning.
It is only as Changers that we can pray. Shabbat is only accessible to Changers. People, who mourn the state of the world, passively waiting for salvation, are not Changers. Their prayers and tears ring hollow. Every Shabbat is the same.
We are taught to enter prayer expecting to be changed by the experience. We are taught to enter Shabbat expecting the unexpected. We are taught to be the generation that could hear a sentence of forty years and immediately set about to change everything.