Parashat Shemot
SERMON PARASHAT SHEMOT January 9, 2026 21 Teve 5786
Rabbi David Edleson Temple Sinai South Burlington, Vermont
Pre-Service Introduction: This week is the Yahrzeit of one of the greatest rabbis and theologians of the modern era. Abraham Joshua Heschel was born in Warsaw in 1907 to a well-respected Hassidic rabbinic family. He received an excellent traditional yeshiva education, but he then pursued his doctorate at the University of Berlin and rabbinic ordination at the new Reform seminary, the Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums in Frankfurt. . Despite Nazi limitations on Jews studying in German universities, he managed to complete his studies before being arrested by the Gestapo in 1938 and deported to Poland. Six weeks before the German invasion of Poland, Heschel fled Warsaw for London with the help of Julian Morgenstern, president of Hebrew Union College, and Alexander Guttmann, an eventual colleague at the Hebrew Union College, who secretly re-wrote Heschel's ordination certificate to meet American visa requirements. Heschel arrived in New York City in March 1940. He soon moved to Cincinnati to be on the faculty of Hebrew Union College (HUC) for five years. In 1946 he returned to New York, taking a position with the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (JTS) where he taught Jewish ethics and Mysticism until his death in 1972.
Heschel became one of the most recognizable Jewish leaders in the world with his overgrown mop of white hair, frizzy beard and Yiddish accent. He became well known for his close friendship with Martin Luther King and for his work in civil rights, which I’ve talked about before on Martin Luther King Day services. By the way, net weekend is our Martin Luther King services here at Sinai.
While his work in civil rights, and coining the expression “praying with our feet” is important, tonight I want to focus a bit on his thinking and writing, so during the service, we will be reading short excerpts from several of his works to give you a taste of his theology and approach to the human condition.
I also encourage you to check out our Library for Heschel’s writings. Here are a few
Man Is Not Alone: A Philosophy of Religion. 1951.
The Sabbath: Its Meaning for Modern Man. 1951.
God in Search of Man: A Philosophy of Judaism. 1955.
I also plan to have a book club later this Spring to read the last one, “God in Search of Man.”
Since it is Kabbalat Shabbat, I will start with a well-known reading that is found in our prayer books:
READING 1: “The meaning of the Sabbath is to celebrate time rather than space. Six days a week we live under the tyranny of things of space; on the Sabbath we try to become attuned to holiness in time. It is a day on which we are called upon to share in what is eternal in time, to turn from the results of creation to the mystery of creation; from the world of creation to the creation of the world.” – Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Sabbath
D’VAR
Abraham Joshua Heschels writing on Jewish spirituality and practice shapes every rabbi that has been ordained for the past 70 years. In speeches, essays and books, Heschel managed to bridge different streams of modern Judaism - Reform, Conservative, and Hassidic – and create a theology rooted in what he called Radical Amazement. Just being alive and looking at out the world and the universe fills us with an overpowering awe, and that awe, that sense of wonder and simply being here, is the foundation of spiritual and religious life. In his mysticism, he saw the presence of the divine everywhere. The world to him was numinous and glowing, and we see in this his Hassidic world-view.
But it is in our experience of amazement, of awe that we also hear a question: what is required of us? In other words, awe and gratitude come with a sense of duty to honor the world, to praise the divine, and to create law and covenant by which we can live in an elevated way the honors the divine in us and in the world. This is the root of Jewish religiosity.
In this weeks Torah Portion, Shemot, the opening of the Book of Exodus, there is a beautiful illustration of Heschel’s thought. In it Moses, having killed an Egyptian overseer flees to the desert mountains of Midian, in Sinai and becomes a shepherd, marries and has children, going through his daily routine in his new life.
Then one day, he notices something: a bush or small tree seems to be glowing, seems to be on fire with divine light. The text tells us that:
A messenger of יהוה appeared to him in a blazing fire out of a bush. He gazed, and there was a bush all aflame, yet the bush was not consumed. Moses said, “I must turn aside to look at this marvelous sight; why doesn’t the bush burn up?” When יהוה saw that he had turned aside to look, God called to him out of the bush: “Moses! Moses!” He answered, “Hineini, Here I am.” Exodus 3: 2-4
We all have heard of the burning bush, either in Hebrew School or in bad jokes, and we see in our stained glass here at Temple Sinai. We often miss two crucial details.
One is that is wasn’t some random bush that was on fire, or as para-science tries to tell us is was aglow with sunlight in an unusual way, or it was sitting on a pocket of natural gas. No, it was an angel, a messenger of God that appeared in the tree.
The other, which is particularly relevant to Heschel, is that Moses “turned aside to look.” Our rabbis leaned into this in the midrash, saying that Moses had passed that bush every day and had simply not noticed that it was glowing with supernal light. But on this day, he noticed, and he took an action: he turned off his usual path to pay attention to this wondrous moment.
In other words, we all pass miracles every day and don’t even notice, and the first real religious act we can take is to turn aside from our business and be amazed by the glow of the world all around us. From that experience comes a duty, which Moses repeatedly tries to get out of, but finally relents to. It is the duty to save his people from oppression. Our experience of the wonderous all around us doesn’t end with simple appreciation, but it comes with a sense of moral duty to serve.
Prayer, to Heschel, is our way of standing again in the presence of the burning bush. As I read earlier:
To pray is to take notice of the wonder, to regain the sense of the mystery that animates all beings, the divine margin in all attainments. Prayer is our humble answer to the inconceivable surprise of living.[
You might not know this, but that idea is built into our most important prayer, the Amidah. Every time we start the Amida, we say “Baruch Ata Adonai, Eloheinu, v’Elohei avoteinu, Elohei Avraham, Elohei Yitzchak, v’Elohai Yaakov.“ The only place in the Torah that this expression is used is when God speaks to Moses at the Burning Bush and tells him to take off his shoes for he is standing on holy ground. In others words, every time we pray the Amidah, the words are crafted to take us back to that moment when Moses turns and for a moment, sees the divine light that is always there. It changes his life forever. Heschel reminds us that it can change ours as well.
Shabbat Shalom.
