How do we face Pharaoh when the Supreme Court wears his face?
This week’s newspapers pose an enormous question: Can American democracy survive unregulated corporate money poured into elections? This week’s Torah points toward an answer.
Last Sunday, Part 1 of my essay on “The Meaning of the 21st Century: Domination or Community?” sketched how the war in Afghanistan, our dysfunctional health un-care system, the disemployment crisis, and the stalemate over climate all were evidence that one necessary aspect of our lives — Control — has run amok, turning into Domination and leaving the other necessary life-aspect — loving-kindness, interbeing — choking to death.
Now we have just received a stunning kick in the teeth to Community and a great victory for Domination — in the decision of the Supreme Court that corporations can pour as much money as they like into supporting the election of candidates for public office.
This enormously increases the power of our modern Pharaohs – the top-down pyramidal Global-Gobble corporations that have barely been under public control before, and now will be able to control the public in unprecedented ways.
This is not just an American issue. Big Oil and Big Coal corporations have made it extremely hard to deal with the dangers of global scorching. Now the powers of Big Coal and Big Oil have been multiplied. The web of life -– our most important community of all, in which the interplay of control-over and connectivity-with is crucial to the continuity of life — is thus endangered by increasing the power of corporations to control the climate of our planet.
The snows of the Himalayas are melting under the pressure of global scorching, and with them will disappear the future drinking water of a billion Indians and Pakistanis. Can we save them? No. For Exxon Mobil says, “No problem,” and now will be able to drown in its money any US candidate who says the burning of fossil fuels must be checked.
So the Supreme Court of the United States has just condemned a billion people to slow death by parching drought.
In last week’s Torah we read how Pharaoh let all the waters of his kingdom become undrinkable in order to pursue his despotic course against his people. Now, like Pharaoh, in stubborn arrogance, the Court has transformed itself from an instrument of Justice into a make-believe and lethal “God.” An idol.
In this week’s Torah reading, when God sends Moses to face Pharaoh, God says, “Bo el Pharaoh.” Most English translations say, “Go to Pharaoh.” But “Bo” means “come,” not “go.”
“Come to Pharaoh!”
How could God be saying “Come!” unless God was already there? — already within Pharaoh!
“Come toward Me.”
And God’s call to Moses continued: “Hikhbad’ti libo.” That is usually translated, “I have made his [Pharaoh’s] heart heavy, hard.”
But the Hebrew root KVD can mean heavy, bearing gravitas, or glorious, or honorable, or radiant. When a leader is said to possess “gravitas,” it means he is a “heavy dude,” worthy of honor, radiating forth his own glory to faraway places.
So the phrase can be read as: “I, God, have put my radiance in his, Pharaoh’s, heart.”
In other words: “Come to Me — the Me who lives hidden inside Pharaoh. Don’t be afraid of Pharaoh: what looks like HIS radiance, HIS glory, HIS power, is really just a mask for MY radiance, MY glory, MY power.”
From seeing God hidden within Pharaoh, Moses could learn both courage and compassion.
Courage as he realized that Pharaoh’s seeming power was not his, but just a part of the enormous power of the flow of life, the Unity of universe. If Pharaoh tried to grasp that power as his own, the river and the locusts, the frogs and the first-borns, would overflow his rigid boundaries and sweep away his power. No one need fear it.
Compassion as Moses recalled that even within Pharaoh was the Tzelem Elohim, the spark of God. So he could resist the Pharaoh’s tyranny while yet remembering the KaVoD — honor — due his spark of divinity.
Multiply courage by compassion, and what emerges is nonviolent resistance. “I will not obey my enemy, and I will not kill him either. I will pursue my own journey into loving life.”
Pharaohs are pressing down their weight on America and on the web of planetary life. It is time for courageous nonviolent resistance to give new life to the loving-kindness that our Pharaohs are choking to death.
How, when, where? I welcome your thoughts – especially by posting a comment below.
With blessings of shalom, salaam, shantih – peace!
Arthur
Comments
5 comments postedLove does not mean the same thing as approval. We may revile the actions of many large corporations, but we must still love the humans who own and work with them. We might not even understand why, but this is what God wants from us and it’s the right thing to do. Hating only hurts us. Love has much greater power.
Campaign finance reform should be the first order of business in Congress, and I’m disappointed that it doesn’t seem to be considered at all right now. This was a favorite agenda item of the presidential candidate who lost, McCain. If I had anything to say about it, all politicians would simply refuse to take money from unethical corporations, and everyone would run a simpler campaign. Political campaigns have become such a stage show and so grand. Do we really need this? We the people can find out who’s taking contributions from the corporations who wish to ruin Planet Earth for their own short term gains. We can refuse to vote for them. We can collectively bring pressure to bear. We have enormous power.
We the People can also, to some extent, stop doing business with unscrupulous corporations. We can move our money out of big banks and join credit unions. We can drive less and ride bikes more. We can choose where and from whom to buy our food and other necessities. We can simplify our lives, since we in America live in such a lavish way by world standards, and perhaps we would be happier in the process. We can invest in companies who do things right. (There are corporations who do act responsibly.) These actions cost us more in time and money in the short run, but maybe it’s worth it. If enough of us do this, the reward is more freedom. We can remember that the big corporations need us, the customers, in order to to stay in business. These actions are happening already and they can grow.
This is where Love and Faith come into play. And Patience. None of these changes will happen all at once, and instead will require dedication and self discipline. We can pray and love a good world into being if we follow up with loving and faithful action.
I can’t help reflecting on the Exodus story and try and draw comparisons with today - Questions: Who are the Hebrews of today? Where are they? In what way are the Jews of today comparable to the Hebrews who decided to leave Egypt? Why did they leave rather than persist in trying to transform egyptian society. The people who decided to leave Egypt included non-Hebrews like Mose’s adopted mother and other egyptians who had a vision of freedom and justice not shared by the pharaoh.
Every time when I listen to the Friday night Kiddush lines: “For out of all nations you chose us and made us holy.” I feel a strong affinity with all those (mostly non-Jews) who recognise oppression, with those who have worked and are working to recognise the demons within themselves which perpetuate violence and enslavement and the threats from cooperations and orgnaisations which are interested in keeping their power and controlling financial markets. I am finding it really difficult to say those words as to me all people (Jews, Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Pagans …. ) who have the interest of others at heart and are prepared to act unselfishly are holy. I am wondering what others feel and think when they recite those words.
“I will not obey my enemy, and I will not kill him either.” I would like to live by that.
But my enemy asks this question:
How do you kill a person?
And the answer is:
First you kill YOURSELF; the rest is easy.
The problem is, even if I wanted to kill my enemy, or love my enemy, or teach my enemy, my enemy is ALREADY dead. That’s how he’s such an accomplished mass murderer. And before those billion souls die of thirst, the first living thing killed has to be democracy.
I don’t know how to feel compassion for fascists.
Do you remember Supreme Court nominee John Robert’s pledge under oath to preserve Stare Decisis, where judges are obligated to honor the precedents established by prior judicial decisions? Maybe before you kill democracy, you have to first kill the truth.
Welcome to the United Mergers of America, Inc.
With this 5-4 ruling, Chief Justice John Roberts and his extremist activist power-mongering posse have removed 100 years of precedent and restrictions on corporate advertising in political campaigns, equated money with free speech, and bestowed free speech rights and PERSONHOOD upon CORPORATIONS. Dead things love other dead things. Here is their REAL pledge:
I pledge allegiance to the Corporate flag,
and the Special Interests of America,
and to the Republicans for the plutocracy they stand up,
one multinational,
underwritten,
indestructible,
with loyalty and justifications
for all my Corporate sponsors.
So, will the Congress impeach any justices who lied under oath in their nomination proceedings, vowing to show judicial restraint, eschew judicial activism, and honor Stare Decisis? Will the president be audacious? Will there be enough “aggressive progressives” to make a difference, or at least keep me company in my sorrow? Will we ever be returned to a democracy - an Eden - we can recognize? Can and will we fight this metastasizing fascism before it kills us all?
If tears could water this desert, boy, we’d really grow something great.
Your response to the recent Supreme Court decision re campaign finance law seems a bit out in the realm of the unreal. OK, your interpretation of the Torah portion is excellent, it makes your point well, but so what? How does seeing the touch of God in the modern Pharoah (big oil) help us solve the problem of the destruction of the environment upon which all life depends?
The issue is ideology, political party divisiveness, etc. Conservative Justices, appointed for life by idealogue presidents, will continue to throw roadblocks in the way of human and national and world progress. We can’t change that or wish it away. And it certainly is not moral to wish them all dead so that a more progressive, rational president might appoint others in their place - but getting them approved by the senate would be almost unsurmountable.
In other words, in all of my long and active years, I have never been more discouraged about the success of the American experiment. Do you have a cure for my depression?
Let us heed the call to face our enemy with strength and compassion, not with indifference or despair.
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