As we welcomed the first Shabbat of 2024, I want to start the new year by taking a quick moment to express my heartfelt gratitude to you for strengthening our community. This past year has been filled with a lot of pain and uncertainty, but I have found great inspiration and hope by the commitment, kindness and generosity in our community. 

This Shabbat we begin the Book of Exodus and are transported into a moment of despair as the Israelites have become enslaved to Pharaoh in Egypt. Beyond the hardships of slavery, we read of the cruel and violent decrees made by the Pharaoh against the Israelite baby boys.  

It is at this pinnacle moment of despair, that Moses is born. As the story progresses, Moses finds himself shepherding his herd of sheep in the dessert and stumbles upon a burning bush that is not consumed. As he investigates this strange phenomenon, God calls out to him and instructs him to work towards the Israelites' freedom. When Moses asks who he is talking with, the text answers with the mystifying Hebrew words "ehyeh asher ehyeh."  While sometimes translated in the present tense, a more accurate translation would be "I will be what I will be," in the future tense.   

Reflecting on this verse, my colleague Rabbi Marc Baker commented that this response "has a profound implication for our understanding of God, the world and ourselves. God is a God of becoming, a God of not yet, a God of possibility."  

"In a radical challenge to traditional worldviews at the time, God tells us that the future is not determined by the past, transformation and change are possible, and the world can be different tomorrow than it is today. We are free to choose, and thus have a role to play in determining the not-yet-decided outcomes of our lives and our world."

This is a powerful message as we embark into 2024. Despite the brokenness around us, we must not only have the hope that the world can be different and better than it is today, but also the recognition in our responsibility to engage in the building of that future.  

I am grateful to be able to work towards that future together with you.  

Shabbat Shalom,
Eric Maurer
Executive Director
emaurer@ujcvp.org