by Rabbi Geoffrey Huntting
Temple Sinai, Sarasota, Fl.

In the first chapters of Sefer Shemot, Moses has his first encounter with God. "I have marked well the plight of My people in Egypt and have heeded their outcry because of their taskmasters; yes I am mindful of their sufferings..." And yet, it has been many years that the outcry from the Israelites could be heard, and we might ask why it took God so long. It is suggested in some of the sources that Egypt was herself given a chance to respond to the slaves' plight. With Joseph as a role model, Egypt could have lifted herself to the higher emotional level and allowed the power empathy to guide her, rather a baser instinct which worships power and cruelty. But having given the chance and failed, Egypt will suffer the wrath of a just and caring God. When we hear the outcry of others, is it God who is speaking to us as well as those who are suffering?

I had the pleasure of enjoying a midyear break with a week of vacation in Paris in the beginning of January. On my last night there, I took a friend to a restaurant not far from the Paris Opera, and I spent an evening of superior food and fine wine. When I left, it had begun to snow and I hailed a cab which left me just a few blocks from my place. As I walked through the snow flurry I noticed a police vehicle which had stopped ahead by the side of the street. Police and medical personnel exited the vehicle to check a group of homeless people who were huddled in the small accumulation of snow against the adjacent office building. A medic checked to see whether they would make it through the night, and offered cups of coffee to them. A sense of shame came over me. I had just spent more money on one meal than many of these people would see in a year. In this beautiful and wealthy city, how could this happen? I realize also that this scene is repeated in cities of my own country many times a day.

I returned to this country as the news of the earthquake in Haiti was being reported. Haiti is a nation that has suffered for two centuries with poverty, hunger, violence and natural disasters, a period of time similar to that during which the Israelites suffered under Egyptian bondage. And I guess the question that is nagging me this evening is this: is this a test for us? As with Egypt, is the outcry from Haiti, God's cry to us? If that is the case, we should respond to that outcry with the empathy that God demands of us.

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