In this week’s parsha, as we near the end of the plagues, we see a version of Pharoah who is beaten down, and perhaps, he is just ready to be done with these Israelite people that keep giving him trouble. After the plague of darkness, Pharoah is nearly ready to let Moshe go, with all of his people, to worship God as they would like (we know, he doesn’t, but he’s thinking about it!). But Pharoah offers one condition: you have to leave your flocks and herds here in Mitzrayim. Moshe responds to Pharoah with a big NO, saying that not only are they going to take their own livestock, but that Pharoah will also provide them with sacrifices to God. He adds, “we won’t know with what we are to worship God until we arrive there.”
Rashi, the great medieval commentator, adds on to Moshe’s words explaining, “because God might ask more of us that what we have in our hands.” Perhaps God might want more than what we can give. Perhaps we will enter into the presence of the Holy One, hoping to begin a new relationship as a liberated people, and we will realize that we do not have enough of whatever it is God demands to fulfill our end of a covenant. Whatever it is - not enough courage, not enough humility, not enough piety, not enough strength.
And what I think Rashi’s comment highlights is that when we are at the beginning of a journey, a beautiful one or a trying one, we can’t know exactly what it is we’ll need or how much of it the journey will demand. It’s so understandable to worry, to have anxiety that we are simply not enough. We go out into the wilderness with hopes, with our people, with our flocks, all of the things that we hope have the power to change our lives and our destiny. And we get to the mountain, we arrive at some stop on the journey, and all we can do is hope that what we have in our hands, what we’ve brought with us to this place and in this time, will be enough to fulfill that which God asks of us. And we remember that we are enough. What we have in our hands is enough. What we bring that relationship, to that mountain, will be enough.
