Despite what I am sure will be eyerolls from Marek I am lucky that I went to the vort this evening since I was able to look at "Gems from the Netivas Shalom". This explanation was in the book. The NS wants to know why Moses needed to be given 3 signs for the Jewish people besides the obvious reason that he has too little self-confidence to accept the mission. Says the NS, the Jewish people are worried that since they have descended to the 49th level of impurity in Egypt (let us just say there are hundreds of years of this idea by the time it gets to him), they don't have enough merit to be redeemed and have not stayed long enough in Egypt in the first place. But they also worry that even if the Jewish people are entirely righteous Egypt is under the control of such a dark spiritual force that it is too strong for them. So Moses has to turn the waters of the Nile symbolizing the Egyptian spiritual powers to blood to show that this is not true. AFAIK there are no professional Afropessimists involved in 1966. The fight is about what kind of soul force can overcome a hundred years of broken promises when it seems that merit will be recognized and white people will acknowledge having a common goal with Black people.
* In 1966 after immense hard work and sacrifice the civil rights movement can only see much deeper and harder problems such as poverty and the Vietnam War and is not confident it will avoid yet another broken promise.
Despite what I am sure will be eyerolls from Marek I am lucky that I went to the vort this evening since I was able to look at "Gems from the Netivas Shalom". This explanation was in the book. The NS wants to know why Moses needed to be given 3 signs for the Jewish people besides the obvious reason that he has too little self-confidence to accept the mission. Says the NS, the Jewish people are worried that since they have descended to the 49th level of impurity in Egypt (let us just say there are hundreds of years of this idea by the time it gets to him), they don't have enough merit to be redeemed and have not stayed long enough in Egypt in the first place. But they also worry that even if the Jewish people are entirely righteous Egypt is under the control of such a dark spiritual force that it is too strong for them. So Moses has to turn the waters of the Nile symbolizing the Egyptian spiritual powers to blood to show that this is not true. AFAIK there are no professional Afropessimists involved in 1966. The fight is about what kind of soul force can overcome a hundred years of broken promises when it seems that merit will be recognized and white people will acknowledge having a common goal with Black people.
* In 1966 after immense hard work and sacrifice the civil rights movement can only see much deeper and harder problems such as poverty and the Vietnam War and is not confident it will avoid yet another broken promise.