The Wings of Eagles, Revisited
In January of 2021 I was scheduled to read this very same parashah I am reading today: Exodus 19:3-6. The Eagles were ending a miserable 4 -11-1 season, played in the isolation a Covid-emptied stadium. My wife of 38 years had just had extensive emergency surgery to remove cancerous tumors. Due to Covid no one was allowed to even visit their loved ones in the hospital. The sick were dying in forced isolation. I was about to leave for services to read from the Torah, when the hospital finally answered my dozen calls with the worst possible news: the beginning of the end. I cancelled my Torah reading. Of course. Linda passed away six brave and gruesome months later, full of faith, at peace with God. But for us, a great loss.
I wrote an article about the experienced that was front paged in the Times of Israel. I felt I knew the meaning of the verse: a comfort in darkness, a metaphor meant to give strength reflecting on a long ago victory.
Four years later I was scheduled yesterday to read the very same passage. That’s a coincidence, no? On THIS OF ALL WEEKS? The text fairly simmered in double meanings:
אתם ראיתם אשר עשיתי למצרים
ואשא אתכם על־כנפי נשרים ואבא אתכם אלי
“You saw what I did (says God) to the Egyptians and how
I BORE YOU UP ON THE WINGS OF EAGLES
and brought you to myself“ EX 19.4
In case you don’t get the reference, those E…A…G…L…E…S just WON THE SUPERBOWL.
I have a theory about why we care about a football game at all, or any sport for that matter. I think people have a fundamental need to experience victory, ultimately the Messiah’s victory over sin in this life and His victory over sin and death, with the promise of an eternity with God for us. And men especially have a need to form tribes and use knowledge and experience to try to understand HOW to get that victory they so desperately need. Life hands us so many losses, please, God, just this once, A TASTE OF VICTORY. PLEASE!
I had a dream.
Lest I miss the point of both this passage and the Haftorah and New Testament readings, and not extricate the deeper meaning from “coincidence” they all have a similar theme: God sees us and our lives in the best possible light, untethered from circumstance.
So of course, inexplicable things started to happen. First this verse coming up, and me,, buy chance, the reader. Two weeks before, the morning of the NFC championship game, I woke up from a dream I couldn’t fully remember, but I knew it was about the Eagles - Commanders football game. In the dream, the Eagles scored 54 points. I told my son this bonkers dream. Not a reasonable prediction: No team in the NFL scored 54 points all year.
Final score Eagles 55- Commanders 23
I had ANOTHER dream
Then I woke up on Super Bowl Sunday from a dream I DID remember. Everyone was cheering at a big play in the THIRD QUARTER about a play that essentially ENDED the game.
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| I would say this is the moment from my dream, late in the 3rd quarter, "Skinny Batman", Davonta Smith 46 yard touchdown... "game over" 34-6. |
In the dream, the Eagles had 40 points. I told my friend Neil and my son, Michael, but it was an outrageous notion.
Final score Eagles 40, Chiefs 22.
A Dream Redeemed
Amazingly, this scripture, once a hallmark of loss and darkness cam up THIS WEEK, of all weeks!
I BORE YOU UP ON EAGLES WINGS AND BROUGHT YOU TO MYSELF.
The other two passages we read, from Isaiah and from the new testament, tell the same story: GOD HIMSELF HAS A BETTER VIEW.
IT’S SO MUCH BETTER, MY VICTORIOUS FRIENDS. Taste and see! For me personally, I’m not sure what me predicting the score of football games in a dream really means. I'd rather dream winning lottery ticket numbers! Maybe it was to focus my attention on the Word? And to fix my eyes on the ending of the passage. God didn't form us just to compete, win whenever possible, then die. He made us “to be a treasured possession, a holy people, a kingdom of priests"..
But you are A CHOSEN RACE, A royal PRIESTHOOD, A HOLY NATION, A PEOPLE FOR God’s OWN POSSESSION, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light 1 Peter 2:9
and made us ... to soar on wings of eagles”
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Here is a link to my Feb 8 2021 Times of Israel article.
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