When Michael reads his Torah portion tomorrow-it will be obvious from the text that when God came to Moses-it was with an imperative, "GO!", with a sense of urgency that He Instructed him to go to Moses and say, "Let my people go."

As surely as Michael's portion from Torah describes the struggle between Moses and Pharaoh, climaxing, of course, in that awful tenth plague, so does life often come down to a matter of struggle. Sooner or later we are all of us going to sense the imperative-Go!-and (if we are lucky) recognize that our faith, our conscience, our very destiny depend on our follow-through.

Since we're speaking of plagues, particularly the last three plagues which were inflicted upon the Egyptians, perhaps we ought to mention the plague of inertia and indecision which can and often does both confuse and potentially spoil a human life. There are times when we are called upon to break with the past. There are times when we need to go ahead, just as Moses was sent forth to confront Pharaoh. We, too, can be sent forth to confront whatever adversaries need facing down and conquering in our own lives. No small thing, this! If you ever stood at the crossroads and wondered which way to go, you know just what I mean. Theodore S. Geisel, the Cat in the Hat himself, Dr. Seuss, puts it so well in his book, Oh, The Places You'll Go! He wrote:

You will come to a place where the streets are not marked.
Some windows are lighted. But mostly they're dark.
A place you could sprain, both your elbow and chin!
Do you dare to stay out? Do you dare to go in?
How much can you lose? How much can you win?

And if you go in, should you turn left or right. . . .
Or right and three quarters? Or, maybe, not quite?
Or go around back and sneak in from behind?
Simple, it's not, I'm afraid you will find,
For a mind-maker-upper to make up his mind.

As we consult the Prophets we notice that in every case, those individuals who were already instructed by God to go forth and to change their lives and to take an enormous chance already had their lives pretty well planned out. When God says "Go," it's rarely convenient. Isaiah frequented the innermost courts of the Temple, had reserved seats in the Jerusalem Mardi Gras stands, an airport parking pass, and hence must have been a pretty well-placed individual with a lot of political clout. He had a lot to lose! Imagine how uncomfortable it must have been for him to be called to be God's Prophet and have to go and say such unpleasant and politically incorrect things to his wayward people. The same was surely true of Amos, who was minding his own business as a herdsman, as a pruner of sycamore trees.

There wasn't a more assimilated and comfortable man in all of Vienna than Theodore Herzl who, 100 years ago, found himself the father of the Zionist Movement. Herzl was called out of his assimilation, out of his Jewish apathy, by an awareness that his people needed him and that without a Jewish state they would be in severe peril and jeopardy. People know when God says, "Go!"

There are times when, thank God, we take on challenges at a totally illogical point in our lives. There are times when I have known people to make extraordinarily significant changes in otherwise secure, sedate, orderly, predictable, and well-planned lives. Somehow deep within them, though, they knew that God was telling them something important-take a chance, make a change, go out on a limb, don't play it safe, to risk their popularity.

When God says, "Go," people know.

And second,

By that I mean that people develop an inner awareness that they want their lives to take on new qualities of significance and greater meaning and purpose. The story is told of a man who had been sentenced to 25 years of hard labor. The man was shackled to the handle of an immense, heavy wheel built into a stone wall, and from morning till night he was forced to turn this heavy metal wheel. The days and years passed so slowly, and during these many hours, as he felt his muscles grow weary, and the bones of his back breaking under the stress, he would wonder just what it was that he was accomplishing with his hard work. Perhaps the wheel was part of a mill, and he was grinding the grain into flour. Or perhaps he was rotating something like a potter's wheel, or maybe generating some kind of energy that was being used to activate a sort of machine.

When the long sentence in jail was finally completed, and the shackles were removed from the sinewy arms of a broken, old man, the first thing he did was to go around to the outside of the wall in order to see what it was that he had been laboring at for these 25 years. To his horror, he discovered that there was nothing there, just a wheel in a stone wall, unattached to any lever or to any gear.

The man broke down in sobs. "Twenty-five years of hard labor," he wailed, "and all for nothing. Had anyone benefitted from it, be it man or beast, I could have accepted it. But to have worked and suffered for nothing at all, this is unbearable!"

Friends, for those to whom God says, "Go!" life takes on a magnificent flow-of meaning, of deeper significance, of precious value.

George Bernard Shaw was a deeply religious man in his own way. On one occasion he observed:

This is the true joy of life--being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one: the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown out on the scrap heap; the being a force in nature instead of a feverish, selfish, little clod of ailments and grievance, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.

And finally,

Have you ever wondered how we best measure a human life? Some people live long, long lives but happen to accomplish very little. Others live short lives and seem to jam-pack them with accomplishment and worth. So clearly, duration as such is an unacceptable yardstick for a human life.

Some people seem to think a life is best measured by the possessions one accumulates and by the value of one's portfolio. Is that person to be credited with having lived most who accumulates most? Certainly not!

How, then, do we measure a life? If not by its length or by the wealth that we accrue or by our prominence? Well, by our growth! A human life is best measured by its growth and development. How much have we grown through our pain? Is our perception more keen, are our judgments sounder, are our loyalties truer and deeper? If so, then surely we have grown!

Such are the benefits that derive to those who listen to God's call to go forth! As we look at Moses and his brother Aaron, and as we consider the lives of all those Jewish brothers and sisters who have been pioneers and pilgrims of the spirit and who have dared to journey forth beyond the known in the pursuit of their promised land, the message is unmistakable. When God says, "Go!" the people Know, the people Glow, and the people Grow.