TORAH SPARKS
Parashat Beshalah

January 30, 2021; 17 Shevat 5781

Torah: Exodus 13:17-17:16; Triennial 14:15-16:10

Haftorah: Judges 4:4-5:31

Not Fright or Flight, but Faith and Fortitude

Ilana Kurshan

 

Just before the sea split, the Israelites stood on the shore in abject terror. Behind them the Egyptian chariots gave chase, driven by vengeful horsemen who whipped their galloping horses as fiercely as they were known to beat their slaves. Before them the sea sparkled in the morning light, its calm surface concealing unknown terrors of the deep. In the midrash, the fleeing slaves are analogized to a dove pursued by an eagle that enters a cranny in the rock, only to find that a snake is nesting there (Shir Hashirim Rabbah 2:14). The Israelites could turn neither backwards nor forwards, and yet there were those who suggested both at least according to the Talmud s account, which offers insight into how a religious sensibility might come to our aid in moments of fight or flight.

According to the Jerusalem Talmud (Y. Taanit 2:5), Moses was confronted by a cacophony of suggestions as to how to proceed in that decisive moment at the shore. The Israelites were divided into four factions: One suggested jumping into the sea in an act of mass suicide; one suggested returning to Egypt; one suggested going to battle against the Egyptians; and one suggested crying out to God. These four responses may be read as four ways of responding to adversity surrender, submission, struggle, and spirituality. Moses, as we shall see, rejects them all.

Standing with his people on the shore, Moses said to them: Fear not, stand by and see the salvation of God which He will show you today. For as you have seen Egypt this day, you shall not see them again, forever. God shall fight for you, and you shall be silent (Exodus 14:13). The Talmud breaks down Moses s response into a rejection of each of the four factions: To the desperate Israelites who wanted to jump into the sea, Moses assured them that salvation was imminent: Fear not, stand by and see the deliverance of the Lord. To those who advocated returning to Egypt, Moses insisted that Egypt was a thing of the past: For as you have seen Egypt this day, you shall not see them again, forever. To those who wanted to put up a fight, Moses assured them that this was not a time to take up arms: God will fight for you. To those who advocated prayer, Moses put his finger to his lips: You shall be silent. What, then, was the appropriate response?

Perhaps the answer can be found in God s words to Moses just before the waters split: Speak to the Israelites and tell them to go forwards (Ex. 14:14). God did not want His people to look back toward Egypt, or up to the heavens, or down into the depths of despair God wanted them to march forwards. The Talmud (Sotah 37a) celebrates the valiance of Nachshon ben Aminadav, who was the first to do just that. According to the Talmud s account, upon hearing God s command, each tribe refused to be the first to step forwards. At that point, the leader of the tribe of Judah, Nachshon ben Aminadav, took matters into his own hands. He did not jump into the sea in surrender, but simply put one foot in front of the other. He pushed aside his fears like walls of water as if defying the sea to engulf him. At the same time, he entreated God to save him the Talmud attributes to Nachshon the following verses from Psalms: Save me, God; for the waters are come in even unto the soul. I am sunk in deep mire, where there is no standing let not the water flood overwhelm me, neither let the deep swallow me up (Psalms 69:2 3, 16). Nachshon prayed while simultaneously taking action. As such, his response was neither suicidal surrender nor spiritual stasis. It was not fight or flight, but faith and fortitude.

One small step for Nachshon turned out to be one great leap for the Israelites, who followed suit and were redeemed by God. The rest of the tribe of Judah, and then the rest of the Israelites, also walked into the water. Like Nachshon, they did not yet know of the miracle that awaited them. Unlike the ten plagues, which God had foretold, the Israelites had no way of knowing that the waters would split for them and then close in upon Pharaoh and his horsemen. They simply walked forwards, come what may. They, like Nachshon, may have also been calling out to God as they plunged into the waters. According to some commentators, the Song of the Sea recited by the Israelites chapter 15 of the book of Exodus was not a victory song but an expression of faith that God would deliver them. As Sforno puts it (on 15:19), "The Az Yashir occurred when Pharaoh’s horses went in with his chariots and horsemen into the sea, and God, the Blessed One, drowned them while the Children of Israel were still walking on the dry land in the midst of the sea. Before they came out, they began to sing."

According to Sforno, the Israelites did not know that they would survive when they began singing. For all they knew, the waters that had begun to engulf the Egyptians would then creep up upon them. After all, they were used to a Pharaoh who was notorious for his changes of heart; why should their new Ruler be any different? And yet they believed in His steadfastness, at least enough to begin singing a song of thanksgiving even before there was anything concrete for which to be grateful. Perhaps it was in fact their very singing that brought about their deliverance, in the same way that God s utterances created the world. The people sang that He cast Pharaoh’s chariots and his army into the sea, and lo and behold, God cast Pharaoh’s chariots and his army into the sea. And then they sang, You made the wind blow; the sea covered them, and lo and behold, the wind blew and the sea covered them. Their very expression of faith was what enabled God to stretch out His mighty hand and bring His people forth on dry land.

Wallace Stevens depicts a similar scenario in The Idea of Order at Key West, a poem about a woman who walks beside the sea and sings a song that creates the reality around her:

 

But it was she and not the sea we heard.

For she was the maker of the song she sang

She was the single artificer of the world

In which she sang. And when she sang, the sea,

Whatever self it had, became the self

That was her song, for she was the maker.

The woman in the poem is the maker both of the song and of the world, just as the Israelites singing may have brought about (rather than merely recounted) the circumstances of their salvation. This is evident even visually in the Torah scroll, where the words of the song are printed in the shape of a brick wall, as per the words of the song: And the water was for them a wall, to their right and to their left (Exodus 14:22). According to this reading, the Israelites at the sea have already begun learning what it means to be liberated. They do not have to sink into despair, or return to servitude, or surrender all their agency and await God s deliverance. To be free is to realize that we are the authors of our own story we are the artificers of the world in which we sing. We hope against hope as a sign not of foolishness, but of faith and fortitude. It takes courage to walk forwards singing of a world of which we can only dream but as we learn from Nachshon, it is a crucial first step.

 

 

The Law of the Wild
Vered Hollander-Goldfarb

Following the crossing of the Red Sea the people arrive at a water source in the desert that is bitter:

Text: Shmot 15:24-25

(24)And the people grumbled against Moshe, saying: What shall we drink? (25)So he cried out to The LORD , and The LORD showed him a tree, and he threw it into the water and it was sweetened. There He set him a statute and law, and there He put him to the test.

●      What laws do you think the Israelites received here (this is not Mount Sinai)? Why?

●      God put him to the test What was the test? What was its purpose? (Presumably God knows the outcome, so why test?)

Commentary: Rashbam Shemot 15:25

There He set him a statute and law, and there He put him to the test: There in Marah as a result of the test that He put them through, by making them thirst for water and then making the waters sweet in that way He began to educate them that they should be willing to accept the laws and rules that He was going to give them and as a result He would take care of their needs.

●      According to Rashbam, what was the test and its purpose?

●      Rashbam seems to read the passage as a prelude to the revelation at Sinai (coming up next week). Why do you think that it might be necessary to educate the people prior to receiving the Torah?

Commentary: Ramban Shmot 15:25

When they began coming into the great and awesome desert where there is no water, He gave them, through their sustenance and needs, practices that they shall practice until they arrive at a settled land, for practices are called laws And law that they shall live by: to love one another, to follow the advice of the elders, to act modestly in their tents and that they will act in peace with those that come to their camp to sell them things, and behave morally, not like the marauding groups that act abhorrently without feeling shame We learn from Joshua 24:25 that statute and law are not the laws of Torah but the practices of a state

●      According to Ramban, what kind of laws were the people given at this point?

●      Why was it necessary to give them now? Why are these laws not to be included in the Torah?

●      Ramban warns against becoming like marauding, lawless groups. What is it about the desert setting that might lead to this? What other settings can break down social practices?

 

 

 

 

Dangerous First Dates
Bex Rosenblatt

Exodus tells the meet cute story of God and the Israelite people. After a bumpy start at the burning bush, when Moses displays hesitance to take up his calling, God proves his power to the people, eventually wooing them out of slavery and into covenant with him at Sinai. It is the role of every subsequent generation to remember and to tell this story, reaffirming our dedication to the God who took us out of Egypt to be our God. It is the defining moment of Jewish history and peoplehood.

And then there s the Midianite-Kenite hypothesis, first articulated in the nineteenth century by Karl Budde, that tells a very different story of how God and the Israelite people met and fell into covenant with each other. It holds that the Kenites were the original worshippers of God as the tetragrammaton and that they introduced God to the Israelites. This week s haftorah tells a small part of that story, the story of Yael, wife of Heber the Kenite. In the haftarah, Judges 4:4 – 5:31, Israelite tribes defeat a Canaanite army and Sisera, the Canaanite general, flees. As he escapes, he comes across the tent of Yael. She invites him into her tent and then drives a tent peg through his skull, killing him. When Barak, the Israelite general, shows up looking for Sisera, Yael lets him know what she s done and Deborah, prophet and judge in Israel, sings a song celebrating Yael s victory.

There is a question of who Yael is and why she is willing to help the Israelites. We know she is married to Heber the Kenite. The Kenites appear in a number of crucial places in the Tanakh. The Kenites may originate with Cain. After he disposes of Abel, Cain goes on to father an impressive family whose genealogy is recorded in Genesis 4. The family that he fathers includes Jabal the founding father of tent dwellers, Jubal the founding father of musicians, and Tubal-Cain the founding father of metalsmiths. And indeed, the Kenite tribe will come to be nomadic smiths in Israel.

We meet the Kenites again in the form of Jethro, father-in-law to Moses. He is referred to as both a Midianite in Exodus and a Kenite in Judges 1:16. Many think that the Kenites were a sub-tribe of the Midianites. According to the Kenite hypothesis, it is Jethro, priest of Midian, who introduces God as the tetragrammaton to Moses. As the story plays out, Jethro will intervene at several crucial moments, teaching Moses not just how to lead but also how to be in relationship with God. And the Tanakh will even acknowledge that God came from the areas in which the Kenites lived. In Deuteronomy 33:2; Judges 5:4; and Habbakuk 3:3; God is celebrated for coming from Seir, from Padan, the historical area of the Kenites. The matchmaker of the meet-cute of the Israelites and God was Jethro, the Kenite who already knew God.

If this is true, we understand better why Yael might put herself at risk to help the Israelites. The Kenites have been looking out for the Israelites for generations. Exodus Rabbah 4:2 notes that the Kenites had a family tradition of helping Israelites: Jethro received an avenger [Moses] in his house who was fleeing from the enemy; hence there arose from his house one [Yael] who received the enemy [Sisera] who was fleeing from the redeemer and killed him. (Translation by David Elgavish. See Elgavish, David. Ya El, Wife of Heber the Kenite, in Biblical Perspective. Jewish Law Association Studies XVI (2007): 78 100.)

Is our Exodus story invalidated if the Kenites played matchmaker between us and God? What are we to do with the scarcely told story of the tribe that always had our back? God is still the God who took us out of Egypt to be our God. The original story can still hold true and hold meaning. But we can open ourselves to finding the human helpers along the way.