✨🔍 Beshalach 2022
Was walking through the Red Sea the first ever walk through aquarium? There was even a gift shop at the end!
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Onward
4 minute read | Intermediate
The Torah’s stories have captured the awe of audiences for three millennia, and rightly so.
The Torahs tell us of explosive moments, like the crossing at the Red Sea, where the defenseless Jewish People desperately fled their oppressors, with the most advanced and formidable army in the world in hot pursuit. In a defining moment, Moshe holds out his staff, and God parts the waters, and the Jewish People walk on the dry ocean floor. The Egyptian army follows, but once his people have safely crossed, Moshe lifts his arm again, the sea closes once more, and the Egyptians are drowned.
The Torah tells us of the theophany at Sinai, where the people gathered at the mountain enveloped in a cloud, and it shook and was covered in smoke and fire while lightning-flashed overhead, with booming thunder and shofar blasts, and the Jewish People heard the voice of God emerge from the uproar.
These are some of the defining stories of our history and exhibit the dizzying heights of the supernatural. In a certain sense, they showcase what is fundamentally magical about the Torah and its hold over us.
But despite the power of these moments to captivate us, the Torah doesn’t indulge us by dwelling on them even a little. Just like that, with the stroke of a pen, the Red Sea is old news, Sinai is history, and it’s time to move onward:
וַיַּסַּע מֹשֶׁה אֶת-יִשְׂרָאֵל מִיַּם-סוּף, וַיֵּצְאוּ אֶל-מִדְבַּר-שׁוּר; וַיֵּלְכוּ שְׁלֹשֶׁת-יָמִים בַּמִּדְבָּר, וְלֹא-מָצְאוּ מָיִם – Moshe and the Children of Israel set out from the Red Sea. They went on into the wilderness of Shur; they traveled three days in the wilderness and found no water. (15:22)
רַב-לָכֶם שֶׁבֶת, בָּהָר הַזֶּה. פְּנוּ וּסְעוּ לָכֶם – You have stayed long enough at this mountain. (1:6)
We have these distinctly unique stories of the Divine manifested in our universe, and then the Torah just moves briskly onward – וַיַּסַּע מֹשֶׁה אֶת-יִשְׂרָאֵל מִיַּם-סוּף / רַב-לָכֶם שֶׁבֶת, בָּהָר הַזֶּה. פְּנוּ וּסְעוּ לָכֶם.
The starkness of the Torah’s almost dismissive continuity is jarring, and there is a vital lesson here. It suggests that even after the greatest of heights, the most momentous achievements, and the most incredible successes, the Torah simply notes that once you get there, you can’t stay long, and before you know it, it’s time to continue the journey and move onward.
Onward is an interesting word – positive and proactive, meaning going further rather than coming to an end or halt; moving in a forward direction. As the Izhbitzer explains, part of growth is walking away from the place you stood. We can’t stay because the moment is gone – it’s gone in time, irretrievably behind us, and it’s our responsibility to realize that distance in mental and physical space too.
It’s true to life as well; the world does not stop to wallow in magical moments. Whether you ace the test, get married, close the deal, buy the house, sell the business, have the baby, or whatever the great achievement is; it’s still Tuesday, you’re still you, you still have deadlines, you still have to get into better shape, your siblings still get on your nerves, and your credit card bill is still due. And so, by necessity, we need to move onward.
This lesson is advanced as it is, but the Ishbitzer takes us further and forewarns us that what follows the heights of success is rarely smooth and straightforward lulls and plateaus of accumulation and consolidation to catch our breath; the miraculous rescue at the Red Sea is mundanely followed by the people’s complaints about the local water being too bitter.
In the boring and dull moments, we may well find ourselves thirsty with nothing to drink. But this, too, as the Izhbitzer teaches, is part of the process of growth. Eventually, those bitter waters can transform into a sweet oasis, and what appeared to be downtime is integrated into the journey forward.
But all too often, great heights are followed by sharp declines and drawdowns, troughs, and valleys; the Golden Calf debacle doesn’t just right after the extraordinary events at Sinai – it literally happens while they’re camped at the foot of the hallowed mountain!
But even the Golden Calf story has redeeming elements; apart from teaching that using iconography to worship God is still idolatry, it decisively highlights God’s propensity for forgiveness and paves the way to the Mishkan and all the resultant forms of interacting with the Divine.
We should not fool ourselves into thinking that what got you here will fuel you on to further heights; that energy does not simply overflow into everything else. Success is not final, and failure is not fatal; the proper response to both is the same – onward.
The Torah is a guide to life – תורת חיים – and motility is a feature of living things; we shouldn’t be so shocked by the ebbs and flows of life itself, which moves and changes, with its concomitant ups and downs. When living things don’t move, they quickly atrophy, stagnate, wither, and before long, they die. Living things must move and push to grow healthy and strong. They’ll fall down and run out of breath plenty of times along the way, but that’s part of it, so long as they keep moving onward.
As R’ Shlomo Farhi explains, if you look at stock market performance over a century, the zoomed-out time frame generates a smooth and steady incline; and yet, when you zoom in to years, months, weeks, days, and hours, the amount of choppiness and volatility increases. On an extended time frame, each individual part matters less. The bouncing highs and lows blend into a smooth line that only goes one way – onwards and upwards.
The past is never gone or forgotten; it forms the basis and foundations of today.
Although we can’t dwell in the moments of achievement, perhaps there is a part of it that we can carry with us in our hearts and minds. And as we go, it comes with us, ever onward.
Amalek Redux
4 minute read | Advanced
The Torah has lots of laws. Some are fun and easy to understand, like Shabbos, and some are fun and difficult to understand, like shaking the Lulav. A rare few are not only difficult to understand but leave us with a sense of moral unease as well.
One of them is the laws concerning Amalek.
On the back of the miraculous Exodus and escape at the Red Sea, the Jewish People were exhausted and weary when a band of raiders called Amalek attacked the stragglers in the group.
By most counts, there are no less than three separate duties incumbent on all Jews as it pertains to Amalek: to remember that Amalek attacked the Jewish People just as they left Egypt; not to forget what they did; and the big one, to eradicate the memory of Amalek from the world.
These laws are serious and are part of the rare category of mitzvos that apply to all people at all times under all circumstances.
But isn’t it a little unsettling?
It sounds uncomfortably like a mitzvah to commit genocide, the moral argument against which is certainly compelling, especially for a nation who heard the commandment “do not kill” from God’s own voice at Sinai; even more so having suffered a genocide in living memory. Although some people have no trouble understanding it that way, you’re in good company if you find difficulty in a commandment to kill Amalek today.
Long ago, the Gemara dismissed the notion of practicing the straightforward interpretation, pointing to a story in the Prophets where the Assyrian king Sennacherib forcibly displaced and resettled the entire Middle East, eliminating distinct bloodlines of racial descent.
While this elegantly eliminates the problem in a practical sense – there is no problem because the law can no longer apply – the moral issue remains open.
Over centuries, a substantial number of prominent halachic authorities have clarified that the status of Amalek is not racial; that although a tribe called Amalek attacked the Jewish People and formed the context for the law, the law is not and never was an instruction to commit genocide against those people. While the Gemara says that Amalek can never join the Jewish People, it also says that descendants of Amalek taught Torah in Israel, suggesting that their women, or children of women who married out, could lose their identity as Amalek. If Amalek isn’t a race, then there is no law to kill such a particular of people, and there is no moral dilemma.
But if Amalek isn’t a particular group of people, what are all the laws concerning Amalek about?
R’ Chaim Brisker explains that Amalek is not a particular group of humans; it is a conceptual category. It’s an attitude and ideology that transcends any specific race or individual and persists forever, an archetype of evil that we must fundamentally stand against and be on alert for. Through the ages, writers have always labeled enemies or opposition as Amalek, formalizing this eternal struggle.
It’s not apologetics or mental gymnastics; it fits the words very neatly. The perpetrators of the original crime are all dead, but the offense isn’t simply that they attacked the Jewish People; as Rashi explains, it’s that they cooled us off along the way while we were weary – אֲשֶׁר קָרְךָ בַּדֶּרֶךְ וַיְזַנֵּב בְּךָ כּל־הַנֶּחֱשָׁלִים אַחֲרֶיךָ וְאַתָּה עָיֵף וְיָגֵעַ.
As the Netziv points out, it would be self-defeating to have an eternal command to destroy something’s memory; the Torah makes that literally impossible simply by mentioning it.
The Kedushas Levi goes further and suggests that the legacy of Amalek lies in the heart of every person.
So sure, the malignant form of Amalek looks like a Haman or a Hitler. But the benign form is all around us, in ourselves and in others. It’s not any particular humans we need to overcome, but rather, their attitude and ideology. Case in point, the fight against Amalek does not end even though the nation is long gone; its legacy remains, and it’s the legacy that poses a threat.
An old Chassidim aphorism observes that Amalek is numerically equivalent to doubt – עמלק / ספק – and the attack in Rephidim only happens opportunistically since people’s were caught off guard – רְפִידִים / רפיון ידים.
In our day-to-day lives, that looks like when you consider doing something bold or different, and someone, perhaps even yourself, pokes holes or second-guesses the new initiative. “I want to try this new idea, but maybe I shouldn’t? What if it’s the wrong choice? Maybe I don’t deserve it?” Or perhaps, “Why start or support that project—aren’t there far more important ones?”
Anthropologists and psychologists have long observed the phenomenon of crab mentality in some groups. The metaphor derives from a pattern of behavior noted in crabs when they are trapped in a bucket – any individual crab could easily escape, but the others will undermine its efforts, ensuring the group’s collective demise. In some groups, members will attempt to reduce the self-confidence of any member who achieves success beyond the others, whether out of envy, resentment, spite, or competitive feeling, to halt their progress. The wrong circles have powerful inertia that draws members towards conformity and mediocrity in a self-fulfilling negative feedback loop.
As Churchill said, if you have enemies, that means you’ve stood up for something at some time in your life. To be sure, if you only have enemies, you have a different problem! But if you have no enemies, you also have a problem, likely that you try to please everybody rather than standing for your own ideas and values. Make sure you know which side of the line you’re on!
Letting feelings of self-doubt and personal incompetence persist is called impostor syndrome. You can baselessly hold back from doing things that could transform your life because you’re not ready to face the reality of your own potential greatness.
If it sounds pithy or trite, just know that that’s quite literally Amalek’s great crime – trying to hold the Jewish People back just as they were beginning to break through, discouraging them just as they were getting started and finding their feet – אֲשֶׁר קָרְךָ בַּדֶּרֶךְ וַיְזַנֵּב בְּךָ כּל־הַנֶּחֱשָׁלִים אַחֲרֶיךָ וְאַתָּה עָיֵף וְיָגֵעַ.
As the Mishna in Pirkei Avos says, you must eliminate all doubt – הִסְתַּלֵּק מִן הַסָּפֵק.
Remember that someone who was Amalek can lose their status; when they discard their harmful ideology, they’re not the enemy anymore, and the law no longer applies to them.
Haters rarely hate you; far more often, they hate themselves because you’re showing them a reflection of what they wish they could be, and they don’t like feeling inadequate.
Shine bright and soar, and forget about the people who tried to hold you back.
Face the Facts
3 minute read | Straightforward
When something big and life-changing happens, you might think it’s obvious that you notice and act accordingly. But that’s not always the case.
As far as big and life-changing happenings go, the Revelation at Sinai ought to be up there. God came down to Earth to give humans the Torah! We might expect the beginning of humanity’s journey with the Torah to be full of eager excitement, or perhaps at least a somber sense of purpose and responsibility. But that’s not what happens.
The very first excursion away from Sinai winds up in catastrophe; the people bitterly complain about their miserable life in the desert. They seem to have forgotten all about the genocide and slavery, and this is a fine example of the slave mentality they could never seem to shake. They fondly reminisce about the good old days of Egypt, when they enjoyed abundant fish, cucumbers, garlic, onion, leeks, and juicy melons. Now they’re stuck eating manna from Heaven, fed daily by no less than God Himself, but after experiencing the culinary delights Egypt had to offer, this was bland and boring. They clamor for more enjoyable food and demand some tasty meat, and subsequently, a plague ensues with many casualties.
While the story unfolds in its way, Rashi suggests that it was the manner of their departure from Sinai that cultivated their craving for meat:
וַיִּסְעוּ מֵהַר ה’ דֶּרֶךְ שְׁלֹשֶׁת יָמִים – They marched from the mountain of God a distance of three days…. (10:33)
Our Sages compare their attitude to a child running out of school; that they couldn’t wait to put God’s mountain behind them, figuratively as well as literally. What if God imposed even more laws?! As the Ramban notes, it’s not just they traveled a physical distance; it’s that they traveled away mentally and spiritually from the mountain and all it meant – ‘וַיִּסְעוּ מֵהַר ה.
The Chasam Sofer notes that the causation must work both ways; if a poor attitude had fueled their craving for meat, then intuitively, the inverse lesson must be true too, that if they had solemnly carried the Torah and lived up to their responsibilities, then they never could have contemplated that God’s cuisine was lousy!
But instead, they ran from destiny.
Rather than act like people who had witnessed Sinai, they acted like people who had not, simple folk with simple wants and needs, because who doesn’t enjoy a good steak now and then?
But as the story shows, that shouldn’t be what satisfies us; that shouldn’t be the thing we crave and desire first and foremost. Did they want fresh meat because that’s just what humans like, or was it the result of their unwillingness to face the fact of Sinai and rise to its challenge? They might have believed the former, but our Sages believe the latter.
Our Sages labeled their mentality as childish; a child lacks the discipline, experience, maturity, and wisdom to do the hard things they need to but don’t want to. A child is not yet ready to grapple with life’s challenges.
Only they weren’t children.
While we can knowingly sigh at such an obvious error, the Torah is a mirror that tells us who we are, that God can speak to humans, and we will run away. Destiny can call, with the highest and most sacred purpose the universe has to offer, and we will procrastinate with all kinds of creative escapism, avoiding responsibility by indulging ourselves with trivial nonsense.
Consider for just a moment what you might be avoiding, failing to recognize, or running away from. At its core, avoidance is an emotion management problem. That feeling you get when there is something you keep kicking down the road? That’s a signal.
Something big happened to them, and they ignored it and tried to leave it behind. But life comes at you one way or another, so you’ve got to take it all with you and incorporate it into your being. The stakes are too high – we can’t afford to be childish, and we can’t run from who we are.
There are lots of big and scary things we have to do, and we must cultivate the maturity to rise to the challenge.
As Kierkegaard said, face the facts of being what you are, for that is what changes what you are.
This Cannot Be How It Ends
3 minute read | Intermediate
As the Exodus reaches its crescendo, the Jews are cornered. They make it to the shores of the ocean, wading in the reeds, the open sea in front of them, a cloud of the onrushing Egyptian army on the horizon. Trapped, the people despair.
Yet before God talks to Moshe, Moshe already knows how to proceed:
אַל-תִּירָאוּ–הִתְיַצְּבוּ וּרְאוּ אֶת-יְשׁוּעַת ה’, אֲשֶׁר-יַעֲשֶׂה לָכֶם הַיּוֹם – “Do not be afraid! Stand and wait, and you’ll see God’s salvation…” (14:13)
At this juncture, the Torah does not record a discussion where God preps Moshe or gives him a heads up about what to to do. Moshe seems to know what to do based solely on his intuition.
But how could he know?
After the Jewish People are saved, they sing the Song of the Sea. Curiously, the Torah separately records how Miriam led a separate rendition of gratitude, and the Jewish women follow her. It’s curious because it seems to indicate that the Song of the Sea was not enough, that her activity was something separate, over and above what everyone else did, and it’s curious because the Torah identifies her in a highly unusual way:
וַתִּקַּח מִרְיָם הַנְּבִיאָה אֲחוֹת אַהֲרֹן, אֶת-הַתֹּף–בְּיָדָהּ; וַתֵּצֶאןָ כָל-הַנָּשִׁים אַחֲרֶיהָ, בְּתֻפִּים וּבִמְחֹלֹת. וַתַּעַן לָהֶם, מִרְיָם … – Miriam the prophetess, sister of Aron, took an instrument in her hand, and led the women with instruments and dancing. And she sang to them… (15:21)
She needs no introduction; we know exactly who she is. The specific identifications, the prophetess, sister of Ahron, are odd – הַנְּבִיאָה אֲחוֹת אַהֲרֹן. She was also sister to Moshe, and what of her capacity as a prophetess? וַתַּעַן לָהֶם suggests she was responding – but to what?
Sensitive to these irregularities, Rashi suggests that the Torah is alluding to the prophecy she channeled when she was Ahron’s sister, and not yet Moshe’s; the prophecy of Moshe’s birth.
In the months preceding Moshe’s birth, already foreseen by Pharaoh, he launched a campaign of infanticide against Jewish boys. The Midrash records how Amram and Yocheved, the Jewish leadership of that time, had separated, so as not to suffer this terrible fate. Miriam experienced this prophecy and persuaded them to get back together by saying that they were worse than the decree itself, as they were preventing the birth of girls too.
When Yocheved fell pregnant, the Egyptian government kept tabs on her – but Moshe was born early. When he was born, the Torah describes his appearance as brilliant – וַתֵּרֶא אֹתוֹ כִּי-טוֹב הוּא – which the Midrash suggests is the same brilliance as the light of Creation – כִּי-טוֹב – and the entire house shone.
But in spite of such an auspicious sign, the moment came where she could hide him no longer – וְלֹא-יָכְלָה עוֹד, הַצְּפִינוֹ. After three more months, which would have been a full-term pregnancy, the Egyptians came for her to inspect the child she was due to give birth to. She knew she had to abandon the child prophesied by her daughter. She placed the boy into a basket and placed him in the river. The Torah implies she could not bear to watch – and who could? What chances would one give a child in a box in a crocodile infested river, in the Egyptian heat, with an army looking for him no less:
וַתֵּתַצַּב אֲחֹתוֹ, מֵרָחֹק, לְדֵעָה, מַה-יֵּעָשֶׂה לוֹ – Miriam stood and waited from afar, to know what would be of him…(2:4)
The emphasis is on Miriam; Miriam stayed when Yocheved could not. She had not experienced a new prophecy, and she was only a child herself. Perhaps, holding on to her prophecy, one thought guided her, that this cannot be how it ends. And she was vindicated!
The daughter of the Jewish People’s oppressors showed up, which would ordinarily be the absolute worst thing that could happen, but in a stunning reversal, she displays compassion for the boy and takes him in; ultimate victory seized from the clutches of total defeat.
As R’ David Fohrman explains, years later, Moshe knew what to tell the Jews at the shore of the Red Sea, because this had happened before; it was the same story!
Jew cornered by Egyptian among the reeds, at the water’s lips, all hope fading. So this could not be how it ends! Moshe had been in this exact situation before; so he understood to tell them to watch what happens.
Once they were safe, so many years after her prophecy, Moshe had finally saved their people, and it is Miriam’s celebration more than anyone else’s because this is the ultimate fulfillment of her prophecy – the promised child has saved their people from Egypt for good.
You probably haven’t experienced prophecy of salvation. But all the same, in the bleak moments that look like all is lost, you can invoke the power of Miriam, and hold on just a little longer.
This cannot be how it ends.
Appreciating Nature
< 1 minute | Straightforward
The splitting of the Red Sea is rightly lauded as one of the most incredible miracles of all time. Each element is incredible; the magnitude of the miracle; the upending of the entire natural order; in just the nick of time; helping them not only escape, but vanquishing the entire enemy force; in one fell swoop, all come together for one of the most memorable stories in our pantheon.
The miracle itself had two distinct components, where Moshe activated parting of the waters, and then again when he deactivated them and restored their natural state:
וַיֹּאמֶר ה אֶל מֹשֶׁה נְטֵה אֶת יָדְךָ עַל הַיָּם וְיָשֻׁבוּ הַמַּיִם עַל מִצְרַיִם עַל רִכְבּוֹ וְעַל פָּרָשָׁיו – Hashem said to Moshe; “Stretch your hand over the sea, and the water will crash back onto the Egyptians, their chariots, and their horseriders.” (14:26)
We’re talking about miracles here, so we’re deep in the uncharted realm of speculation. But in a sense, we might think it quite logical to require Moshe to do something to activate the miracle to split the waters. It doesn’t necessarily follow that Moshe would have to do something to end the miracle and restore the natural order. We might reasonably expect that once the last straggler made it to safety, the miracle was no longer necessary, and it would return to its default natural state.
But God required Moshe to activate the return of the natural order as well. Why didn’t the miracle end by itself?
R’ Shimshon Pinkus observes that this suggests an essential lesson, that from God’s vantage point, nature and miracle are the same, and there is no default condition; that Moshe wasn’t deactivating a miracle, merely activating another miracle, that natural order we take for granted.
If it sounds a little overly credulous, Jewish tradition has endorsed our cosmic wonder at natural phenomena for centuries, with blessings over the waxing moon, first blossoms of spring, the configuration of the starry expanse, and the sweet smell of flowers, down to the food we eat, the healthy body, and something as simple as going to the bathroom.
Don’t take any of it for granted.
You are Worthy
3 minute read | Straightforward
The Exodus is an orienting event for the Jewish People, a founding moment in our history, with a daily duty to recall it. It’s the first thing God has to say to humans at Sinai; God introduces Himself as the God who took us out of Egypt.
Remembering the Exodus is a perpetual mitzvah, and an astounding amount of our daily blessings, mitzvos, and prayers commemorate the Exodus – זֵכֶר לִיצִיאַת מִצְרָיִם. It is ubiquitous to the extent we could miss the point entirely.
What do we mean when we say that we remember that God took the Jews out of Egypt?
It is essential to understand first principles because they are the foundational concepts that govern the systems built upon them.
If we unpack the story, the Jews in Egypt didn’t deserve to be saved because they were so good or so special; in fact, quite the opposite.
The Zohar imagines the angels arguing whether or not God should save the Jews, and the argument was that “this lot are just a bunch of idol-worshippers, and so are those!” The Haggadah admits as much – מִתְּחִלָּה עוֹבְדֵי עֲבוֹדָה זָרָה הָיוּ אֲבוֹתֵינוּ.
When Moshe told the Jews to set aside and take one sheep per family, the Midrash says that “set aside” meant setting aside their idols before taking the sheep for the mitzvah!
When even Moshe, already well on his way to greatness, saw Yisro’s daughters getting bullied and got involved in the dispute to protect them, the onlookers mistook him for just another Egyptian!
The Midrash famously states that the enslaved Jews retained their names, clothing, and language. This is often framed as a point of pride, but the point would seem to be that apart from these narrow and limited practices, they were otherwise indistinguishable from Egyptians in every other conceivable way!
Moreover, the generation that left Egypt and stood at Sinai fought Moshe the rest of their lives, begging to go back to Egypt, and was ultimately doomed to wander and die in the wilderness.
The Zohar goes so far as to say that the Jews were on the 49th level of spiritual malaise, just one notch off rock bottom, the point of no return. Rav Kook notes that this adds a particular dimension to the imagery of God’s outstretched arm – it was a forceful intervention, an emergency rescue of a nation that had stumbled and was about fall off a cliff – בְּיָד חֲזָקָה וּבִזְרֹעַ נְטוּיָה.
That is to say that on a fundamental level, the Jews didn’t deserve rescuing at all.
And yet crucially, as R’ Chaim Kanievsky notes, God responded to their cries all the same – וַנִּצְעַק אֶל־ה’ אֱלֹהֵי אֲבֹתֵינוּ, וַיִּשְׁמַע ה’ אֶת־קֹלֵנוּ.
The Divrei Chaim notes that the very first Commandment is no command at all; God “introduces” himself as the God who took us out of Egypt – אָנֹכִי ה’ אֱלֹהֶיךָ אֲשֶׁר הוֹצֵאתִיךָ מֵאֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם מִבֵּית עֲבָדִים. It’s not a command – it is just a simple statement of fact. We might not deserve redemption, yet God redeems us all the same.
R’ Tzadok haKohen writes that to remember Egypt is to remember God’s first declarative sentence; our God rescues people from Egypt, whoever they are.
The Ropshitzer quipped that תְּחִלָּה לְמִקְרָאֵי קדֶשׁ זֵכֶר לִיצִיאַת מִצְרָיִם – the first step towards holiness is remembering that the same Exodus that rescued people from the abyss once before could be just a moment away.
So when we remind ourselves about Egypt, it’s not just that it happened once, but that, as the Lubavitcher Rebbe put it, God’s redemption is not contingent on our worthiness.
You don’t need to remember the simple historical events of the Exodus; you have to remind yourself that every single last human is worthy of God’s unconditional love.
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Dr Julie brings the fire as always.
I feel like this is a major shortcoming of rationalist thought, and helps explain why Neo-Chassidism is extremely popular.
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