Beshallach: On Stuck-ness and Song
1. Stuck on the Edge of the Sea
Here we are. Our meager belongings, our uncooked food, and our small children are strapped to our backs. We stand at the foot of the Red Sea. Behind us is the approaching Egyptian army galloping forward at an alarming pace. Our hearts are beating in our ears. Our stomachs are in our throats.
10. Pharaoh drew near, and the children of Israel lifted up their eyes, and behold! the Egyptians were advancing after them. They were very frightened, and the children of Israel cried out to the Lord.
Chapter 14: 10
We are stuck. Completely stuck. What do we do?
. י לארשׂיינבוּאשׂיּובירקההערפוּתא וּארייּוםהירחאַעסנ | םירצמהנּהוםהיניע :הוהילאלארשׂיינבוּקעציּודאמ
We display what Avivah Zornberg calls radical doubt (laced with heavy sarcasm):
1. Is it because there are no graves in Egypt that you have taken us to die in the desert?
And we blame:
11. What is this that you have done to us to take us out of Egypt?
12. Isn't this the thing [about] which we spoke to you in Egypt, saying, Leave us alone, and we will serve the Egyptians, because we would rather serve the Egyptians than die in the desert.
Chapter 14: 11-12
.איוּנתּחקלםירצמבּםירבקןיאילבּמהתוּמל ?רבּדמּבּ
:םירצמּמוּנאָיצוֹהלוּנלּתישׂעתאזּהמ
.אי
בי ילאוּנרבּדּרשׁארבדּההזא הםירצמב בוֹטיכּםירצמתאהדבענווּנּמּמלדחרמאל :רבּדמּבּוּנתמּמםירצמתאדבעוּנל
These are the classic responses to feeling stuck and afraid. When we truly don’t know how to get out of the mess it looks like we are in, we begin to panic and the
panic leads to anger, blame (sometimes of ourselves, sometimes of others) and a desire to go backwards – even if going backwards is not an option.
There is a very astute New Yorker cartoon that illustrates so many of our natural responses to being stuck and afraid:
[image description: A family is lost in a jungle. The father says, “O.K., I admit it, we’re lost, but the important thing is to remain focused on whose fault it is.”]
When we cannot see a way out of a scary situation, our minds work on overdrive to try and find some control - blaming, panicking, doubting, and despairing.
Moshe steps in with words that radically reframe the situation for the Israelites.
13 Moses said to the people, Don't be afraid! Stand firm and see the One’s salvation that it will wreak for you today, for the way you have seen the Egyptians is [only] today, [but] you shall no longer continue to see them for eternity.
.גי וּבצּיתהוּאריתּלאַםעהלאהשׁמרמאיּו םוֹיּהםכלהשׂעירשׁאהוהיתעוּשׁיתאוּארוּ וּפסתא םוֹיּהםירצמתאםתיאררשׁאיכּ :םלוֹעדעדוֹעםתארל
. The Eternal will fight for you, but you shall remain silent
In one of my favorite Mad Men episodes called “The Suitcase,” Don Draper, the hero of the show, undergoes a major turnaround in his life at the same time that there is a mouse loose in his office. He is desperately searching for where the mouse came from and to where it could have scurried off. He says, “there must be a way out of this room we don’t know about.” In Don’s case, that “way out” is by facing his pain head-on, rather than repressing or escaping from it
Moshe is telling the people that there is a way out of the room that they don’t know about. He is telling them to not be afraid, to stop their panicked cries, and to hold still (and silent) a little bit longer than is comfortable.
Moshe then tells the Israelites that the way they see the Egyptians today will never be repeated. In doing so, he offers a new kind of perspective – a widening of vision and scope that is the direct antidote to fear and stuck-ness. As Avivah Zornberg writes, “Fear is born of a way of seeing; a changed way of seeing will change their feeling and thinking.” (Particulars of Rapture, 209).
I don’t think it is accidental that Moshe’s words come in the order they do. We must calm down, be still, and resist panic and despair if we are to find the “way out of the room.” We must trust that our distorted fearful views we see in times of pain and struggle are fleeting. We have to stay in the not-knowing longer than is comfortable in order to allow our path to emerge.
2. Into the Sea, Into the Song
When the Divine opens the Sea for the Israelites to pass through, many commentators believe that the Israelites actually had to wade into the water “up to their noses” before the Sea split. “Only then, it became dry land.” (Shemoth Rabba, 21:9). It is terrifying enough to walk between two walls of water, unsure of whether those walls might crash down upon you. But to push forward into water up to your nose before the water moves out of your way to allow you to safely pass is a show of tremendous courage. One can almost viscerally feel the fear, desperation, faith and the hope as they plunged forward into the water.
Perhaps we have had similar times of stuckness in our lives, where the only way out was to take that initial, scary, faith-filled plunge into the unknown.
An additional, powerful twist on the story that many commentators (including Rambam and Seforno) affirm is that while the Israelites are moving into the water and through its “corridors,” they begin to sing. Not after they reach dry land, but while they walk. They use as proof the lyrics of the Israelites’ song: “When Pharaoh’s
cavalry, chariots and riders, entered the sea” (15:9)… ” Then, Moses and the Israelites sang…” (15:1). (Zornberg, Particulars of Rapture, 216)
Why does the timing of the song matter? I think a liberation song sung from the middle of a terrifying place – from the dead center of a miracle nobody knows will end successfully – is a profoundly powerful song. I imagine it had the ache and the hush, the melody and the music of longing, praise, awe and the deepest sense of transformation.
My beloved Junior Congregation leader, Neal Schnall , used to make a joke explaining why, when we say the Mi Chamocha prayer (derived from this song of the sea), we use a soft “Ch” sound to start, and a hard “K” sound in the repetition –“Mi Chamocha, Ba-elim Adonoi, Mi Kamocha, Nedar BaKodesh?” In his telling, the soft sound emerged before the Israelites mouths were submerged in water during the crossing, and the hard sound was a “cough,” as they attempted to keep the water out of their throats.
What a song to sing as water is filling your mouth faster than you can cough it out!
Even in the Talmud, we are instructed to praise God in the dead center of the fearful, powerful situation– not just before or after: “One who sees the corridors of the Sea should give praise and gratitude to God, as it is written: “And the Israelites came into the midst of the Sea, on dry land.” (B. Beracoth, 54a, cited in Zornberg).
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