Rabbi David E. Ostrich, Congregation Brit Shalom
Clergy Column for The Centre Daily Times
Published February 9th
The story of the Splitting of the Red Sea—which we Jews read this time of year—gives us a good opportunity to learn about Midrash, a Jewish form of Bible study. The term midrash comes from the Hebrew root D-R-SH which involves searching. Midrash is a kind of Rabbinic Literature which searches Biblical texts for meaning. Collected in the Talmud or in other ancient works (like Midrash Rabba or the Mechilta), Midrashic stories are fictional enhancements to Biblical stories that add moral lessons to the ancient text. They are not intended to be taken as literal or historical but rather as parables or fables that help us learn more of God’s wisdom.
The classic Midrash story has three parts. First is a koshi, a difficulty in the text. It could a contradiction with another Bible verse, something that does not seem logical, or something that begs for an explanation. Second is a story that resolves the contradiction or provides the detail. Third is the moral of the story. A Midrash always has a moral or spiritual lesson.
Here is an example written around 1500 years ago. When the Israelites are stranded between the Egyptian army and the Red Sea, God instructs Moses to lift up his rod over the waters. God then splits the sea so that the Israelites can escape through it on dry land. As Exodus (14.22) puts it, “They went into the sea on dry land.” The meaning seems pretty clear: what was the sea becomes dry land when God performs a miracle. The Israelites walk through a path where there had formerly been water. However, one ancient Rabbi read the verse very literally and saw a koshi, a problem. Since the sea is made of water, it would be impossible to be both “in the sea” and “on dry ground” at the same time. One might think that the Torah does not make sense, but, since it cannot (since God makes no mistakes!), there must be an explanation to straighten out the logic of the Torah’s text.
The “answer” comes in a Midrash which creates some new details of the story. As Numbers Rabba (13.7) explains: When Moses lifts up his rod, the miracle does not happen immediately. The waters do not split. Moses is confounded, but Nachshon son of Aminadab (a leader in the Tribe of Levi and brother-in-law of Aaron the High Priest) realizes that the people need to put themselves into the miracle. He starts walking into the sea and shouts out, “By our faith shall the waters be divided!” The people understand and follow him in. Only when the Israelites are in the sea, with the water up to their noses, does the sea split. God’s miracle requires both human faith and human action!
Thus does the Midrash remind us that solving our problems involves both faith and action. Sometimes God intervenes with miracles, but sometimes we must rely upon our own strength, courage, and wisdom. Or, as the old Indian proverb reminds us, “When caught out in a lake during a storm, pray to God and row to shore.”
The Nachshon story is one of my favorites, but it is more than just a story. It resolves the koshi. It takes the Biblical phrase, “They went into the sea on dry ground,” a logical impossibility and recasts it as a sequence. First, they go into the sea, AND THEN it becomes dry land. It is a totally made-up story—a fanciful creation of an ancient thinker who uses an obscure figure from the Torah and crafts a moral lesson that is valuable to us all. Midrash is one of the ways that God’s wisdom continues to blossom.