February 7th: Beshallach
THIS WEEK IN THE TORAH
Rabbi David E. Ostrich
As much as we celebrate God’s miraculous rescue of the Israelites from Egypt, there is something disturbing about the violent imagery in Shirat Hayam, the Song of the Sea that Moses leads after we cross the Red Sea.
“The Lord, the Warrior, is God’s Name!
Pharaoh’s chariots and his army God cast into the sea;
And the pick of his officers are drowned in the Red Sea.
The deeps covered them; they went down into the depths like a stone.
Your right hand, O Lord, glorious in power,
Your right hand, O Lord, shatters the foe!
In Your great triumph, You break your opponents;
You send forth Your fury, it consumes them like straw.” (Exodus 15.3-7)
For us, the Exodus and the Crossing of the Red Sea is a matter of awe-inspiring salvation, but, for the Egyptians, it is about horror and devastation. God is the agent of both experiences.
We usually do not like to think about God in such violent imagery. In fact, the Rabbis of the Talmud sought to mitigate this savage impression with the following Midrash: When Moses led the men singing with joy to God—and Miriam led the women in dancing their joy, the angels in heaven decided to join in the celebration. God shushed them, however, with, “How dare you sing for joy when My creatures are floating dead on the waters?!” (Talmud Megillah 10b and Sanhedrin 39b)
God is torn about the end of the story: though the Israelites are free and safe, God mourns for the Egyptians—who are also God’s children, also created in the Divine Image. And, yet, this remorse does not stop God from killing them. Though God is sad, God realizes that the Egyptians deserve to die—that their immoral and cruel ways cannot be allowed to continue, and that their murderous charge must be stopped before they destroy the Israelites.
In other words, the Tradition finds a tension in the story: God does not like violence, but sometimes God finds violence necessary. Fighting may be a tragic option, but sometimes it is the only way to survive. “The Lord, the Warrior, is God’s Name!”
Another tension found in the story regards the nature and availability of miracles. While the Torah clearly tells us of God’s miracles, the Rabbis were concerned that people would depend on miracles too much—and not do their parts to solve human problems. Thus do we have the Midrash from the Talmud, Sotah 37a, and Numbers Rabbah 13.7 about Nachshon stepping into the water before the waters parted. In addition to resolving the koshi of how it is possible to step into the sea (water!) on dry land, it teaches us that humans have a role in solving our own problems. Even if God helps, we must work on our own behalf.
I find both tensions on my mind as I consider the latest peace plan for Israel and the Palestinians, the one proposed last week by President Trump. Despite his penchant for the superlative, this “deal of the century” is remarkably like all the other peace plans proposed over the last hundred years, and it offers the same questions every other peace plan has asked. How much will it take for the Arabs to agree to Israel’s existence? How much will Israel be willing to give to the Arabs for peace?
It seems foolhardy for Israel to agree with any plan that does not guarantee its safety—or to trust blindly in assurances and treaties that may blow away with the winds of a crisis. Remember the final words of Psalm 29: “The Lord gives strength to our people; the Lord blesses our people with peace.” Put another way, when our hope is peace, a necessary precursor is strength.
It also seems foolhardy to think that anything is permanent in that part of the world (or anywhere). Much has been said about how President Trump’s plan will embolden Israel to annex Jerusalem and the West Bank—or about how President Trump’s move of the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem has excluded the Palestinians. But, anything moved can be moved back, and anything annexed can be un-annexed if a real peace possibility is present.
Speaking of real peace possibilities: a persistent theme of many has been the need for a “Two State Solution,” one in which Israel and Palestine live next to each other in peace, cooperation, and prosperity. It is a dream of many of us—including J Street and many other Jewish organizations in Israel and America. Some say that the unwillingness of the Palestinians to participate in negotiating the current peace plan means that their voices have been excluded. How can a peace plan proposed by only one side have a chance of succeeding?
This question assumes that the Palestinians have not been participating in the conversation, and perhaps this assumption is fallacious. What if the Two State Solution is merely a myth, a fantasy of our Western desires for everyone to “play nice with each other?” What if the voice of the Palestinians and Arabs has been very much a participant in the conversation for the last 100 years? When every peace plan from the Balfour Declaration to the 1947 U.N. Partition Plan to all the modern versions has been rejected out of hand by our Arab neighbors, is this not a statement of the Arab position—that the only real condition for peace is for Israel as a Jewish State to disappear?
I am sure that there are Arabs and Palestinians who share the same Two State idyllic dream, but how representative are they, and will their desires ever have significant support among their Arab and Palestinian brothers and sisters?
So, on this celebratory Shabbat with its militaristic imagery, I believe that we should remind ourselves of the importance of self-defense and survival. It is one thing to feel compassion for our enemies, but it is another to abandon our defenses and let our enemies complete their bloody quest.
“Adonai oz l’amo yiten. Adonai y’varech et amo va’shalom.
The Lord gives strength to our people; the Lord blesses our people with peace.”