Beshallach 5784: Singing for peace or war?

Today we read the Song at the Sea, the song that the Israelites sang when as I say week after week they sang with Moses when they reached the other side after the Sea of Reeds parted, after the Israelites walked through, after the Egyptians drowned, the chariots, the drivers, and yes, the horses.

“We just lived through a miracle, we’re going to dance tonight,” Debbie Friedman, z’l wrote as part of her song. And dance they apparently did. And sang. With their tambourines. The women remembered to bring them with them when they fled from Egypt. I don’t know that I would have remembered mine. And yet even before having participated in Violins of Hope last year, we know that people fleeing the ravages of the Holocaust most certainly carried their instruments with them. Maybe not a piano, and only a very few cellos, but my tamborine might have fit.

Last night we brainstormed what we would be feeling, now that we have escaped out of the narrow places:

Relief, joy, anxiety, fear, trepidation, amazement, awe, determination. There may be even more.

Yet they all sang. Together but In the singular. Az yashir, Then Moses…Ze eli, this is my God.

Last night we listened to a variety of Mi Chamocha songs that represent many of those emotions we could name and imagine. (Some are at the end of this writing.)

At Torah Study I said that I have a hard time with this text. Once I said that in this congregation and people were surprised that a rabbi would have a problem with Torah text. We should just accept it as written. The sense was it came from God and therefore we can’t question it. But Jews are Godwrestlers, so wrestling and questioning the text is appropriate.

As a woman I am not comfortable with the idea of G-d as a G-d of War. Usually, I don’t think that there is much of a difference between women’s images of G-d and men’s. But here “Miriam took her timbrel in her hand and all the women followed her, just as she had planned.” The text tells us they sang the same song, or at least the beginning of the song. Or as some sources say, it was really Miriam who wrote the whole thing.

Mekhilta teaches us that while Ezekiel and Isaiah had visions of the Divine, “even a lowly bondswoman at the shore of the sea, saw directly the power of the Almighty in splitting the sea unlike Isiah and Ezekiel who only saw visions of the Divine. All recognized in that instant their personal redemption and therefore all of them opened their mouths to sing in unison.

And still maybe not everyone saw the miracle:

Rabbi Larry Kushner tells the midrashic story of Reuven and Shimon. They kept their heads down complaining about the muck. While the sea parted and was safe to walk on, (I imagine it like the walk to Bar Island in Bar Harbor), it wasn’t completely dry, more like a beach at low tide. “This is just like the slime pits of Egypt!” replied Reuven. “What’s the difference?” Complained Shimon. “Mud here, mud there; it’s all the same.”

And so, it went for the two of them, grumbling all the way across the bottom of the sea. And, because they never once looked up, they never understood why on the distant shore, everyone else was singing and dancing. For Reuven and Shimon the miracle never happened. (Shmot Rabbah 24:1)

I have wrestled with this text for so long, I wrote a paper about it in rabbinical school. What saved it for me then was the line, “Ozi v’zimrat Yah, v’hi lishu’a. G-d is my strength and my might and my song, G-d is my deliverer.” I need strength, Lord, Oh, do I need strength. You might too. Strength and courage and fortitude: determination and perseverance to face whatever comes next, to come out on the other side, just like the Israelites walking through the sea. I once sang this song riding a bicycle in a fundraising event. I don’t ride bicycles and I was petrified. Note again, this song is in the singular, that we sing as a collective.

But this text needed to be looked at again, particularly this year as the war in Israel and Palestine continues. I don’t pray that G-d is on our side and this feels dangerously close to that. I don’t pray that Michigan wins a football game either. I may pray for a clean game with no injuries and no penalties. But not usually. (in case you are wondering)

This weekend we mark the yahrzeit of Yuval Berger. You will hear his name later on the Kaddish list. He was my boyfriend in high school. He was part of a Reform Movement exchange program and spent six months in Grand Rapids. The night he was heading back to Israel I got a flat tire in his host family’s driveway. We started up our relationship again when I lived in Israel as an undergraduate. We spent time hiking and swimming as many young Israeli couples do. We planned to get married after I finished Tufts. I would become a rabbi and he would be a shliach, an emissary. Six months we would live in the States. Six months we would live in Israel, working with American kids falling in love with the land, the people, the state of Israel. That dream was not to happen. There was no miracle for Yuval. But I didn’t blame G-d, and I didn’t blame Lebanon, and I didn’t blame Israel. He died a hero making sure the men under his authority were not also killed. I worked for peace so that no family would have to experience the pain that I endured. I even wrote part of my rabbinical thesis about the Israel Palestine conflict. That section is sadly very much in play.

I looked at the 13 Attributes of the Divine. You know them and we will explore them again at Passover. The Lord is G-d, merciful and gracious, slow to anger and full of lovingkindness. This is the G-d of love, the opposite of the zealous, jealous G-d of war. BUT the verse doesn’t end there. It continues that G-d visits the sins of the parents on the children and the children’s children to the 3rd and 4th generation. How can that be? It would seem we are seeing it now in the very context I explored in my thesis.

I don’t have the answers. But I do know this. In order for there to be forgiveness and reconciliation, prerequistes for peace, there needs to a sense of safety. At the moment, no one in Israel or Palestine feels safe. Whatever happens next I fear that there has been damage to the next two or three generations. On both sides. Full stop. I fear that something even worse will emerge after Hamas. I fear. I am sad, angry, disappointed. And yet, I find hope. Hope is in the Kibbutz Be’eri planting wheat again, Hope is in the volunteers rising to keep Israel’s rich agricultural industry going. Hope is in people making breakfasts for soldiers, providing protective gear, stepping up- in all sorts of unimaginable ways. Hope is providing help for those suffering from PTSD and trauma, because make no mistake this is trauma. And hope is finding people who continue to work for peace.

God is a God o War? I am not so sure. People are people of peace or war. Ecclesiastes teachs that there is a time for everything. A time for peace and a time for war. I pray it is not too late. I will continue to work for peace as part of Yuval’s legacy.

So the Israelites are safe on the other side and they are singing,

In the Hagaddah we learn a teaching from the Talmud. As we are spilling out a drop of wine one for each plague, :

“The angels rejoicing and breaking out into song (Isaiah 6: 3) when the Israelites are finally safe. The Holy One isn’t pleased with their rejoicing. “My creatures, the work of my hands, the Egyptians are drowning in the sea and you sing songs.” This indicates that God does not rejoice over the downfall of the wicked. Rabbi Elazar said that this is how the matter is to be understood: Indeed, God Himself does not rejoice over the downfall of the wicked, but He causes others to rejoice. (Megilah 10b)

I am not alone in wrestling with this verse that God is a God of war. Rabbi Evan Schultz also wrestled with this text:
“As they continue on, however, as they get closer to the shores of the sea, the Israelites shift their song. They begin sing of God’s love and compassion. How can God be both? Which one is it? Is God a God of war or a God of love? Perhaps it is both. In so many ways we humans emulate the divine. There are times, most painfully, as we see right now, that we are people of war. I know, too, that we are, and have the potential to be, people of love and compassion.”

May we be like G-d, finding love and compassion for all God’s creatures. For Israelis and Palestinians. For all those grieving, whether recently or in times gone by.

May we hear the words of Joanne Fink, the poet artist who said this week:

Grant me the courage to enter
the waters of the unknown,
and the faith to believe You will always provide a path.
When I am stumbling across the desert of uncertainty and despair,
help me remember that You accompanied my ancestors
as they journeyed from slavery to freedom—
and that You are with me, too.