Shabbat BeShallach

Written by Judith Levitt Monday, 09 February 2009

The week I was accepted to the college, Rabbi Ariel Friedlander gave me some advice. She said that the job of a rabbi was to fall over on the Bimah in front of the congregation . . . and to get back up again. Our job is not to be perfect, but to model tenacity and courage in the face of our own imperfection.

Parashat Beshallach recalls the predicament of the Israelites as they are pursued by Pharaoh’s army. They are literally trapped. Their choice is a return to slavery or to enter the sea before them.

In Sotah 37a, a Midrash tells that during the Exodus, when the Israelites reached the Red Sea, it did not automatically part. The Israelites stood at the banks of the sea and wailed in despair, And the Eternal said to Moses: ‘Why do you cry out to Me? Speak to the children of Israel and they will go forward’  (Exod. 14:15) It was because of the unwillingness of the people to enter the sea that Moses was ‘engaged for a long while in prayer’.

Moses is tentative, reticent, frozen in fear. According to Rashi (following the Midrash), Moses was standing and praying. God said to him: ‘Now is not the time to prolong in prayer, when Israel is placed in distress.’  God rebuked Moses for remaining immobilized, waiting passively for divine intervention, while the children of Israel were pursued and threatened by the Egyptians.

The Midrash says that even after the sea was divided for them, the people still ‘rebelled’ and refused to enter. Moses and all of the Israelites lingered, wondering what to do.

The Israelites were dealing with a diffusion of responsibility. This is a social phenomenon which tends to occur in large groups of people when responsibility is not explicitly assigned.  For example, Alex is 13 and being harassed and bullied by his friends on the bus. As passengers, we’re all watching the situation unfold. We can clearly see that help is needed, yet none of us step forward. Instead, we stand around agreeing that ‘someone should do something’. The responsibility to help has become spread out over our entire group and does not motivate any one of us to help.

As individuals we would typically intervene if another person was in need. However, researchers (1)  have been surprised to find that help is less likely to be given if more people are present. Observers all assume that someone else is going to intervene and so they each individually abdicate responsibility. People also fear losing face in front of other bystanders. This is perhaps why the Israelites did not want to be the first to get their feet wet . . . let alone drown! Or they felt, surely it was Moses’ job, as their leader, to take that first step. Bystanders tend to monitor the reactions of other people in an emergency situation to see if they think it necessary to intervene. Since others are doing exactly the same, everyone concludes from the inaction that intervention is not needed. And so they all stand, poised between the encroaching Egyptian army and the vast sea before them. It’s not that they don’t want to act; they just need someone else in the crowd to take that first step,
‘Each tribe was unwilling to be the first to enter the sea. Then sprang forward Nachshon ben Aminadav and descended first into the sea’ (Sotah 37a).  So by being the first to step up and test the water, Nachshon overcame the group passivity that wishes ‘someone would do something’ and took that responsibility on himself at great personal risk. The Midrashim (2) tell us that when Nachshon entered the waters, only once he was up to his nose in the water, did the sea part. This is the origin of his name ‘Nahshol’: ‘stormy sea-waves’.

When Nachshon steps into the sea, he risks not just falling over publicly, but drowning in front of the Israelites. He is just one person in the crowd. And yet, there is something about his character that motivates him to take that risk. Though, until that defining moment, he is not even a leader.

However, Nachshon becomes a model for leadership by taking that leap in front of, and while leading the way for, the whole community. Nachshon overcomes his fear and his doubts by taking a single step towards freedom. The great irony is that Nachshon is not concerned with being a leader, nor concerned with what anyone else is doing, just with what he believes is right. He doesn’t pontificate or sermonise, he just acts. He does what needs to be done without waiting to see whether people will follow. This is in stark contrast to Moses who had to be criticised by God before even lifting his staff.

The others, having entered only after the sea split, were in one sense disappointed in themselves for not having the bravery of Nachshon. According to the Midrash, Nachshon ‘entered the water first’ (Exod. 14:22); the others ‘entered first on dry land (14:29).

The Vilna Gaon offers an insight: the Torah says, and the water formed a wall (Exod. 14:22). For the rest of the people, the Hebrew word for wall, "chomah," is spelled peculiarly: without a vav. This can be read "chaimah," meaning anger. The Torah is reflecting each Jew’s frustration at not having had the courage to fulfill their own potential. The growth opportunity had been lost forever.
In ‘My Jewish Face’, Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz says,
 
I know when people want to fight and do nothing, what gets reinforced is feeling helpless, like you can’t fight city hall, can’t stick up for your friends or your people, or yourself, can’t do anything. Everyone’s sense of possibility shrinks up a little. To me, that restless energy is the sheerest temptation, whereas blocking that energy—out of fear, laziness or just plain lack of imagination—is my idea of sin.’

In order to lead we need to risk falling over publicly and act when others are standing idly by.  We need to risk looking stupid by being the first, or risk things far greater than our dignity in the hopes of a better life for ourselves and our community. So, I invite you to join me in taking a step into the sea. In the words of Mark Twain, ‘Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear—not absence of fear.’