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THE REPORTER ■ january 29, 2015
d’var torah
Divine-human interaction by RABBI STEVEN NATHAN, JEWISH FELLOWSHIP OF HEMLOCK FARMS Beshalach, Exodus 13:17-17:16 This week’s parasha contains the splitting and crossing of the Sea of Reeds. At first glance, this is a story of God redeeming the people through the performance of a miracle. In the narrative, the role of the people is clearly secondary to that of God. Nevertheless, there is some human involvement in the miracle. When Moses prays to God for deliverance at the shore of the sea, God responds, “Why do you cry out to Me? Tell the Israelites to go forward. And you, lift up your rod and hold out your arm over the sea and split it, so that the Israelites may march into the sea on dry ground.” We also read in a midrash (rabbinic legend) that the rabbis tell us God splits the sea because one man, Nachshon ben Aminadav, walks into the sea first, rather than waiting around for God. Nachshon acts. He takes matters into his own hands. God sees this and tells Moses that it’s time for him to lead the people through the sea. Therefore, even though this is the story of a Divine miracle, without human action, the miracle might not have taken place. The mystical tradition of Kabbalah teaches that our actions can affect the Divine realms. Or one might say that a miracle happens when human beings connect with the Divine that is within and around us. However one chooses to frame it, I believe that the splitting of the sea reminds us that miracles require a degree of Divine-human interaction. In fact, it would seem that the Divine cannot enter our life if we do not act first, nor is there a reason for God to enter our life if we do not first make it known that we have some desire for this to occur. This is reminiscent of Chasidic rebbe Levi Yitzhak of Berditchev’s dictum that “God dwells where we let God in.” The image of the splitting and crossing of the sea is
a powerful one that contains a multitude of truths and meanings within it. Each of us faces seas that we must cross in our lives. We each face obstacles that seem insurmountable. Yet, when we stand before our own Sea of Reeds, our own challenges, we know that we must either cross the sea or perish. In order to do so we must take the first step. We must walk or leap into the sea as did Nachshon. We must raise our arms and stretch forth our staff, like Moses, showing the strength within us, in order to split the sea. Either action shows not only our desire for a miracle, but the trust that God will deliver one. The Hebrew phrase for the splitting or tearing of the sea is k’riyah. This same word also describes the act of tearing a garment when a loved one dies. Here it symbolizes a tear in the fabric of our lives that can never be completely mended. The splitting of the sea is a tearing in the fabric of nature. It is a radical action that reminds us that what we assume to be permanent and unchanging can indeed change. One could call this a paradigm shift, but “shift” is not radical enough, for the splitting of the sea symbolized a total obliteration of the old paradigm and the creation of a new one. But even after the tearing is “repaired,” anyone who witnessed it knows that its effects remain. On the surface, the sea may look the same, but beneath it is not. If we look closely and pay attention, we can actually see the almost imperceptible traces of the place where the waters were torn apart and the natural order was turned upside down before our very eyes. So when we look at our sea before us, it reminds us of what happened, just as when the Israelites looked at the now calm sea, they knew that the Egyptian soldiers lay dead just beneath its surface. As we look at our own “seas” after they have been torn apart, we are reminded of the parts of our lives that See “Divine” on page 10
P A C E
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