The Israelites had crossed the Red Sea. The impossible had happened. The mightiest army in the ancient world – the Egyptians with their cutting-edge, horse-drawn chariots – had been defeated and drowned. The children of Israel were now free. But their relief was short-lived. Almost immediately they faced attack by the Amalekites, and they had to fight a battle, this time with no apparent miracles from God. They did so and won. This was a decisive turning point in history, not only for the Israelites but for Moses and his leadership of the people.
The contrast between before and after the Red Sea could not be more complete. Before, facing the approaching Egyptians, Moses said to the people: “Stand still and you will see the deliverance the Lord will bring you today . The Lord will fight for you; you need only be silent.” (Ex. 14:13) In other words: do nothing. God will do it for you. And He did.
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I didn’t sleep last night. I spent the entire night glued to my laptop, watching shocking scenes play out half a world away.
There is something uniquely unsettling about seeing your homeland on the news, while not being there. Something is disorienting about only seeing the tragedy while not having the everyday life experience to balance it. When you live there, you can somehow feel optimistic. The sun still comes up the next morning and you feel like you can get through it. Living here in Israel, you get on a train the next morning and hear conversations as elderly women shake their heads and ask “Did you see America last night? Oy, what a mess.”
Judaism Is for Nonbelievers, Too
This is the time of year for Jews to feel like hypocrites. We come to synagogue every year, pick up the machzor and recite words that we’re not sure we believe. Do we really think there’s a monarch in the sky? Does God really shift from one throne to another? Do we really think that the words we recite will avert an evil decree?
There are good reasons that lead many to reject belief. For example, Elisha ben Abuyah, known as Acher, one of the great heretics in the Talmud and one of the greatest rabbis of his generation experienced trauma when he witnessed a father tell his son to climb up a tree and fetch an egg from an elevated nest. The boy scrambled up the ladder, shooed away the mother bird then tripped and plunged to his death. Watching that tragedy, Acher exclaimed, “If this is possible, then there is no judge and there is no justice.”