BESHALACH 5781
Woody Allen in addressing a Harvard graduation once said, “You have entered a crossroads of life. Down one road is despondency and despair and down the other road is total annihilation. I sure hope you make the right choice!”
Woody Allen was undoubtedly trying to be funny, but it’s funny because it’s true that we’ve all felt like that from time to time. All of us experience circumstances in which we see no way out—stuck between a rock and a hard place—feeling huge burdens and waves of despair. In our Torah reading, the Jewish people found themselves at the shore of the Red Sea with the Egyptian army rapidly closing in on them from behind. Only days before they were celebrating their freedom but now once again, they find themselves in dire straits.
The Talmud (Eruvin 53b) tells the following story: Rabbi Yehoshua son of Chananiah said, “Once a young child got the better of me. I was traveling, and I met with a child at a crossroads. I asked him, ‘which way to the city?’ and he answered: ‘This way is short and long, and that way is long and short.’
I said, “I’ll take the ‘short-long’ way. He directed me off the road and down a path and I soon reached the walls of the city but found my approach obstructed by thorns and brambles. I could hear the bustle of the marketplace and smell the warm bread from the bakeries, but I could not enter. So I retraced my steps and found the child again and said, ‘My dear boy, did you not tell me that this is the short way?’
The child answered, ‘Did I not tell you that it is also long?’”
The story speaks to living in 2 paradoxes. The 1st plays into our desire to arrive quickly, to take the short path. The urgency of this path almost always leads to danger and ultimately prevents us from getting to our destination.
The other paradox is to take the longer path—the one that requires perseverance, patience and grit. There might be more steps in this path, but with it you can get to where you need to go. The short-long road of life will always leave you disappointed and dissatisfied. The long-short road can change who you are for the better.
This is evident in our Torah portion. After hundreds of years of slavery followed by an array of miracles and wonders, the Jews are finally free. Yet at the very moment of freedom the Torah (Ex. 13:17-8) tells us: “Gd did not lead them by the way of the Philistines, although it was nearer, for Gd feared they would have a change of heart when they faced war and would turn back to Egypt. Gd thus took them by a roundabout path by the wilderness towards the Red Sea.”
Gd could have led the Jews on a more direct route to the Promised Land by the Mediterranean coast which is only about 350 miles—about ½ the distance from here to Miami Beach, or about a 6-hour drive on good roads. Even a large group of 2-3 million people—which is the estimated size at the Exodus—could walk that in 6 to 8 weeks. But Gd said if they took the shorter route, they would encounter the Philistines, who were a warring people, and they weren’t ready for battle. The only problem with this longer path was that it led them right into the Red Sea.
Another reason for the long route, say the Sages, is that Gd punished the Egyptians Mida k’neged mida (Measure for measure): Egyptians forced the Jews to draw water, and their river was turned to blood; they compelled them to load freight, and the frogs destroyed it; they made them sweep streets, and the dust turned into lice…and so it was with every plague. Only the longer route would take the Egyptians to the Red Sea where they could be drowned as they drowned Jewish babies.
Also, say the commentators, Gd wanted to deliver His people in such a way that there would be no doubt that He was the One, true, Gd. But the Jews didn’t know Gd’s plan and so they panicked. They responded like many of us who feel trapped. They tried to find a scape goat—someone to blame for their problems—and then distorted and glamorized their past. They said accusingly to Moses (Ex. 14:11): “Were there no graves in Egypt that you took us to die in the Wilderness?” A few days later when faced with a crisis of a lack of food they said (Ex. 16:3): “in the land of Egypt we sat by the pot of meat, when we ate bread until we were full.”
Really!? A pot of meat until they were full!? They weren’t a week out of Egypt, and they developed amnesia, forgetting what slavery was like in Egypt. Did the Egyptians ever give them meat and bread until they were full? Of course not! They had cried out to Gd to save them and now they were free…but as soon as the pressure of difficult circumstances came upon them they distorted and glamorized their past saying, “We didn’t have it so bad. Actually, we didn’t want to leave Egypt in the 1st place!”
Have you ever noticed how people who feel trapped or wronged distort the past? In a therapy session in my office, a wife once said, “You know, we were married for 20 years and I never was happy.” Really?? Never?? I once got exasperated with my kids for fighting and said, “I don’t know why you kids can’t get along; my sister and I never fought.” My parents who were visiting at the time just started laughing.
My friends, what should we do when we feel trapped? I know many of us have felt this way during the pandemic. It helps to understand that Gd has a plan for our lives and that part of that plan is that we will be tested from time to time. It’s especially when we feel trapped that we need to keep this in mind and not resort to desperate behavior. Instead, hold your head up, and like Nachshon, move ahead as best you can.
Who was Nachshon? On the banks of the Red Sea, when the people complained to Moses for bringing them into the desert to die, Gd said to Moses (Ex.14:15): “Why do you cry out to Me? Speak unto the Children of Israel and let them go forward!” But the Jews were immobilized by their fear. One man, Nachshon, went forward as commanded by Gd until the water was up to his neck and then it began to recede, and the people followed.
My friends, for these past 11 months, it seemed like we were up against a brick wall—caught between a rock and a hard place. Stay home and be miserable or go out and, Gd forbid, get sick with the Coronavirus! We need to understand that Gd is trying to show us something. Don’t panic, be open to receive the message of your circumstances and move forward as best you can—even if the waters come up to your chin. You may not experience a miracle like the crossing of the Red Sea, but you will see—unlike Woody Allen—that Gd will meet us along the way and things will turn around. Amen!
