The Sea, We, and Me. A Mistake, a Midrash, and a Message
THE MISTAKE
The man leading the morning prayers had conducted us from servitude in Egypt through the peaceful crossing of a tumultuous sea. As the sea walls collapsed and smothered the Egyptian army, the Hebrew text of the prayer would have him say this, “and the People (am) feared God, and had faith in God and in Moses, His servant.” But instead, he said this, “and the Sea (yam) feared God, and had faith in God and in Moses, His servant.”
THE MIDRASH
IN THE BEGINNING the sea ruled the earth. Hugging it from above was the spirit of God. They enveloped the globe and traversed the Heavens together. Never uniting. Never changing, the earth remained dead.
God said to the sea, “Draw back and expose the soil beneath you for I wish to bring forth life.”
The sea did so.
And God did so.
What was for eons one mighty sea encompassing the planet became splashes and speckles of blue, dotting the now lush landscape. The sea who for eons was God’s sole partner had shrunken itself to nourish God’s new creations.
These creatures came to despise good and to betray God. God called upon the sea to swell once more, to engulf the planet, to extinguish all life. To once again roam the heavens with God.
But only for a moment. God called upon the mighty sea. “Draw back and gently set down the ark that has been resting upon the chaos, for I wish to bring forth life anew.”
The sea did so.
And God did so.
Twice was the sea diminished. Twice was its grandeur tamed. The sea felt degraded and dishonored.
Millenia passed until the day when a nation of slaves set out for freedom. Pursued by their murderous taskmasters, they came upon a proud, unyielding sea. A sea that roiled violently asserting its dominion over the creatures that had stolen God away from it.
Once more, the spirit of God rested upon the waters and spoke, this time as one Sovereign might speak to another.
“My friend. We have known one another longer than light. Longer than life. I know you feel bitter. Twice have I asked you to grow smaller and in doing so, to give rise to another. I understand you because I have done the same. Once, I filled the universe. Had I not diminished Myself, there would be no room for light. No room for life. No room for you. Once again, I ask you to recede and allow My people and My servant, Moses, to pass. They are good. They are life. When they emerge on your far shore you may become one again and crush the enemy. Thus will you and I establish Moses as a leader of a people who will act as we do, extinguishing evil.”
The sea did so. And the Sea feared God, and had faith in God and in Moses, His servant.
THE MESSAGE
Our tradition calls upon us to recall the Exodus each day, and we do this most clearly by recounting the drama of our crossing the Sea of Reeds (The “Red” Sea) while the sea restrained itself, only to cascade upon the Egyptians in pursuit. The Mistake by our prayer leader might not have been an error at all, but a deliberate, if unconscious awakening to disturb our complacency as we repeat the same words over and over, each and every day. The Midrash that emerges from his verbal stumble rouses our profound sense of gratitude, not only to God for our rescue, but for God’s creations that sustain us, also, each and every day, as the sea did so remarkably at the time of our Exodus.
But even deeper than this. The Message of the Mistake and the Midrash is to teach that we should be attuned to the voice of God calling upon us to contract from time to time, to perform tzimtzum. To shrink our own space and allow for others to come forth and to flourish.
I admit that many times these words describing our sea-crossing wash over me meaninglessly. At other times I feel as if I am surrounded by all of you, walking through the seabed on dry ground. I feel safe.
And there are times, too, when the treacherous crossing of the sea is not we; it’s just me. It’s not then; it’s today. I wonder, what challenge awaits me that will be my “crossing of the sea” today? What will I need to overcome to get safely to the other side? Who will be there when I get there?
It’s then that I, like the sea, call upon my faith in God and in Moses His servant.
