The Tragedy of One-upmanship: Parshat Beshalach

After Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them by what was probably the Gaza of today, even though it was nearer. Instead, he led them a round about way through the wilderness taking them to the Sea of Reeds. Why did he do this? He wanted Pharaoh to think they were lost: that “they are astray in the land.” He wanted to stiffen his heart once again so that he could trap them in the Sea of Reeds. And what was his motivation? “That I may gain glory.” And sure enough, Pharaoh fell into God’s trap:

When the king of Egypt was told that the people had fled, Pharaoh and his courtiers had a change of heart about the people and said, “What is this we have done, releasing Israel from our service”? (Exodus 14: 1-5)

Meanwhile the people didn’t have a clue what was going on:

And they said to Moses, “Was it for want of graves in Egypt that you brought us to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us, taking us out of Egypt? Is this not the very thing we told you in Egypt, saying, ‘Let us be, and we will serve the Egyptians, for it is better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness’?”

Moses who knew who was behind this told the people:

 “Have no fear! Stand by, and witness the deliverance which יהוה will work for you today; for the Egyptians whom you see today you will never see again.  יהוה will battle for you; you hold your peace!”

Without waiting to see whether this convinced the people or not, God said to Moses, “Why do you cry out to Me? Tell the Israelites to go forward.” And what was the purpose of all this, so that not only Pharaoh’s heart would stiffen, but God would also

“stiffen the hearts of the Egyptians so that they go in after them; and I will gain glory through Pharaoh and all his warriors, his chariots, and his riders. Let the Egyptians know that I am יהוה, when I gain glory through Pharaoh, his chariots, and his riders” (Exodus 14: 17-18).

MEGALOMANIA

Reading the beginning of the parsha, I could only think of the newly elected American President, standing together with his sidekick, the Prime Minister of Israel, interested only in self-aggrandizement, prepared to take on the world, for his own glory, and in the process destroy/drown all his opponents, with no regard to life.  Like God, they are the puppeteers who couldn’t care less about the fact that a whole nation will be killed. The Israelites would not mind going back to Egypt, rather than face the unknown. God has no sympathy for their fear; all he cares about is that he will stay in power and gain glory through the drowning of his enemies.

BRINGING HOME THE HOSTAGES

What is also interesting is that while all this is happening, Moses has time to pick up Joseph’s bones:

And Moses took with him the bones of Joseph, who had exacted an oath from the children of Israel, saying, “God will be sure to take notice of you: then you shall carry up my bones from here with you” (Exodus 13: 19).

What’s so important about Joseph’s bones? If we recall at the beginning of the book of Exodus, it says that a new Pharaoh rose who “knew not Joseph” (Exodus 1:8). But Moses somehow knew about the oath that he made his brothers take. After all, if not for Joseph, the Israelites would not have been in Egypt to begin with. Joseph, with his prophetic powers knew that God would “take notice” פָּקֹ֨ד יִפְקֹ֤ד of the Israelites. That he would remember them. But what is also interesting to us today, is how important it is for the bodies of the hostages to be brought home and buried in the land. My fear is that with all of the hyperbolic and dangerous statements being bandied around by a world’s leader, that we are being led down the road to another catastrophe. It did not seem to bother Moses, that God was interested in “gaining glory” through the destruction of his enemies. In the continuation of this parsha we read how all of the Egyptian army and Pharaoh drown, which is then followed by the Song of the Sea. True there is a famous midrash in the Talmud which says that God doesn’t think we should be rejoicing when his human creatures are drowning.

Rabbi Shmuel son of Nachman says in the name of Rabbi Yohanan, “Why does the Torah say [in Exodus 14:20] ‘[the Israelites and Egyptians] did not come near one to the other all night?’ In that moment, the ministering angels requested to sing a song before the Holy one, blessed be he. The Holy one, blessed be he said to them, ‘The works of my hands are drowning in the sea, and you would sing a song before me?!’” (Sanhedrin 39b)

But that is not the tone of the Bible; nor is it the tone of too many people in Israel who are rejoicing at the words of a megalomaniac, someone with delusions of grandeur, who thinks it is possible to transfer populations, like moving chess pieces on the board. Hopefully, realpolitik will kick in as opposed to a vindictive and destructive policy. In the words of another commentator this week:

Even at moments when we see our foes wracked with pain, perhaps pain that we feel they deserve, we have the opportunity, and the obligation, to see ourselves in them. Only this can stop the cycle of violent trauma that persisted in our parsha, where the victims glorified retributive violence and the sea became littered with the corpses of the work of God’s hands.

Shabbat shalom.