Torah This Week
Welcome to Torah This Week, where you will find thoughts and reflections by CLAL faculty and associates on the Torah portion of the week.
BESHALLACH
(Exodus 13:17 - 17:16)
Poised on the shore of freedom's sea, Moses, Miriam and the people of Israel behold the destruction of the Egyptians and sing a song. This one is ten songs, according to the rabbis (Mechilta de Rabbi Ishmael), that mark peak moments of Israel's millennial landscape. Yet of all the songs which the rabbis enumerated, only the song of victory following the Exodus is re-lived in the ongoing consciousness of the Jew. The full biblical text is recited each morning and Mi Chamocha is part of the morning and evening liturgy. The song is one of two instances when the congregation stands for the reading of the Torah (the second being the Ten Commandments). At its recollection at the Passover Seder, ten drops of wine are taken from the cup, a humanizing reminder that as the Egyptians were drowning in the sea, the angels wanted to join the Israelites in the triumphant song, and God rebuked them: "My children are drowning and you want to sing?" (Talmud Megillah 10b). Finally, the song of victory at the sea is heard in its melodic recitation on the seventh day of Passover.
It was this very scene of the triumph over Pharaoh which Jefferson and Franklin proposed for the seal of the United States of America, circled by the words, "Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God." This outburst of song has become the paradigmatic call to liberation from all enslavements until, as the Mechilta teaches, we will sing the tenth and final song, the song of redemption.
Until that time, however, we are reminded that great miracles can no more sustain our faith (as they did not for our ancestors) than one huge meal can end our hunger. Between these moments of song, we need to look for God's loving and life-affirming presence in the daily, prosaic moments of our lives.
(Shira Milgrom)
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