Shabbat Shira

Educating myself one Torah portion at a time. 🎓✡️🙂 Some call it #TBT, Throw back Thursday, or Truth Be Told, I like #TRT, 🤔 Torah reading Thursday because we read 🧑🏻‍💻 from the Torah on Monday, Thursday, and Saturday. 🗓

Delimitations 🙂 As Rabbi Wolpe has said “The Torah is not a book we turn to for historical accuracy, but rather for truth. The story of the Exodus lives in us. …I see in my mind’s eye the Israelites marching out of Egypt, the miracles at the sea, and the pillar of fire leading them through the fearful night. I feel an enormous gratitude to God. For although we cannot know exactly how God has saved our people, we have been saved. Despite unimaginable odds and opposition, the Jewish people have seen nation after nation buried under the debris of history while our nation lives. Here is where archeology, history, scholarship and scripture meet: Am Yisrael Chai, the nation of Israel remains alive.

Rabbi Joe Rappaport agrees, “The essential question of this tale, the message of Shirat Hayam (“The Song of the Sea”) has literally nothing to do with the great ‘did it happen debate.’ It is instead the lesson of Nachshon ben Aminidav, the midrashic hero who was first to step into the sea…. We are, in fact, a people of great faith–not in the simple sense that we believe all these stories we have handed down, but in a deeper sense which is revealed in the waves of this week’s text. We are a people who has forever taken steps to make prayers real.”

March on. It Split. This coming Shabbat is called “Shira.” The songful Shabbat!! The Song sung by Moses and Israel after the miraculous telling of the splitting of the Sea. In this week’s Torah portion, God parted the waters and the Israelites came through. We sing about it every week when Mi Chamocha is sung — “Who is like You, My Lord, among the gods? Who is like You, glorious in holiness, awesome in praises, doing miracles!”

Rabbi B writes about what Rabbi Kushner refers to as an accompanying God, one who supports us in dealing with adversity [and trumph]. She wrote “y’all probably know by now that I do not understand this as a historical story. This is a true story in the way that great literature is true. This is a true story because it speaks to one of our deepest human hopes: that when we are in tight places, we will find a way out. That when we are trapped between an advancing army and the sea, we will find a way through. That if we step into the sea, if we cultivate faith in a better future, we can partner with something beyond ourselves to bring that better future into being.’

We partner with something beyond ourselves.

We need our own strength in order to cross the sea, to face whatever difficulties arise in our lives — and every life holds tsuris, “suffering,” which comes from the same root as Mitzrayim, “the Narrow Place.” Every life has times when we feel trapped in the narrowness of our own circumstance. Life’s challenges call forth our strength. Our task is to feel our own strength flowing through us, and to know that we have the inner resources the moment demands.

And we need God’s song in order to cross the sea. We need music that uplifts the heart. We need love to sing its melody in us. We need hope, and heart-opening, and joy. If we try to cross the sea without those things, we might manage to walk across the sand, but we would be like the figures in the midrash who were so busy kvetching, “complaining,” about the muddy sea floor that they forgot to notice the miracle all around them, and as a result, when they reached the other side they were not really free.

My strength, balanced with God’s song. That’s what gets us across the sea. That’s what gets us from the narrow place into expansiveness. That’s what enables us to experience spiritual growth and transformation. Our own core strength, balanced with the ineffable: with song and joy, with meaning and love.

Lots to unpack. Looking forward to my favorite time of the week, Shabbat.