Exodus Cycle Five Beshalach

Beshalach

Rising with the Song of the Sea

The Song of the Sea has often been related as a victory-chant, an outburst of joy, the climactic moment so emotionally high it can only be experienced through metaphor and rhythm. Metaphor is often used in sacred writings as well as literature to access that beyond-human vision and connection, that enlightenment that defies our very humanity. After all our Soul, entrapped within bones and flesh, can only be so free.

 Metaphor and symbol offer an escape route from the rational quotidian world, from our very bodies. They offer a way for our Soul to rise and expand into the radiance of Hashem. In our reach for any image it’s as if we hoist ourselves higher and higher on the very cord-of-light that connects us. Once high enough we see the whole landscape. We see that our escape from Mitzrayim is much more than a movement of a people from literal slavery to literal freedom. It’s the movement of our Soul out of the darkness that our bodies (by their very definitions) tend to cling-to. It’s the catapult of our inner light-core up from the tar-like locust-like death-like plague-like creepy crawly infestation of mud-like disgust that sucks us-in so completely. It’s the burst of our knowledge out of our ignorance. It’s the burst of our love out of our apathy. It’ the burst of our present beauty out of our past apprehension. It’s the burst of our tolerance out of our terror. It’s the burst of our faith out of our doubt. It’s knowing that as we do this bursting-out we will, through the very action, be worthwhile of God’s vision and healing in the vision of all humans.

This is not a new interpretation. In our society where we do tend to cling to rational analysis it might seem radical and new. But it isn’t. It’s actually the grounded and accepted interpretation given a Jewish ancestry going back before the Essenes, through the Iberian culture and the influence of Maimonides and his son and his son, through the writings of the Baal Shem Tov and certainly through the writings of mystics like Abraham Kook and more. For many of us, this is Judaism.

I’d like to also emphasize that (according to many sages) the Song represents a wall. In its very existence, its very manifestation there in the scroll, we are gifted with a solid boundary between (as Blake writes) our mind-forged manacles and our eternal breath of freedom.  In other words we are so catapulted out of our self-imposed prison of doubt fear cynicism and negativity that if we fall..and we always do fall…we will be stopped in our downward spiral so we will never again go that low.  At least not until the next Torah cycle. 

What this means though is that there is a way to create such a protective boundary.  How do we do this? I don’t have any answers. It’s clear though that the key is in the constant creation of a new and newer paradigm of seeing and structuring our reality. Once we do that, each time, we can make a solid decision to move forward and put the past behind us. It isn’t easy. That’s why this boundary is such a gift.  That’s why the rabbis of Talmud are quite clear that it lacks compassion (it’s ona’at devarim) to remind others of dishonor or darkness in their past. We don’t for example question whether or not a convert can study Torah by expressing to him disdain for his past actions or behaviors. 

We don’t for example say to a friend who just passed his bar exam…Remember in middle school when you flunked all your classes? We don’t attempt consciously or unconsciously to break through anyone’s Song of the Sea. Because that Song of the Sea is universal. It belongs to everyone. Sooner or later it can become impermeable. We share it together. By being itself a rising boundary to protect us from our darkest moments, it allows us all as One to rise higher and higher into the glorious realm of God’s light.  May we be there soon.