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Shalom Aleichem * Lechu Neranena * Shiru Ladonai * Zamru Ladonai * Romemu

Mizmor L'David * Lecha Dodi * Mizmor Shir Leyon Hashabbat * Tsadik Katamar * Barechu

Ahavat Olam * M'Chamocha * Ush'mor Tzeiteinu * V'shamru * Magein Avot

Clergy Message

2/4/12

Sometimes a straight line is not the easiest way to get from point-a to point-b! The Holy One of Blessing, we are told at the beginning of Parashat Beshalah, took the Jewish people out of Egypt via an extremely circuitous, indirect path, rather than along the well worn trade route that basically followed the Mediterranean coast line. The rationale, “ki karov hu,” (Ex. 13:17) that the direct route was “too close” was understood by Rashi to mean that it would have been too easy for the Jewish people to turn around and go back to Egypt the same way. God understands that the Jewish people are going to face doubts and struggles as they encounter the severity of the wilderness. Indeed, on many occasions they voice their complaints to Moses and Aaron, whether over thirst, hunger, or disillusionment. The remarkable thing is that God doesn’t seem to be concerned about the people expressing their doubts, as much as being able to act on them, undoing the Exodus experience by going back to Egypt. The great Bible scholar Aviva Zornberg sums it up beautifully when she writes: “We might say that God has set aside for them a kind of ‘academic space’ in which, precisely to do their thinking. For this activity to be innocuous, they needed the protection of the vast wilderness, so that acting on their thoughts becomes too complicated to be realistic. Their ‘crooked road’ into the wilderness gives them, paradoxically, a freedom to think, to ask their subversive, sarcastic questions. It gives them, also, the outrageous freed tom to ‘zigzag,’ not only geographically, but intellectually, emotionally.” (The Particulars of Rapture, p. 204)

I love the radical nature of this theological proposition. God specifically took the Jewish people a safe distance from Egypt so that they could vent, question, rebel, and react without jeopardizing the whole enterprise of Jewish existence. What a beautiful teaching for us as well…Sometimes we need the space—particularly in the face of inexplicably challenging life experiences—to wonder about God, the nature of our existence, the meaning of living a religious life. These questions, however, are not a threat or a heresy; rather, as Parashat Beshalah teaches, they are fundamental to a maturing, deepening personal faith.

Shabbat Shalom!
Rabbi Raskin