Jewish academic and Hebrew scholar Irene Lancaster reflects on the Exodus of the Israelites and what real freedom is.
We’re not out of the woods yet. That is what the youngsters of Israel experience in last week’s Torah portion. The 10 plagues are over and done with, but are the people really free? What appears to be the case may change into illusory.
Last week’s Torah portion, known in Hebrew as Beshallach (Exodus 13:17-17:16) describes how ‘when Pharaoh sends out the Jewish people’ G-d guides them through the Wilderness, somewhat than ‘by the best way of the land of the Philistines’ (on the ‘war-torn’ west coast), so that they are directed as a substitute to the Sea of Reeds.
G-d then ensures that the persons are chased by Pharoah’s chariots, in order that they wheel round, pitching their camp ‘before Pi Hachirot’, an Egyptian town, renamed in Hebrew ‘Gateway to Freedom’. According to the foremost Biblical commentator, Rashi (1040-1105), this spot was the border city of Pitom, the very city where the enslaved children of Israel had laboured for Pharaoh. How ironic that this was the very spot where the people needed to make up their minds – to remain, or to go?
This Torah reading of the youngsters of Israel considering they’re free but having to cope with Pharoah’s army coincides with the favored Jewish festival of Tu B’Shvat, New Year for Trees. Why should the story of escape and derring-do have anything to do with the onset of spring in Israel, with the sighting of the primary almond, an event so significant for Jews that the very first Knesset (Israeli Parliament) was inaugurated on Tu B’Shvat, and celebrated with the planting of almond trees.
First of all, what’s a tree? A tree is a natural phenomenon with splendid branches and blossoms, fully visible to the surface world. But what keeps the tree alive? Sustainable roots hidden underground.
The hidden roots are essential to the well-being of the entire; without the roots, the tree withers and dies. This is the link. At surface level, the people might imagine they’re free, but unless the persons are firmly rooted, similar to the tree they may wither and die. This is the lesson imparted by each the Torah reading and by the festival of Tu B’Shvat.
Last week, on the eve of Tu B’Shvat, a Parliamentary committee in London met to debate a Hybrid Bill. This Bill was concerned with the constructing of an intrusive and ungainly construction (ostensibly with a ‘Holocaust’ theme) in Victoria Tower Gardens, Westminster, thus turning this special green oasis right into a Disney-like ‘Holocaust’ theme park.
Were this ill-thought-out operation to go ahead, not only wouldn’t it desecrate the Shoah, but would also entail digging underground and destroying various much-loved ancient trees which give the park its raison d’etre. During this hearing, due to this fact, various landscape and tree experts explained the importance of retaining trees as a vital a part of the park, and noted that digging underground for whatever reason would damage the roots – and to what end?
And ‘to what end’ is the moral of last week’s Torah reading. What is the purpose of freedom in case you can simply then do what you want. If selfishness is your goal, then you definitely might as well return to servitude, as a substitute of using this freedom to be able to enhance life. Just as various witnesses demonstrated last week that the old ways of commemorating the Holocaust (including the erection of giant constructions and imposition of irrelevant teaching methods) aren’t any longer fit for purpose, so, in last week’s Torah reading, a recent path through the ocean should be charted to ensure that the youngsters of Israel to hold on surviving in a hostile world.
Beshallach due to this fact charts the ups and down, the one step forward and two steps back mentality of the people who find themselves now wending their way laboriously through the desert for 40 years. Because the predominant thing is to take care of the roots, after which the branches and blossoms will take care of themselves.
But, how do the people actually feel after they realize they should cross the Reed Sea, with Pharoah’s chariots chasing behind them. How can the weak and vulnerable slaves cope with the powerful who need to draw them back into their very own sphere, into the old ways of considering, not fit for purpose?
G-d knows this and due to this fact performs a miracle by splitting the ocean. But the people, still tied to their slavish mentality, don’t understand this miracle until they themselves make the leap. Did they know that they were a part of a miracle? Anyone who has swum in uncalm seas knows the sensation of getting to cope with the waves, or else go under. But the youngsters of Israel learn to take a leap of religion, and it’s after they take that leap of religion that the miracle unfolds before them.
That’s what we felt like last week, when a path appeared in Parliamentary proceedings and a way out of the ‘Sea of Reeds’ was forged by tree experts and 4 Holocaust survivors alike, who told their stories and let rip. They let rip against the philosophy which is holding us back. We experienced perhaps the primary glimpse of a possibility of real freedom within the Promised Land, celebrating not the death, however the living creativity of the Jewish community .
The ancient Egyptians celebrated death – that’s what the pyramids are for – while Jews have fun life. Life is a garden that should be nurtured. Trees are of overwhelming importance in Judaism – tree planting was essential to build up the brand new Jewish State, and Tu B’Shvat is a real celebration of latest budding life and the probabilities this recent life entails. As long because the tree is firmly rooted in the bottom, recent blossoms may appear. But destroy the roots and the desire to live is eradicated – perhaps for ever.
So the youngsters of Israel sing the Song of the Sea, led first by Moses their leader after which by his sister, Miriam, who had saved him as a baby from the death edict of Pharaoh. ‘Sing to the Lord for He is exalted above the smug, having hurled horse with its rider into the ocean.’
Who are the smug in our own day? It is maybe unwise to invest. However, we learn from this seminal passage that being a part of a bandwagon is not all the time idea. And who knows, perhaps once we make the leap, life will open up in ways unimaginable.
