A D’var Torah for Parshat Beshalach/Black History Month by Rabbi Larry Sernovitz
“As Pharaoh drew near, the Israelites caught sight of the Egyptians advancing upon them. Greatly frightened, the Israelites cried out to THE ETERNAL…Is this not the very thing we told you in Egypt, saying, ‘Let us be, and we will serve the Egyptians, for it is better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness’?” –Exodus 14:10, 12
The essence of faith is believing in things that we have never seen, even — perhaps especially — when the structures around us hem us in and seem immutable. Faith is about believing in a future that can be better than where we are at the moment.
In our parshah this week, Beshalach, we find Moses trying to fulfill his mission of instilling faith in a people that had no reason to believe things would ever get better. And, to be honest, I don’t really blame them. After generations of oppression and seeing no end in sight, why would anything change? This generation of Israelite slaves had never seen freedom or even knew what it was. Sure, God had done some impressive magic tricks, but was that really going to lead to a radical reorientation of their world? Is it really hard to imagine that there were many Israelites who couldn’t conceive of stepping outside the familiar? Rashi, commenting on Exodus 13:18, says that only one-fifth of the Israelites left Egypt. The remaining 80%, he writes, died in the plague of darkness – which we might interpret nonliterally as their being so steeped in Egyptian culture that they were unwilling — or unable — to join the Exodus.
Find more commentaries on Parshat Beshalach.
A year ago on Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. weekend, my congregation gathered with the Cobb County SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Council). When I shared this Torah text, Dr. Ben Williams, President of the Cobb SCLC, responded and said the same thing happened with American slavery. The majority of the newly freed Black people stayed on the plantations because freedom was much more challenging than staying where they were, continuing the life they always knew. Of course, the structures of society conspired to keep them in place, blocking opportunities to keep the former slaves “in their place.” And it required a herculean effort to imagine that so much could change.
Hearing Dr. Williams’ recounting of the history brought me back to the story of Nachshon. In Talmud Sotah 37a, we read two versions of the story. Let’s start with the more familiar one:
Rabbi Judah said to [Rabbi Meir] This is not what happened, rather, this [tribe] said, ‘I will not be the first to go down to the sea,’ and this one said, ‘I will not be the first to go down to the sea.’ Then Nachshon ben Aminadav sprang forward and went down first to the sea.
Rabbi Judah’s commentary is clear. It only takes one — one person who has the courage to be the disruptor. This is no easy task but as leaders, we ask ourselves: If not now, when?
But what was Rabbi Meir’s version that Rabbi Judah disagrees with? It’s a chilling inversion of the Nachshon story that we are less familiar with:
Rabbi Meir would say: When the Jewish people stood at the Red Sea, the tribes were arguing with one other. This one was saying: I am going into the sea first, and that one was saying: I am going into the sea first. In jumped the tribe of Benjamin and descended into the sea first… And the princes of the tribe of Judah were stoning them… (Sotah 36b)
Here, the commentary seems to be about the social forces that prevent people from moving into the unknown. Even when everyone wanted to — no easy feat — the jostling and social dynamics blocked their advance. When one tribe took the plunge, they were met with actual violence.
Find more commentaries on Race/Racism.
Our communities are looking to us for leadership. As reluctant as Moses was to accept his calling, he channeled the courage within and went forth no matter what the consequences would be. Today, so many of us forget that God has given us all we need to do what needs to be done. We are Israel. We are the ones who wrestle with God and humanity, and prevail.
Last fall, I was a participant in a race awareness weekend with fellow Metro Atlanta executives led by Al Vivian, the son of the civil rights icon C.T. Vivian. Our eyes were opened to the very real challenges and opportunities to lead with purpose and make an impact. Al likes to say, “I was raised in a household that taught you must contribute to society. We learned that things are not going to change if people don’t make them change.” This is our calling. If we are the leaders we say we are, then now is our time. Things can only change if we have the faith to believe in possibilities that we currently cannot imagine. Let us embrace our inner Nachshon and wade into the waters of justice, no matter what the future may bring. Let us be mindful of the obstacles along the way and work to clear them from the path so others can follow. And, let us remember, God will be with us along the way.
Rabbi Larry Sernovitz has been with Temple Kol Emeth in Marietta, Georgia, since 2020. In October of 2022, Rabbi Sernovitz was inducted into the Martin Luther King Jr. International Board of Preachers at Morehouse College. Rabbi Sernovitz and his wife Becky are proud parents to three children.
