Parashat Beshalach

One of the surprising aspects of this week’s parashah (and Bnai Yisrael’s subsequent peregrinations in the desert) is the constant complaining that seems to accompany their first steps toward freedom. After escaping the pursuing Egyptians and celebrating their great rescue-through-water with the exuberant “Song of the Sea” and “Song of Miriam,” the very next verses show Bnai Yisrael complaining about water. Three verses later, Bnai Yisrael are complaining about food. For the second time since leaving bondage, they are asserting that they were better off as slaves in Egypt. They go so far as to reminisce longingly about the “fleshpots of meat” and the never-ending supply of bread! (apparently Egypt was a veritable Olive Garden).

In a parallel episode in the book of Bamidbar we observe the same behavior: Bnai Yisrael lament the good old days as slaves in Egypt when they ate fish for free! (and cucumbers, melons, leek, onions, and garlic). Is it possible that Bnai Yisrael’s perception of their past was so warped that their oppression in Egypt had transformed to a pastoral idyll? 

The Rabbis’ comment on this alleged free fish, is, I think, particularly perspicacious; it is not that the fish came free monetarily, they say, but rather that it came free of mitzvot, or, if I may paraphrase, it came free of responsibilities. The big difference between Bnai Yisrael’s situation in Egypt and subsequently was not the cost of the food or the variety of the menu — it was that in Egypt Bnai Yisrael were in a state of “responsibiliti-less-ness”; for all its burdens, slavery absolved the Hebrews of being responsible for their own actions. When they are first confronted with burdens of responsibility, they are overwhelmed. Freedom, apparently, comes with a price (as opposed to the meals of their reminiscences).

As popularized by the post-war existentialists, freedom is burdensome; freedom is the constant choosing of a course of action, whilst being solely, and absolutely, responsible for each choice. It is, indeed, no pastoral idyll; as Sartre put it, “Man is condemned to be free.” In fact, the fear of freedom is something we struggle with in the modern world. Erich Fromm’s first book in English, Escape from Freedom argues that the anxiety we experience being free explains the attraction of tribalism and totalitarianism, which promise an escape from that anxiety.

One of the attendant aspects of this understanding of freedom is that we are all agents, we are self-conscious actors. The existentialists were big fans of “men of action,” of Ernest Hemingway and Sam Spade. (The journal in which Sartre first used the term existentialism was called “Action.”) There is, it seems, an essential connection between freedom and action. And indeed, there is a lovely moment in the parashah in which the fundamental importance of action is highlighted. After Bnai Yisrael come crying to Moshe about the approaching Egyptian troops, and Moshe steps forward and reassures them of God’s protection, God’s next words seem anomalous: “Why are you calling out to me? Tell Bnai Yisrael to get going!” As Rashi explains, God is telling Moshe: “now is not a time for prayer, now is a time for action!” It is significant that to escape bondage, Bnai Yisrael have to get up and act — the road to autonomy has to be walked.

As I write this, I cannot but think of the picture of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel walking with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on the march at Selma. Heschel is supposed to have said that he prayed with his feet that day. I think as we read the parashah this week, and as we go into MLK Day, we should be conscious that freedom demands action and that we, too, have to pray with our feet and deeds.

Shabbat Shalom.