By Elliot Shriner-Cahn
This week’s parasha is Beshalach. This parasha marks the beginning of the Israelites journey to the Promised Land from Egypt. The story begins as the Israelites are leaving Egypt while being pursued by the Pharaoh and his army. They are soon trapped between the Egyptian army and the Red Sea, with the pillar of smoke and fire sent by God as the only thing separating the Jews from the Egyptians and certain doom. Then a miracle happened, the red sea split and the Israelites walked through on dry land. When the Egyptians tried to pursue the Israelites, the waves crashed down on them and they drowned. Seeing this miracle, Moses and the Israelites sing and dance on the far short of the Red Sea to thank God for the miracle. Once in the desert, the Israelites begin to complain about a lack of food and water. God provides Manna from heaven and instructs Moses how to procure water from a rock. At the end of the parasha, the Israelites are attacked by Amalek and win a decisive victory over him.
A more in-depth summary of the Parasha can be found here.
While this is a really interesting Parasha that brings up good questions, I’m not going to focus on that. Instead, I’m going to focus on a Midrash that is derived from this Parasha. Midrash are interpretations of the Torah that attempt to answer questions, fill gaps, and add depth to the text.
The Midrash I want to focus on is the story of Nachshon. The Midrash says that while the Jews were trapped on the shores of the Red Sea, Moses prayed to God for help but nothing happened. Rather than wait around for something to happen, Nachshon decided to take matters into his own hands and walked into the sea. Only when the water reached his nose did the Sea finally split for the Jews to pass through. Nachshon’s story is especially famous in our movement because the term Nachshonim is named after him.
I love this story because it talks about how a person who is not one of the leaders of the community can create change through action. The thing that is often hard to see is just how difficult it is to act when in a large group without specifically defined roles (sound familiar?). This phenomenon is called diffusion of responsibility. Judith Levitt, writing about the story of Nachshon, observed:
Observers all assume that someone else is going to intervene and so they each individually abdicate responsibility. People also fear losing face in front of other bystanders. This is perhaps why the Israelites did not want to be the first to get their feet wet . . . let alone drown! Or they felt, surely it was Moses’ job, as their leader, to take that first step. Bystanders tend to monitor the reactions of other people in an emergency situation to see if they think it necessary to intervene. Since others are doing exactly the same, everyone concludes from the inaction that intervention is not needed. And so they all stand, poised between the encroaching Egyptian army and the vast sea before them (http://www.lbc.ac.uk/20090209847/Weekly-D-var-Torah/shabbat-beshallach.html).
All of the Israelites want to do something to prevent being re-enslaved or killed by the Egyptians. However, they are all frozen by this fear. Only when Nachshon steps forward and takes action does the situation change to allow everyone to escape to freedom.