From Slaves to Partners: Remembering the Song

From Slaves to Partners: Remembering the Song

Parashat Beshallach includes a description of the fleeing Israelites reaching the shores of the Reed Sea blocking their way forward. The Egyptian army is chasing them from behind. They are scared; they cry out to God who tells them to move forward.

Until this moment, the Israelites were slaves. Slaves react; they do not initiate. Slaves wait to be saved.

At the sea, something shifted. Nachshon ben Aminadav stepped forward. The people follow. The waters split; the Sea parts letting the Israelites escape on dry land. For the first time, there is partnership. 

Heaven waits for earth.

The Torah tells us that at the sea, the people reached an unparalleled level of revelation. “This is my God.” Chazal teaches that even the simplest person saw what the greatest prophets would later struggle to describe. God was not distant or abstract, God was seen, felt, known. There was a moment of absolute clarity, a revelation of God’s Oneness.

At the Reed Sea the people understood that they are part of that unity.

The response was a song.

Az yashir Moshe u’vnei Yisrael, then Moshe and the children of Israel sang. But the word yashir is in the future tense: they will sing. Because this song was never meant to belong only to that moment. It was planted within us as a memory and a promise that we will one day sing again.

At the sea, the people did not sing alone. They joined the song of creation itself. When God’s Oneness was revealed, everything was able to recognize its place and be part of the harmony.

The revelation that the people experienced was elusive. It only lasted for a short time.

In our lives there are times when God feels hidden, when life is confusing, painful, and unclear, when we feel disconnected from ourselves, from others, and from God. 

Beshallach teaches us that we are meant to carry the clarity of the sea forward, to know that God is One even when we cannot see it, and that we are part of that Oneness and are never alone.

We transitioned from being slaves to being partners with God, asked to step forward, to trust, and to carry the song and the clarity of that revelation with us into the future.

Az yashir is teaching us that we will sing again.

And until then, we walk forward, holding the memory and the clarity we experienced at the sea with us.

Much love

Elissa