February 7th: Beshallach
THIS WEEK IN THE TORAH
Rabbi David E. Ostrich
The story of the Splitting of the Red Sea (Exodus 14-15) gives us a good opportunity to review the process, wisdom, and charm of Midrash. The term midrash comes from the Hebrew root D-R-SH which involves searching. Midrash is a kind of Rabbinic Literature which searches Biblical texts for meaning. Some examples of Midrash can be found in the Mishnah and Gemara—and are usually called Aggadah / stories. Other Midrashic stories are collected in works from the later Rabbinic Period: the Mechilta of Rabbi Ishmael, Midrash Rabba, Midrash Tanhuma, and Pesichta d’Rav Kahanna. Often, stories—or variants of stories are found in more than one source. For example, the story about Nachshon walking into the Red Sea to “jump-start” the miracle is found in both the Babylonian Talmud (Sotah 37a) and Midrash Rabba on B’midbar (13.7).
The classic form for a Midrash has three parts. First is a koshi, a difficulty in the text. It could be a contradiction with another verse in the Bible, or something that does not make sense, or something that begs for more explanation. Second is an explanation that resolves the contradiction or provides the detail. Third is the moral of the story. A Midrash always has a moral or spiritual lesson.
So, for example, in the Midrash about Nachshon, the koshi is in the phrase, “They went into the sea on dry land” (Exodus 14.22). It seems pretty obvious that what was the sea becomes dry land after God does the miracle—that the Israelites walk through a path in what was formerly water. However, one ancient reader thought more literally. To him, “the sea” meant water, and he realized that it is impossible to walk in water and on dry ground at the same time. This is the koshi the story attempts to fix.
The answer—with Nachshon leading the people into the water until they are up to their noses—is an attempt to resolve the problem by making the phrase sequential. They go into the sea AND THEN it becomes dry land. It is a totally made-up story—a fanciful creation crafted by an ancient thinker. While the Torah does mention a Nachshon son of Aminadab, a leader in the Tribe of Levi and the brother-in-law of Aaron the Priest, the Torah does not say much about him. But, as an important leader, he is a potentially appropriate candidate/victim for this made-up story that “resolves” the koshi AND TEACHES A MORAL LESSON.
In studying Midrash, it is important not to take the stories as history—to realize that they are not “in” the Torah. Additions that provide complementary “details,” their real purpose is as vehicles for moral lessons. In this case, the lesson involves the debate between belief in God’s miracles and solving our problems ourselves. Throughout Jewish history, there has been a tension between the two. On the one hand, we are taught that God can intervene, and that God sometimes does intervene and miraculously fix earthly problems. On the other hand, sometimes God does not intervene—and wisdom teaches us to find our own solutions. The Rabbis—the pious scholars who created Midrash—believed in miracles, but they were realistic in realizing that we humans can and need to solve many of our own problems. This Midrashic story presents a slight alteration to the most famous Biblical miracle and uses it to remind us that humans have a role to play in God’s solutions.
A similar lesson comes in a modern Midrash by Rabbi Marc Gelman. His koshi is the dolphin skins that the Israelites are asked to contribute to the Mishkan/Tabernacle project in Exodus 25. Among the gold and silver and yarns and dyes and precious stones needed for the Mishkan, one of the building materials requested is orot techashim—translated as dolphin skins. Actually, translators have been a bit stumped by the word techashim. The King James translators rendered it badger skins, and the 1916 Jewish Publication Society translation rendered it sealskins. It was not until the 1962 Jewish Publication Society translation where, based on more and better knowledge of ancient Hebrew, techashim is translated as dolphins. Sometimes, it is hard to decipher ancient nomenclature—especially for flora and fauna that may have changed significantly over the centuries. In any event, since the 1960s, the standard Jewish translation has been the orot/skins of techashim/dolphins—which leaves us with a koshi. Why would the Israelites—escaped slaves wandering in the Sinai desert—have skins of sea creatures like dolphins? Logically and historically, there must have been ancient commerce that provided all sorts of things, and some Hebrews could have purchased them in Egypt and brought them along. However, the koshi opens up the possibility of a Midrashic tale and a moral. Enter the modern Midrashic mind of Rabbi Marc Gelman who offers this possibility:
When the Israelites were walking through the Red Sea, “with the waters forming walls for them on both their right and their left” (Exodus 14.22), it was not only a miracle for the people. It was also a miracle and something completely unexpected for the fish. They did not know what to do, and many were just swimming out into the air, falling on the dry ground, and gasping for air. Fortunately, the dolphins were both intelligent and helpful, and they started patrolling the water side of the walls, warning the fish away from the air and death. Many fish were saved by these brave and kind dolphins. Then, when the Egyptians started pursuing the Israelites into the sea, the dolphins realized that the Israelites were in danger, so they started flicking their tails and splashing some of the water down onto the dry ground. This made it muddy and harder for the Egyptians to chase down the Israelites. “They moved forward with difficulty.” (Exodus 14.25) The dolphins were so busy protecting the fish and stopping the Egyptians that, when “the waters returned to their normal state” and “covered the chariots and the horsemen—Pharaoh’s entire army that followed the Israelites into the sea” (Exodus 14.27-28), many of the dolphins fell onto the upturned spears of the Egyptians and died.
So, when “Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the shores of the sea” (Exodus 14.30), they also saw the dead dolphins and realized the brave sacrifices of these wonderful sea creatures. They decided then and there that they would honor the dolphins and use their skins for the holiest of the Israelites’ tents, the Mishkan in which the Shechinah, the Presence of God, would dwell.
Made up? Certainly. Invented by a creative storyteller in the 1980’s? Yes. It is a fictional story but one that helps bring the Torah to a higher level and that teaches us the value of bravery and sacrifice and honoring those whose efforts bring blessings to the world.
Midrash is an ancient and continuing Jewish Tradition as we search our sacred texts for meaning and for lessons that are continually blossoming forth.