Beshalach: Crying and Complaining

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January 14 2011
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After suffering as slaves for so many years the time has arrived for the Benei Yisroel to go free. It is easy to imagine the collective joy that the nation must have felt – hurried though they were – as they left Mitzrayim. The absolute shock that it must have been, therefore, when they realized a few days later that the Egyptians were chasing them is also easy to imagine. 


Given their frightening predicament it is no surprise that, “va’yiru me’od va’yitzaku Benei Yiroel el Hashem,” they people cried out in fear and pleaded with God to save them (Shemos 14:10). However, right after that prayer their tune and tone change dramatically and they complain to Moshe, “ha-mibli ein kevarim b’Mitzrayim lakachtanu lamus ba’midbar,” were there not enough graves in Egypt that you had to lead us into the desert to die, tov lanu avod es Mitzrayim mi’musenu ba’midbar,” we would have rather remained slaves in Egypt than die in the desert (14:11-12). 


The Ramban is troubled by the juxtaposition of these statements. How can it be, he wonders, that one minute they are praying to God to save them and the next they are complaining to Moshe about God and sarcastically spurning His salvation? How is it possible that in one breath they place their trust in Hashem and in the next they prefer the familiarity of Egypt? 


Four different answers are cited by the Ramban, but we will focus on just two interpretations of the story. 


The first suggestion is that there were some people who believed and others who did not. There were, in the Ramban’s terminology, “kitos,” various groups; one faction cried out to Hashem while another complained. The different pesukim simply refer to different people. 


Unfortunately this suggestion strikes an all too familiar chord. The Jewish people are a famously fractured group; we excel – nebech – at “kitos.” Not only when it comes to believers and non-believers, but even among the “believers.” Our tiny population is divided into general groups and then sub-divided into even finer groupings and then further distinguished by even more subtle affiliations. We are so splintered that it’s impossible too keep track of all of the various “kitos.” This is one of our most vexing problems and apparently it is also one of the oldest. 


The Ramban suggests another explanation, from the Mechilta, that in fact it was the very same people who at first davened and then complained. He explains that they initially put their trust in Hashem but then, as the Egyptians continued to advance and it appeared as though their tefillos were ineffective, they lost their faith and began to complain. 


There is a painful familiarity and profound resonance to this explanation.  


Many of us, at various points in our lives, are confronted with this exact challenge. We want to believe and we do believe; we daven and we ask Hashem for grant our wishes, but things don’t always appear to work out and sometimes we question our belief and we doubt the power of tefillah. The Jews leaving Egypt were certainly not the last people to struggle with this nisayon


Many great thinkers have wrestled with this problem and, in fact, my friend R. Heshy Kleinman, in his well known work Praying with Fire, identifies no less than 7 different possible approaches to coping with the challenge of apparently unanswered prayers. For some people one approach might be helpful and for others a different answer might be more compelling. We must all draw inspiration from wherever we can and we must all strengthen our belief in the power of prayer. 


The process of ge’ulah that began when the Jewish people left Mitzrayim continues in our time just as the challenges that confronted us on the banks of the Yam Suf remain as well. And just as Hashem ultimately saved the people from the clutches of the Egyptians so too we are confident that ultimately He will deliver us from galus to ge’ulah.

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    Learning on the Marcos and Adina Katz YUTorah site is sponsored today by Judy & Mark Frankel & family l'ilui nishmos מרדכי בן הרב משה יהודה ע"ה and משה יהודה ז"ל בן מאיר אליהו ויהודית