Parshat B'Shalach
by Rabbi Avi Billet
After Moshe followed the instructions that made the waters of Marah drinkable, we are told, “there he taught them ‘chok u’mishpat’ and there he tested them.” The simple translation of the term ‘chok u’mishpat’ is ‘a decree and a law,’ while the view of ‘survival techniques and methods’ is Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan’s translation of choice, on the heels of Ramban and the Tur.
Survival techniques?
Be a helicopter, or I guess in 2017 I need to say “drone,” for a minute. Take a bird’s eye view of what has transpired. Slaves left Egypt and went out into the wilderness with limited provisions, not knowing if this is a 3-day journey or a full exodus, they’ve just seen their masters drowned in the sea, and now that they are on the other side of that sea, they know there’s no going back.
Looking at each one from above, we might ask ourselves about each of them: What do you need to learn? What do you need to know to survive? What guarantees do you have that things will work out in your near and distant futures? This question is particularly poignant as in verse 15:22 we see you walking for 3 days without finding water?
Maybe Ramban and the Tur are onto something? Maybe the Israelites do need courses in “Wilderness Survival 101” and “How To Make It Through a Few Weeks Travel To the Promised Land With the Shirt on Your Back.”
Rav Kasher, in his Torah Shleimah Commentary (note 270) shares a few salient points, organized in progression. First, the Pesikta, which explains how the Torah begins with interpersonal laws. Second, the Ramban, who explains Moshe needed to give the people basic instructions for how to survive in the wilderness. Third, how to call out to God when hungry or thirsty, without resorting to complaining. Fourth, that they should learn to love their neighbors and to follow the advice of the elders to “walk humbly with your God.” Fifth, they should engage peacefully with neighbors who come from outside the Israelite camp, to engage in commerce. Sixth, he aimed to give them “mussar” (ethical behavior lectures) to avoid being like other traveling bands who engage in every abomination – to be above such base desires.
Most directly, he quotes Rabbenu Chananel (?) (it is a rabbi whose abbreviated name begins with a “chet”) who spells out very clearly that Moshe had to teach them the ways of the wilderness – how to take best care of your wife, your children, how to engage with wanderers who want to buy or sell from you.
Another possibility is that God had taught him botany, herbology and pharmacognosy, so he could use plant life they’d come across for medicinal purposes while traveling and engaging with other human beings.
I find all of these perspectives fascinating because they imagine a real experience for the Israelites. It comes before the gift and promise of the Manna, and it comes in the wake of people needing real solutions to real problems. Meaning, it is one thing to consider the miraculous existence of the Israelites in the wilderness as something supernatural – protected by clouds at night and fire, and all else is dandy. It is entirely different to consider the truth. That they needed to learn the ways of the world – how to conduct a business transaction, for example, or train their military skills and tactical actions so they could confront an Amalek on the battlefield.
They needed to learn about medicine and what is safe to eat, what is helpful, and what is poisonous.
How many of us would be able to survive without electricity? How many of us would be able to survive in a wilderness or in forests? The story of Rav Yisroel Zev Gustman having had a lesson in edible plants from Rav Chaim Ozer Grodzienski before WWII is reportedly why he would lovingly water plants in his yeshiva in later years of his life – as gratitude for the opportunity to survive made possible by the plants he knew were safe or beneficial owing to the lessons from Rav Chaim Ozer.
When my family went to Mount Vernon, we too marveled over how meat would be stored without a refrigerator. Or how all kinds of household chores we rely on electricity for were done. Perhaps we should all visit Amish country and learn a thing or two about how to live in the world without electricity.
Taking a slightly different turn, we can easily understand that just as there are different ways to live and survive in the wilderness, on the miraculous front and in the natural arena, the same principle would apply to how we live our Jewish lives today.
There are different theories as to how many ways of understanding there are in Jewish life and observance. Whether it is “eilu v’eilu,” 49 tameh v. 49 tahor, or seventy faces, there are a number of ways that people can get close to God.
Nowadays, too often we see people saying things like “My way or the highway.” This is tragic, because seeing things in only one way is anti-Torah. It could be that one way works for me. But my way may not work for you. Your own way might not work for me.
I can’t find the quote, but in a recent “off-the-derech” memoir, I found a very provocative insight about this. The author suggested that hassidism was founded on the notion that a person can come to God through multiple different paths. That Torah study wasn’t for everybody, and that the reality of differences in personality is what attracted so many to Hassidism, if the cold Talmud-study of traditional yeshivot approach was not for them. The author lamented that Hassidism today (in some sects) is often the exact opposite. It is strict, unembracing of the outside world and cold or indifferent (at times – these are certainly generalizations) to Jews who are not like them (with the exception being, of course, when doing “chesed” or “kiruv”).
This kind of rigidity exists in many circles, when we too often say what the other person is doing shouldn’t bother us. But very often, we are judgmental, and the way others live their Judaism really really bothers us.
It’s time to recognize that 70 faces means seventy. And not “my way or the highway.” Do what works for you! But don’t be critical of the person whose approach is different, but is nevertheless grounded in the Torah.
We learn from Rav Kasher’s collection of ideas that there are many ways to live, to connect with the world, and to connect with God.
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