NEW YORK — Cecil B. DeMille knew the cinematic power of the biblical story of Moses parting the Red Sea. The Hollywood director depicted this awe-inspiring moment, when the Israelites dash across dry ground to escape the Egyptian army, with epic special effects in his 1956 Oscar-winning film The Ten Commandments. To the fleeing Israelites in the Book of Exodus, however, DeMille’s presentation of the sea split might not have felt so miraculous.
On a recent Saturday morning at Congregation Rodeph Sholom on Manhattan’s Upper West Side (at 7 W. 83rd St.), guest speaker Anna Kislanski suggested that contemporary Jews, too, might question the true marvel of this familiar story. Kislanski, CEO of the Jerusalem-based Israel Movement for Reform and Progressive Judaism, an organization that unites all Reform congregations in Israel, led the “d’var Torah” (“word of Torah”) portion of the Shabbat service, a talk based on the weekly Torah reading.
This week’s reading from the Book of Exodus describes how Moses, with a flourish of his arm, and backing from God, divides the waters of the Red Sea, creating a safe, dry route for the Israelites, water suspended beside them on each side like giant cascading curtains. When the Egyptians attempt to follow, Moses sends the sea crashing back down, drowning the entire army.
Kislanski said the Israelites were likely so scared out of their minds during this experience that they might well had missed the miraculous vibes. “At any moment, the walls of water could collapse and bury the frightened people beneath them,” she said.
When the Israelites reached the other side, Kislanski continued, they briefly stopped their journey of fear to participate in “The Song of the Sea,” a joyful chorus of praise as recounted in Exodus. But their praise was short-lived. The Bible goes on to tell how the Israelites soon returned to grumbling about their predicament, and in particular about the lack of decent food and drink.
Kislanski was not criticizing the Israelites, however, and understood their frustration. She compared their fluctuating feelings of delight and despair to the emotional swings felt by Jews today as they experience a series of historical moments: the weekly return of Israeli hostages from Gaza as part of a ceasefire in the latest war between Israel and Hamas.
“In these moments of liberation, we are full of gratitude and fill our mouths with song,” Kislanski said, “yet immediately afterward, we … feel just like the Israelites on the edge of the Red Sea, with great hope, but also unsure whether we will make it to the other side, whether the ceasefire will hold, whether we will all finally return to our lives of peace and prosperity.”
During a Torah study after the service, a more informal gathering attended by about 25 congregants, Kislanski introduced a poem to elaborate. She first asked a congregant to read one sentence from the Torah reading, Exodus 14:22: “And the children of Israel went into the midst of the sea upon the dry ground; and the waters were a wall unto them on their right hand, and on their left.”
She then read an excerpt from Israeli poet Yehudah Amichai’s “Miracles” (translated from Hebrew):
From a distance everything looks like a miracle
but up close even a miracle doesn’t appear so.
Even someone who crossed the Red Sea when it split
only saw the sweaty back
of the one in front of him
and the motion of his big legs
and at most, a hurried glance to the side,
fish of many colors in a wall of water,
like in a marine observatory behind walls of glass.
Suddenly, the miraculous crossing seemed more … mundane, with all the messiness of any hurried mass of people blundering together and mingling bodily fluids. And when speed is of the essence, who has time to ogle gloriously hued fish or improbable walls of water?
“When you’re afraid of the world, running from the Egyptians,” Kislanski said, “you’re afraid that the world will collapse. You’re not thinking of it as a miracle.”
That does not mean, however, that people should give up hope, she said, or forget to sing, even if they register the miracle for only a brief time. Kislanski said she’d woken up that day to news of three more hostages released to Israel.
“It’s a miracle they’re able to return, that they were able to survive,” she said. “We’re able to see them back with us.” After a pause, she added, “And we realize that it’s also a very, sad, sad moment.”
The miracle’s close-up had ended — for now.