A story is told of a man who possessed a deep faith in God. He was traveling on an ocean liner when the ship sank. The frenzied crew offered him a life vest, which he declined, saying, “God will save me.” They offered him a seat in a life raft, and he said no, insisting, “God will save me.” The ocean liner sank, and the passengers who could departed on the life raft. As he paddled in the water, he was approached first by a Navy frigate, then by a submarine, and finally by a fishing vessel. In each case, he refused their help, insisting “I trust in God, and God will save me.” Ultimately he drowned. Standing before the Throne of Glory at the Gates of Heaven, he finally faced his Maker, and said, “I have just one question: why didn’t you save me?” And a great voice boomed: “Who do you think sent all those ships?”
We laugh at the tale of a man who’s faith was so misplaced that he failed to recognize his own important role in his own salvation. Passively waiting for God, his foolishness blinded him to the miraculous opportunities that continued to come his way.
Today’s Torah portion contains a similar insight, shockingly coming from God directly! After ten miraculous plagues finally forced Pharaoh to free the Israelites, our ancestors find themselves trapped at the shore of the Sea, with the Egyptian soldiers and chariots hurling upon them. Terrified, the people turn to God and Moses, and Moses himself turns to God in lengthy prayer. Instead of acting pleased that God’s people are sufficiently pious and trusting, God rebukes them: “Why do you cry out to Me? Tell the Israelites to go forward (14:15)!”
God’s intent is clear, and shocking: religious people should not become passive in the face of crisis, injustice, or peril. The great commentator, Rashi (11th Century France) understands God to say, “Now isn’t the time to prolong prayer because the people Israel is in distress.” In other words: stop with the acts of piety, and do something!
Rabbi Bayha Ben Asher (13th Century Spain) goes even further: “According to the plain meaning of these words, the word “elai (to Me) means that the matter does not depend on God at all, but upon Israel.” Rashi doesn’t dispute that God could be the one to act here, but Bahya reads the Torah as insisting that it is the people who must act, and God will act through them.
Jewish tradition is quite clear on this point: loving God, and turning to God with emunah (faith, trust) is a high Jewish virtue. But that emunah doesn’t remove our need to be the vessels for God’s actions in the world. God acts, quite often, through us. We become God’s hands in carrying caring to those in need. We become God’s feet in standing with those oppressed and weighed down. We are God’s heart, moved to share the sorrow and the burdens of our brothers and sisters, whoever they are.
Kabbalistic tradition offers a beautiful reading of one word to highlight the interconnection of faith and action. Looking at the word “elai” the mystics note that it is made of three Hebrew letters. The first two spell “to” or “toward” (el). The last is a “yud” which is the first letter in God’s holiest (and ineffable) name. Bahya relates the kabbalistic tradition taht the Israelites were summoned to rise to a higher level of being, a level in which faith is made real through action, to rise to the level of “Yud.”
Indeed, Bahya makes that implication clear by telling us that “God hinted that as soon as the Israelites would move forward, the sea would part for them to let them through. They only needed to demonstrate a little faith by moving forward.”
Just to demonstrate a little faith – not a great grand gesture, nothing dramatic or momentous, but a little act of faith – that was all that Israel needed to do, all that God needed to see. Rabbi Abraham ibn Ezra understood the holiness of little, gradual acts of faithfulness: “little by little until they reach the edge of the sea.” Indeed, Judaism links our initiative to God’s ability to act, as it were: “God advised Moses to perform an act of faith such as entering the sea, so I [God] can active My attribute of mercy and perform the miracle I have in mind.”
Our initiative can unleash God’s liberation in the world, and God waits for our leadership, our vision, our resolve. Rather then just praying for God to step in, Judaism recognizes the cosmic power of human action. Indeed, when it comes to social action and social justice, a little atheism may well be in order. Perhaps we should act as though there is no God, as if justice were solely dependent upon us (trusting that God will, indeed, support our efforts for justice and healing). As Rabbi Yisrael Salanter (19th Century Lithuania), the great Musar rabbi, remarked, “when it is at the expense of the Jewish people, one should not live on faith.”
We have the tools, the talent, the ability to heal this broken world – to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to educate and employ the poor with dignity, to repair the world’s oceans and its air, to bring security and peace to the world’s people. Those abilities are God’s gift to us, and God’s hope.
Do something, already!
Shabbat Shalom.