Beshalach
Exodus 13:17-17:16 

By Jen Smith 

Parashat Beshalach is the Torah’s great liberation crescendo. The sea splits, slaves walk through terror into freedom, Miriam sings, and Israelites believe. 

And yet, almost immediately, they panic. They complain about water, food, God, Moses, and virtually everything else. Kvech, kvech, kvetch! 

Jewish tradition never sanitizes the story. Freedom, it turns out, is not a straight line. 

According to midrash, the Sea of Reeds didn’t split at the mere command of Moses. It opened only when Nachshon stepped forward, into the water, until it reached his neck. Only then did the sea part. 

Mystically, the sea represents concealment. In Kabbalistic language, water symbolizes the hidden worlds, truths submerged beneath the surface of reality. The splitting of the sea is not just a miracle of geography; it is a rupture in the illusion that reality is fixed, sealed, inevitable. 

But here’s the unsettling truth: The sea opens once, and the trauma travels with us. 

Last Tuesday was International Holocaust Memorial Day, and Beshalach lands painfully close.  

The generation that walked through the sea had known brutality, degradation, and dehumanization. They were free, but their nervous systems didn’t know it yet. Freedom without healing feels like danger. Silence feels like abandonment. Hunger feels like annihilation. So when they cry out in the wilderness, the Torah is not indicting them, it is bearing witness.  

Holocaust memory teaches us the same truth: Survival does not automatically restore trust. Liberation does not erase terror. And silence, God’s or the world’s, can feel more painful than cruelty. 

The Torah dares to say: Even after miracles, faith is fragile.  

At the sea, the people sing Shirat HaYam, the Song of the Sea. This is the Torah’s first collective prayer of gratitude. Mystically, it is a moment of unification, what Kabbalah calls yichud: heaven and earth, body and soul, past and future briefly aligned. 

But songs fade. 

Soon after, the people face Amalek, random, senseless violence. The tradition understands Amalek not just as an enemy, but as a force that attacks when we are vulnerable, exhausted, unsure of our worth. It is impossible not to hear echoes here. The Holocaust was Amalek unleashed, violence without logic, hatred without reason, annihilation aimed not just at bodies but at meaning itself. 

And still, we sing. 

Beshalach teaches us that faith is not certainty. It is not calm. It is not even trust. 

Faith is walking anyway. 

The mystics say the sea still stands split, that every time a Jew chooses life, dignity, memory, or hope in the face of fear, the sea part again. 

Every act of Jewish continuity is a small defiance of Pharaoh. Every time we pause to remember those we have lost, we stand up against Amalek. Every step forward, even while trembling, is as revolutionary as Nachshon at the water’s edge. 

May we honor the miracle without romanticizing the pain. May we remember that doubt can (and often does) live beside devotion. May the sea continue to open, not only in history, but within us. And, may the memory of those who did not make it across to the shore of the wilderness always be a blessing that strengthens our steps as we keep walking forward together.