Welcome to The Morning Scroll! I'm Rabbi Deena Cowans from Mishkan Chicago and you're listening to what will be a quick dive into this week's parsha. If you’ve been meaning to brush up on your Jewish literacy, or you’re looking for some inspiration, you’ve come to the right place. This week, we read Parashat Beshallach, “In the sending”. We’ll start with a brief recap:
Pharaoh sent the Israelites away towards the end of last week’s parsha, so we start this week with God deciding to send them on the “scenic route” to avoid confrontation. God leads the people with a pillar of cloud during the day and a pillar of fire at dark, and eventually has them camp by the Red Sea. The Egyptians decide they can’t go so easily and come after them in hot pursuit, which obviously freaks the Israelites out as they’re stuck between a sea and a rampaging army. The Israelites are like “What, there were no graves in Egypt so we had to die here?” and Moshe’s like “Calm down everything will be fine”, but actually he’s kind of freaking out too. So God says to him, “Ok, dude, stop whining to me, stretch out your staff and the sea will split” and lo and behold it does. The Israelites rush through the parted sea, then when everyone’s made it safely across, Moses stretches out his staff again and the sea drowns the Egyptians. Miriam and Moses lead the people in song, and then it’s off into the desert. They arrive in Marah and the people complain that the water is bitter, so Moses magically transforms it. A little while later, the Israelites run out of food and start kvetching, so God’s like “ I’m gonna make it RAIN food”. The food involves quail at night and manna, a magical food in the morning. The manna only lasts one day but some people decide to try to hoard it anyway, and it promptly goes bad. The journey continues and once again the Israelites run out of water and complain, so God tells Moshe to strike a rock and water comes gushing out. The Amalakites sneak up from behind and attack the camp, so Moshe sends his right hand man Joshua to lead the people into battle. Whenever Moshe’s hands are up, the Israelites would be winning, and when Moshe would let his hands drop, the Israelites would start to lose. Eventually, they win the battle and God says “Wipe those Amalakites off the earth.”
Let’s zoom in on that part right at the end, where the battle against the Amalakites hinges on Moshe’s hands being raised in the air. First of all, what? Which is just what Rashi says too- the whole battle depends on Moshe’s hands as he sits on top of a mountain? He then quotes a passage in the Talmud that says, “No, it’s not really about the hands. It’s about the people looking outside their circumstances for help- when they look to heaven for help, they succeed, and when they get too caught in their own earthly matters, they fail.” So what’s the story with Moshe needing help to hold his hands up? Well, as the Beatles say, “I get by with a little help from my friends, I get high with a little help from my friends.” Or in Moshe’s case, my hands do.
Ok, so that’s probably not the kind of high the song was referring to… but maybe it was. We need other people to help pull us out of our own heads sometimes. We need help to succeed, even at things we feel are completely our responsibility. If the point of Moshe keeping his hands in the air was to help pull the Israelites out of their battle funk, well… then I guess he’s doing it for them, and it makes sense he needs support from Aaron and Hur to do it himself! So here’s a blessing for Aaron and Hur, for helping Moshe, and to all the Aaron and Hur’s in our lives, who help pull us up and out when we need it.