One of the most powerful moments of Passover comes on the seventh day. That is when we read Shirat HaYam, the Song at the Sea (Exodus 14-15). On the seventh day (21 Nisan), the Israelites were redeemed from Pharaoh’s army when they crossed the Sea of Reeds that God divided. This moment marks our ancestors’ freedom from Egyptian slavery. Yet it also marks the drowning of Pharaoh’s army, a mass destruction.
The seventh day of Pesach is Yom LaYabashah, “The Day on Which the Depths Dried Up.” The name is based upon a beautiful piyyut (religious hymn). It was written by the medieval poet, Yehudah HaLevi, and praises God for this miracle:
On the day the depths
dried up like a stream;
New was the song
of those You did redeem.
(See Isaac Gantwerk Meyer’s notes and translations.)
Even as the holiday comes to an end, our liturgy invites us to relive the exhilaration of being redeemed by God from slavery with the same intensity we felt at the beginning of the holiday, on the seder nights.
The Howl of Joy at the Drowning of Pharaoh’s Army
Very few Jewish communities still chant HaLevi’s piyyut. But everyone chants the Song at the Sea.
We listen again to the story of God’s obliteration of the Egyptian army. We hear how our ancestors saw them dead on the shore. How they came to have faith in God and God’s servant, Moshe. If we’re physically able, we stand and listen to the Torah reader chant our song of redemption. Its special melody gloriously returns us to that shore where we became free.
Why shouldn’t we do this?
As violent and destructive as the biblical story and song are, they’re our howl of joy at shaking off the even more violent yoke of the Egyptian oppressor. This is one reason why we chant the Song every day. It’s in Pesukei DeZimrah, the daily morning psalms. God redeemed us then, and God will always redeem us by smashing those who persecute us. This song is worth chanting with wild abandon.
But is it always worth it?
Tucked into this long tradition of celebrating the drowning of Pharaoh’s army is another Jewish tradition. Twice, the TalmudReferring to one of two collections, the Jerusalem and Babylonian Talmuds, edited in the 6th century, that contains hundreds of years of commentary, discussion, and exploration of the ideas in the Mishnah. One could describe it as Mishnah + Gemara = Talmud Read more reminds us:
At that time (of the Egyptian army’s drowning) the ministering angels (also) desired to recite a song before the Holy One, Blessed be God. The Holy One, Blessed be God, said to them: My creations (i.e., the Egyptians) are drowning in the sea, and you are reciting a song before Me? (Tractate Sanhedrin 39b, Tractate Megillah 10b)
In Tractate Sanhedrin, this teaching comes in a discussion about how:
The Holy One, Blessed be God, is not gladdened by the downfall of the wicked.
The Talmud insists that the death of every human being—even people who are evil—causes God great pain.
Every human, including those who do evil, is the work of God’s hands, created in God’s image.
God might drown Pharaoh’s army, but God does so with a heavy heart and great regret.
Such refined sensitivity even to evildoers is truly godly, but we’re neither God nor angels. We’re human beings who get hurt by others. We’re supposed to emulate God, but does the Talmud really insist that we feel bad for our enemies who traumatize us?
The Talmud wisely responds to this reasonable question:
God does not rejoice in their (the evildoers’) downfall, but God does cause others to feel joy.
What might the Talmud be doing here?
Between Ideal and Reality
My teacher, Dr. Ruth Zielenziger, of blessed memory, was a revered scholar of Bible education in our Conservative movement. She once explained to me that the Talmud is distinguishing between an aspirational ideal and broken reality.
As newly liberated people, our ancestors naturally sang their hearts out about the defeat of our enemies. Neither God nor anyone else could expect them to do otherwise. God therefore allowed them to sing the Song at the Sea.
Yet the angels should have known better than to follow their lead. The joyful catharsis of defeating one’s enemies is human nature, and it’s psychologically necessary. But such rejoicing is not God’s way, and it’s not the ideal behavior toward which God wants us to aspire.
We Jews know too well how easy it is to slip from joy to demonization of others—from our liberation from our enemies to moral enslavement to collective vengeance. We must struggle to balance the real joy we feel at defeating evildoers with the sadness that, ideally, we should feel at their deaths.
Holding Both
Holding both spiritual and moral postures at the same time is extremely difficult, yet the Talmud is telling us it is vital to our ability to be fully human.
The Book of Proverbs teaches, “Don’t rejoice at your enemy’s downfall” (Proverbs 24:17). Many commentators connect this verse to the Talmudic story of the angels at the Sea. We celebrate our deliverance from evildoers and mourn even their destruction simultaneously.
This is one reason why, on the last six days of Pesach, we recite the shortened Hallel and not the full, joyous version. It’s also one reason why we remove ten drops of wine from our cups when we recall the ten plagues that God brought upon Egypt at the seder.
Celebrate deliverance? Yes. Turn this celebration into a culture of vengeance? No.
We must live between song and silence.
A happy, healthy, kosher, and peaceful Pesach to everyone.
