Reb Zalman [a founder of the Jewish Renewal movement in the 1970s] taught that during Sukkot, we go into the mitzvah – the sukkah; while during Passover, the mitzvah goes into us – the matzah. This insight highlights the spiritual dialectic of inner and outer, interior and exterior.
In today’s Torah reading for the seventh day of Passover, we commentate and relive our moment of liberation at the Sea of Reeds. That reading includes the Children of Israel singing, led respectfully by Moses and Miriam, in praise of and thanks to God for our redemption and freedom from slavery.
According to a midrash, when the angels wanted to also sing, God said: “The work of My hands, the Egyptians, are drowning at sea, and you want to say songs?” (Sanhedrin 39b). This indicates that God does not rejoice over the downfall of the wicked.
It has been 559 days since Oct. 7 and the subsequent war. We continue to mourn our losses and carry the pain and anger for all that has happened: our dead, our wounded civilians and soldiers, missiles fired from all four directions, thousands evacuated, the gut-wrenching account of the hostages, and the rise of virulent anti-Israeli (and related anti-Jewish) sentiments around the world.
In light of this agonizing and ongoing reality, the above-quoted midrash can be a challenge to embrace, as it forces us to think and look outward at our enemies in a different light.
We note that the midrash relates to angels and not to us. We here on Earth are addressed in Proverbs (24:17): “Do not gloat when your enemy falls; when they stumble, do not let your heart rejoice.” And in Pirkei Avot (4:19), we read that “Shmuel Hakatan said: ‘If your enemy falls, do not exult; if he trips, let your heart not rejoice, lest the Lord see it and be displeased and avert his wrath from him.’”
When we enumerate the Ten Plagues at the Seder, an explanation for dipping a finger in our wine glass and removing some wine is to diminish our joy, knowing others – even our slave masters and enemies – died so we could become free.
On the other hand, Rabbi Moishe Dovid Lebovits teaches, “The Gemara [Sanhedrin 39b] brings a passuk [quoting Proverbs 10:11] that says, ‘When the wicked perish, there is a song.’ [And] the Gemara in Berachot [9b] says that Dovid Hamelech composed 103 chapters of Psalms, and he did not say “Hallelujah” until he saw the downfall of the wicked.”
As a bridge to these two approaches, Rabbi Dr. Raphael Zarum highlights, “So it seems that our tradition is really in two minds about all this. King Solomon himself wrote in his Book of Proverbs, ‘When the wicked perish, there is singing’ [11:10], but later remarked, ‘When your enemy falls, do not rejoice.’ [24:17].
“Which is correct? I suggest that we’re charged with living consciously with this dichotomy. If we’re not pleased that evil has been punished, then we don’t value justice. Conversely, if we’re not sad at the loss of life, then our humanity is diminished.”
That standpoint is echoed in a commentary by pastoral musician Rory Cooney: “The Midrash tells us that God was not angry with the Israelites for singing and rejoicing at the shores of the sea. The people had just escaped great danger. It was only human that they express their relief and their joy.
“But the angels were supposed to have a somewhat broader perspective. They should have kept their awareness of the spark of God that is in every person, even the Pharaoh himself.”
The Psalmist (8:5) says that we humans were created “little less than the celestial beings.” The ambiguity in that understanding of a “little less” opens the door to how much we should emulate the angels and embrace that mindset of seeing the holiness in all of God’s creatures.
Another midrash that deals with the drowning of the Egyptians can perhaps help. It begins: “When the Holy One was about to drown the Egyptians in the sea, Uzza, heavenly prince of Egypt, rose up and prostrated himself before the Holy One, saying: ‘Master of the universe, You created the world by the measure of mercy. Why then do You wish to drown my [Egyptian] children?’” (Bialik & Ravinsky, Sefer Ha-Aggadah, p. 73).
That is to say, the discussion on whether the angels should sing or not begins with an awareness of the loss of the innocent, particularly the children of our enemies. As the conversation unfolds, the angel, “Michael perceived this. He gave the sign to Gabriel, who in one swoop darted down to Egypt, where he pulled out a brick with its clay enclosing a [dead Israelite] infant who had been immured alive in the structure.”
With that, God decided to unleash His wrath and strength on the Egyptians, but with the caveat that the angels could not rejoice.”
But what about us?
Biblical scholar Diana Lipton makes the point through textual analysis of the midrash in Sanhedrin 39b that “God wasn’t preventing the angels from praising Him specifically for destroying His creatures, the Egyptians. Rather, on that day His creatures, the Egyptians, were destroyed. God was preventing the angels from praising Him at all. “He interrupted their routine... So instead of raising a question about whether we should praise God in response to a momentous event that we survived but claimed other lives, the midrash seems to me to be asking whether we should praise God as we do every day without somehow acknowledging that lives were lost on that particular day. It seems to me that, according to the midrash, God does not want business as usual on such a day.”
These days, weeks, months, and a year and a half since Oct. 7 have not been business as usual. Two voices within the tradition guide us when it comes to rejoicing or not over the killing of our enemies who only wish us harm. But it is another thing not to pause and mourn the loss of the innocent people who have died, as they have, on both sides of the conflict.
With that, we note that God’s motivation for reprimanding the angels not to sing relates to the loss of innocent Egyptians, especially children. That understanding implores us to feel the pain and the loss. In that spirit, the Palestinian NGO Damour for Community Development recently named a community space and kitchen in an internal displaced people’s camp in the Gaza Strip after Women Wage Peace activist Vivian Silver, who was killed by Hamas in her home in Kibbutz Be’eri on Oct. 7.
In that dialectic of inner and outer, and for us, who are “a little less than the celestial beings,” the broader perspective of the angels reminds us to turn more outward and ask the challenging questions that need to be asked as we leave our holiday of questions.
Redemption will not come through the hardening of hearts. Rather, the liberating recognition that turning inward and turning outward, notably towards the other is not a contradiction but is like a wave of light, with its spectrum of perceptions that comes from the One Source. ■
The writer is a Reconstructionist rabbi emeritus of the Israel Congregation in Manchester Center, Vermont. He teaches at the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies at Kibbutz Ketura and at Bennington College.