Remaining true to our dreams in challenging times

Dedicated to the memory of Yosef Yitz-chak ben Mordechai Aaron and Chana Yehudis Goodman z”l of the Israeli paratroopers. It’s because of boys like him that we are all blessed to have a State we can call our own. Yehi Zichro’ Baruch.

In 2006, the Goodman family’s son Yosef was killed in a tragic training accident when his parachute failed to open properly. Incredibly, having become entangled with his officer’s chute, Yosef z”l bravely chose to cut himself loose rather than cost his officer’s life. 

A few days later, sitting in the Goodman home, I learned just how special Yosef Goodman really was.

It is very hard to get in to this particular unit of commandoes, and recruits interested in applying have to go through a grueling week known as a “gibush.”

During this week commanders from all the elite units watch as the recruits go through a variety of very difficult physical and psychological tests to ascertain whether they have the ‘stuff’ necessary to join the family of Israel’s elite commandoes. 

At one point, towards the end of that week, the soldiers were each given a shovel and told to dig a pit deep enough to get inside, with a time limit to get the job done. Ben recalled that when he had been given this test as a raw recruit, there was a natural inclination to keep an eye on the other guys, because their failure (or slower progress) meant you had a better chance at succeeding. After all, they were competing with you for the very few open spots in these elite units.

During this test Yosef (by then known as ‘Goodman’) did something so unique that officers were still talking about weeks later, as no-one could recall anything remotely similar ever having happened  during a ‘gibush’.

It seems that halfway through digging his ditch, Yosef noticed one of the other fellows had broken his shovel and was working without a handle. So, without thinking, he jumped out of his ditch, ran over to this fellow, gave him his shovel, and then ran back to his own hole to finish digging his ditch by hand. Then, just before the time ran out, Yosef ran back to this other soldier and grabbed back his shovel, so no-one would know he had broken the regulations…. No-one had ever heard of a recruit doing such a selfless thing and all without even thinking about it…. Truly, the stuff heroes are made of, and the same thing a man, much later, might do when not having much time to think about choosing to save himself or the life of his officer….

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ll of which leaves us wondering: what goes through the mind and heart of a person when faced with such a challenging situation? When immersed in such a raw moment full only of the need for physical action; in such pure instance of self-expression, is there still room for G-d?

Perhaps, hidden in this week’s portion, Beshalach, there is room to struggle with this question.

Hashem (G-d) finally takes the Jewish people out of Egypt; after ten long plagues, and a year of bargaining with Pharaoh, the Jewish people are finally leaving. And yet, the story is not over yet:

As the Jews arrive at the shores of the Sea of Reeds (Yam Suf), unbeknownst to them, Pharaoh has ‘changed his mind’ and is driving the entire Egyptian army, straight for the unsuspecting Jewish mass. Suddenly, yesterday’s slaves, faced by their former taskmasters, are closed in by the sea on one side, and the might of Egypt on the other, and, quite expectedly, they are terrified.

“And the Children of Israel lifted up their eyes, and behold, Egypt was traveling after them, and they were very afraid, and the Children of Israel cried out to Hashem (G-d).”

This seems to be the right thing to do, after all, how many times in the desert will we see the Jews complain to Moshe when they should be praying to G-d, right?

But G-d seems to take issue with this line of reasoning!

“And Hashem said to Moshe: why are you screaming out (praying?)to me? Speak to the children of Israel and tell them to travel (to get moving!).” (14:15)

Only after exhorting the Jewish people to go forth into the Sea, does G-d then (verse 15) tell Moshe:

“And you, lift up your staff, and stretch out your hand on the Sea and split it, that the Children of Israel may come into the Sea on dry land.” (14:16)

In other words, the flow of the verses seems to imply that the Sea will split only after the Jewish people are willing to go forth! Somehow, we have to be willing to move forward, before G-d will split the Sea! Why?

Fascinatingly, Rashi (14:15) in his fanous commentary, shares a rather challenging tradition:

“We have learned that Moshe was standing and praying. Said the Holy One Blessed be He: ‘Now is not the time to wax on (literally to lengthen) in prayer (tefillah), for Israel is in trouble…” (Rashi, Exodus 14:15)

Now is not the time to pray? If there ever was a time to pray, wouldn’t this be it? What could be wrong with prayer at a time like this? Perhaps the clue to understanding all this is that, Rashi, quoting the Midrash, does not say it is not the time to pray. Rather, he says it is not the time to lengthen, or delay in prayer. In other words, for some reason in this situation, while there is a call for prayer, it should not be too long. But one wonders how prayer could ever be too long?

Perhaps the issue at hand is not about how long one prays, but at what point one has to act. Too often, we spend too much time contemplating, dreaming, and even hoping. But sometimes, we have to take destiny into our own hands. Hashem created a world for us, but He wants us to become His partners in making it the world it was always meant to be.

Over three thousand years ago, on the banks of the Red Sea, a rabble of slaves is about to become a Nation of free men. And what separates people who are enslaved from those who are free, is whether we are willing to act on our own behalves and especially in service to a higher purpose beyond ourselves.

So many people in this world are enslaved, and you don’t have to be bending under the whips of ancient Egypt, or trapped inside the cattle cars of a more modern and more recent ‘Egypt’ to be enslaved. Whether we are addicted to unhealthy habits, or trapped in a routine we can’t seem to break, our ability to free ourselves is, suggests Judaism, dependent on our decision to take a course of action, however difficult it may appear. Whether leaving the job or even sometimes the person that makes us miserable, or choosing to listen to that still, small, voice inside of us that tells us to follow our dreams, we have the capacity to split the sea, if only we will choose to jump.

And this occurs most often, when we seem to face the most insurmountable odds: when it seems as though the entire Egyptian army is bearing down on us on one side, and the raging stormy sea lies before us. There is always the possibility of taking that leap; of being willing to jump in and part the waters….

Prayer, as we have discussed previously, is not really a Jewish word; it actually means to beg. Jewish prayer, called tefillah, is not about begging. Four thousand years ago, on his death bed, Ya’acov, in pointing out to his long lost son Yosef how he never imagined he would ever see him again alive (because although Joseph had been sold into slavery, Ya’acov had been misled into believing he was actually dead; killed by a wild animal) says: “Raoh’ phanecha’ lo’ pilalti” (Bereishit (Genesis) 48:11)  

And Rashi explains the word pilalti (which has the same root, palel, as tefillah (prayer):

“My heart could not fill with the thought that I would see your face again…”

In other words, I never imagined I would ever see you again (because I thought you were dead). Palel then, means to imagine, or to dream. And le’hitpalel, which is the reflexive, is actually “to cause myself to dream.”

Our lives should be all about our dreams and our wishes, and our visions for a better world. And the entire order of tefillah (specifically the shmoneh esrei, or eighteen (now nineteen) benediction prayer said three times a day, standing in silent devotion, which forms the core of our tefillah experience) is all about asking ourselves what we truly wish for and what our dreams are, and whether we are satisfied with what we wish for, as individuals and as a people.

And yet, as laudable as this all seems, on the banks of the Red Sea over 3,000 years ago we are being taught that there are times when we have to move beyond our dreams and make them a reality. There comes a time when those dreams have to fuel what we do, and that no matter how noble a vision, it will remain meaningless unless someone translates it into reality. 

Even though G-d could clearly do this for us, as in the splitting of the Sea, Hashem clearly wants us to be partners in our own destiny. 

Whether it is seeing Egypt on one side and the Sea on the other, or, 3,200 years later, at the end of a parachute hurtling through the air, attached to another young soldier, whose life is now in your hands; every human being has the capacity to rise to such moments of greatness, and to find, hidden in that seemingly option-less moment, the ability to change the world. 

Most people do not succeed in rising to such moments, but every now and then one does, and teaches us all how great we can truly be. Such is the legacy Yosef ben Mordechai Goodman (of blessed memory) leaves us with.

Yehi Zichro Baruch.

Shabbat Shalom, from Jerusalem.

Columnist@TheJewishStar.com