When the Red Sea miraculously split and formed a protective wall for the Jewish people to walk through at the Exodus from Egypt, the Medrash records the complaints of the on-looking angels. The angels, seemingly with some justification, complained at what they viewed as an injustice; the Jewish people had become heavily assimilated into the idolatrous and immoral ways of the Egyptians at the time. Yet G-d was literally moving heaven and earth to save them, whilst allowing the Egyptian oppressors to face justice for their actions.
What is particularly interesting, for our purposes, is the timing of this incident. The splitting of the sea was the culmination of a year longblitz of plague after plague which had destroyed Egyptian lives and totally annihilated Egypt’s economy and national infrastructure. During this whole period the Jewish people had remained totally untouched and unharmed by this barrage of locusts, wild beasts etc…[1] Why then did the angels not make their complaints much earlier when Jews were being given seemingly unjustified special treatment? And what was it about the splitting of the sea that created an opportune moment for these complaints?
The Meshech Chochma[2] explains that the Jewish people had an extremely significant strength working in their favour whilst in Egypt – that of unity. There was a oneness and togetherness among the Jewish people in Egypt that, despite all of our individual and collective weaknesses, rendered us worthy of Divine mercy, even in the eyes of the angels. At the splitting of the Red Sea, however, the Jewish people became torn by internal strive and in-fighting as they desperately weighed up a response to the impending disaster with the Egyptian army in fast pursuit. We did not actually leave Egypt as a united people, but as divided groups. Only now, lacking the cohesiveness which had characterised our time in Egypt, did the angels sense an opportune moment to complain to G–d that we were undeserving of redemption.
When the Jewish people approached Mt Sinai to receive the Torah, we did so as a totally unified people of unified purpose[3]. This cohesive unity was not just a nice touch at this defining moment in our history. Rather it was a necessary pre-requisite without which the Jewish people, both as individuals and the collective whole, could not have come ‘face-to-face’ with G-d to receive the Torah[4].
Judaism views each and every individual as a self-contained world, and the Torah provides the framework for a life of meaning and personal fulfilment in this world. If so why was this sense of collective national unity, which seems in some ways to undermine the whole notion of the sanctity of the individual[5], considered a necessary pre-requisite for receiving the Torah?
Ultimately every one of us is, at the same time, both an independent world and also a cog which forms part of a bigger wheel. The individual is sacred; every single one of us has a unique purpose in the world based on our unique spiritual DNA. No-one else can possibly fulfil that purpose. Yet at the same time we are all vital organs that make up a single entity – the body of the Jewish people (and ultimately humanity.) A person can spend their whole life doing mitzvos, working on his character traits, seeking to develop a relationship to G-d etc, but if they fail to relate to their role as a part of the bigger picture, they are totally missing the point (or at least half of it.) This is comparable to the organs of the human body; each has it’s own very specific role yet cannot exist isolated from the bigger unit, the body itself, who’s survival and vitality it depends on to function.
There is also a collective strength which results from our unity. When two people combine to harness their physical strength they are able to achieve far more than twice what either would have been able to achieve individually. The same is true spiritually; each of us has strengths and weaknesses. When we incorporate ourselves into the bigger whole we are able to compliment each other and draw on each others strengths.
The concept of community is therefore essential as a means to spiritual achievement both individually and collectively. It is for this reason that we always seek to remain very closely attached to the collective sense of community. Isolating oneself from that unit is something we try and avoid[6][7].
At Mount Sinai we received the most powerful and manifest expression of G-d’s Essence that exists in this world. The Torah gives finite expression to concepts which literally link us to a higher reality. To be able to comprehend, integrate and ultimately express these concepts, we had to first engage in a process of self-introspection and spiritual refinement and cleansing. Part of that preparatory process naturally and necessarily involved an internalised recognition of our status as a single, unified people with unified collective, as well as individual, goals.
All comments and feedback welcome – andrewsavage20@hotmail.com
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[1] The plague of darkness was the one exception in that a large number of Jews died. This was not because they were subject to the effects of the plague per se, but for other reasons.
