Israel at the Sea: Too Much Prayer?! - Tehila Gimpel (Parsha Tzva): The Land of Israel Fellowship

hi guys I hope everyone's doing well and enjoying getting ready for Passover Jeremy and I are in beautiful South Africa with the children we've had the privilege of teaching in the Jewish community in Johannesburg uh last Shabbat and in Cape Town this test about we've also had the joy and pleasure of meeting some fellowship members which has been really a treat for us um and so now you know I want to talk a little bit about The Exodus story as we're preparing for pesach I want to touch on an idea that we've talked about a little bit before but I want to expand it it's really been kind of sitting on my heart and speaking to me as I'm preparing for pesach um there's this moment in The Exodus when we're standing at the sea that's really nothing short of stunning you can imagine you know the sages teach us that the first time um an idea or a story or a concept appear in the Torah it's paradigmatics to teach us about all future occurrences that are going to be similar in the future so this is the point when Israel is standing at the sea it's the first time that as a nation as free people we are experiencing a challenge a disaster you know something scary and what is going to be our response and that's important to know that's an important thing to know because you know that's going to guide us for all future times that as a nation we're going to be facing a challenge so how do we approach that moment now you could hear really two distinct voices in the nation when you get to the story of Israel standing at the sea with the Egyptians on one side and the water on the other side this seeming disaster like between a rock and a hard place nowhere to go not knowing what to do and you hear these two voices on the one hand the Torah says that the Jewish people began to dive in and pray and cry out to Hashem on the other hand you hear voices complaining Jeremy always laughs this is like the first Jewish humor you can almost hear it in Jackie Mason's voicing what they're wearing graves in Egypt you had to bring us out here Moses right like this this cynical voice saying like oh if only we had just stayed in Egypt this whole thing was a waste of time why did we even embark on this endeavor it's just you know gonna be Doom and Gloom so you have that voice at the same time and then at that moment when you hear these two competing voices then we hear Moshe and he comes out with this amazing leadership saying everybody you know don't worry and as you've seen the Egyptians today you're never going to see them again and you know Hashem will fight for you and you'll stand silent and this amazing inspirational speech but you know everyone's talking about Hashem we don't actually hear Hashem just yet right we have some praying tashem and some saying Hashem is not going to save us emotion is saying Hashem is going to save us and finally we actually hear Hashem now if I was writing the Torah what would I imagine Hashem would say I would imagine Hashem saying good job guys for praying so much I've heard your prayers and I'm going to save you but what does Hashem say at this like peak of The Exodus drama we've gone to the Sea and the Egyptians were waiting for a miracle what does Hashem say it's nothing short of stunning Hashem says why are you yelling to me I mean if you have these two voices you have the priorities and the not prayers wouldn't you expect Hashem to be like good job prayers but what does Hashem say he says what are you yelling to me about again I've been going honor get up and go and it's really a surprising thing you would think that there would be encouragement for those who had been praying and instead it sounds like Hashem is almost rebuking them for their prayers so this strangeness was not to not go unnoticed by our sages and the biblical interpreters so first we have Rashi it says there's a time to pray and there's a time to do and you need to know the difference and he says that the Jews were the people were praying too much it was a quantitative problem too long praying like a lot of people have been to school sometimes say wow that was a long dominant here in South Africa they divided until 11 on Shabbat I said wow that was a lot of Dominic so Rashi says it was a long praying you don't need that much praying when action is needed you need to take action you could pray a little bit don't pray too much um you know but then says what do you mean when when you're in trouble a Jew is supposed to pray how can you say that they weren't supposed to be praying they didn't know what to do how could they know what to do he says that it wasn't about the quantity of praying it wasn't that they were praying too much it's about the quality of the praying the type of praying he says you know there's there's two different types of praying you can pray where you're calling out Hashem Hashem save me save me save me but then there's another kind of prayer which is the space in between the words it's the listening part and he says they got lost in the yelling and the crying out they were reading you know from the sitter right they didn't have sitter obviously but you know I'm saying uh you know as a kind of imagery you can imagine people calling out and dominating and dominating Hashem and saying I'm trying to tell you what to do but you have to actually stop and listen so that there's this element of prayer that sometimes we miss and it's not just calling out fresh him to save us but actually to listen and hear what Hashem is guiding us to do you have to pause in your prayer there has to be a moment of silence in between the words where you're actually having a listening heart and trying to figure out what Hashem is guiding you to do in your life now when I first read these two explanations I thought that they were contradictory like you know Rashi is saying don't pray too much in the Ramana saying yes pray just pray properly but then upon thinking about it more I realize that these maybe are too compliment tree ideas because Rashi is saying don't pray so much you've got to do something but ramban is saying how will you ever know what to do if you're praying doesn't include this element of listening it's something that we're not taught we're often taught you know to read the Liturgy and to say the prayers and the Ramadan is nothing that's not important but he's saying that it's equally important to actually listen you know the image that comes up for me is like when if anybody who has a teenage child they know how hard it is for the parents to get a word in edgewise if you're trying to give them advice because they're talking and talking and talking and talking but they don't want to actually listen so the robot is saying if you want to know what to do you also have to listen and then you can follow Rashi and take an action-oriented approach so this is something that we talked about uh last year in the portion of bashallah but then this year I was continuing to look into this and I found another explanation by sephorno by this Forno esporto says interesting he says it's not about the quantity of the prayer that Hashem was talking about nor was it about the quality of the type of prayer that they were praying but rather it was the content of the prayer hash I was speaking to emotion saying says Moshe was not calling out to Hashem for salvation how do we know that because Hashem had already promised him the Salvation he knew the Salvation was coming Sporto says that Moshe was crying out to Hashem with a different prayer than the rest of the nation the nation was crying out for salvation Moshe was crying out for something else Moshe was crying out because he was afraid he heard the other voice in Israel that was complaining and saying we want to go back to Egypt and he was afraid that they weren't going to follow him into the water when the sea would split that they would be too scared that they wouldn't have faith so he was crying out to Hashem what am I going to do the nation of Israel they lack Faith they're not going to follow me sense rebuke of don't yell at don't yell to me hashem's rebuke was to Moshe and his foreign he was suspicious of kosher people Moshe was suspicious that the Jewish people lacked Faith because he heard all of their complaining and Hashem is saying don't cry out to me because you have to as the leader of the Jewish people it's not enough to just Inspire them you need to believe in them that even when words that they're saying are words of lacking Faith are words of not wanting to follow Hashem not believing in Hashem deep down the people of Israel are good and they are people of faith and that in the moment of you know when the when the when the rubber hits the road and it's time to cross the sea they're going to go with you so stop calling out to me just go and you'll see that they'll follow I thought that was a really beautiful idea and it spoke to me to what's happening in Israel now you know there's there's such a deep um more ideological crisis happening in Israel now about what our nation should look like and what our state should look like and what our Judicial System should look like and the rift runs so deep and you know and so we can I think that if you you know this is like an example of that feeling of being at the Sea of being between a rock and a hard place where we're just in this kind of situation that we don't we don't really know how to get out of and we we feel like there's there's just you know there's just every every angle that you take has some sort of leads to some sort of you know social crisis and within that feeling perhaps our sages are guiding us to the right kind of prayer posture to take yes we need to be active yes we need to be talking about this and doing what needs to be done but at the same time we have to have a listening heart you know like the ramban teaches us to know that we might not know all the answers and to hear Hashem and to hear one another and to hear the other side's concerns as well and to always have you know this kind of a space between all of our yelling and talking where we're actually also listening but then maybe most importantly to take the approach of the sworno and in our prayer you know posture in the in the in the position that we take it and the feeling that is guiding us as we're praying for Israel to find its you know its best path forward is to keep in mind and remember not to as this Forno says be suspicious of kosher people and to know that deep down with all of the arguments the Jewish people are good people and beyond the layers of doubt and Beyond the layers of of lacking Faith there is this ultimate goodness that Hashem was rebuking Moshe for not seeing and then we always have to have our eyes open to see that and to see and to believe that in the end the Jewish people will choose a good and righteous path they will follow Moshe into the water as it were they will turn Israel into a state that's Guided by faith in Hashem so with that I wish everybody a beautiful and meaningful pesach and I hope you guys all have a great uh holiday bye guys