Were Moshe and Miriam Right to Sing at the Sea? (Video and Text)

The above video contains a d’var Torah followed by a shiur (class).  Below is the text of the d’var Torah.  The sources for the shiur are available here.

Hebrew texts from Bar Ilan Responsa v. 24 unless otherwise noted.  Links on sources go to the related text on Sefaria.  Translations are my own.

Related: Beshalach: Acting on Instinct and Asking for Guidance

Note: This d’var Torah is originally designed for the seder but can easily be addapted for the 7th day of Passover or Shabbat Beshalach where we read about the parting of the Red Sea.

Famously, during the seder we spill drops of wine as we recite the ten plagues.[1]  We generally see this as a reflection of the idea that we lament the suffering that the Egyptians endured as part of our exodus story.

As we think about this concept, our attention is often drawn toward a midrash in which the angels see the parting of the Red Sea and want to sing God’s praises, but God stops them.  Interestingly, there are a few different midrashic traditions as to why God stopped the angels from singing, which I discuss further in the source sheet and video presentation found above.  In some versions, the angels want to sing to God while the Israelites are still passing through the Red Sea, and God says to them “my people (i.e. Israel) are in trouble and you want to sing to me?”[2]  In another version, God doesn’t object to the angels singing but says (repurposing the words of Exodus 15:1), “אָ֣ז יָשִֽׁיר־מֹשֶׁה֩ וּבְנֵ֨י יִשְׂרָאֵ֜ל now Moshe and the Children of Israel will sing,” meaning that the angels should only sing after the Israelites have the opportunity to do so.[3]  But the Babylonian Talmud sees it differently in Tractate Megillah[4] and Sanhedrin.[5]  Instead, the angels want to sing to God as the Egyptians are drowning in the sea, and God responds, “מעשה ידי טובעין בים ואתם אומרים שירה? My creations are drowning in the sea, and you sing?”

I’ve often heard discussions asking why it was OK for the Israelites to sing at the sea while God objected to the angels doing so.  There are some reasonable distinctions between the Israelites and angels which may explain this. For instance, the Israelites were in immediate danger and had just been freed from slavery, while the angels were in no danger at all.

But a d’var Torah that I gave when we last read from the Torah about the parting of the Red Sea[6] got me thinking.  There, I noted that when the Israelites were in a panic about the Egyptians pursuing them, Moshe told them, “אַל־תִּירָ֒אוּ֒ הִֽתְיַצְּב֗וּ וּרְאוּ֙ אֶת־יְשׁוּעַ֣ת ה’ אֲשֶׁר־יַעֲשֶׂ֥ה לָכֶ֖ם Fear not; stand by and see the LORD’s salvation which (the LORD) will do for you today.”  But then God said to Moshe, “מַה־תִּצְעַ֖ק אֵלָ֑י דַּבֵּ֥ר אֶל־בְּנֵי־יִשְׂרָאֵ֖ל וְיִסָּֽעוּ “Why are you crying out to Me?  Tell the Children of Israel to move,” implying that what Moshe should have been telling the Israelites to do is whatever they were capable of doing in the moment.  There, I discussed the implication that a prophet was expected to act on the prophet’s own initiative even if sometimes their conclusion might turn out to be at odds with the divine will.

Based on this thought, I got to wondering if, maybe, the Talmud implies that Moshe and Miriam leading the Israelites in song at the sea, while certainly understandable in the circumstances, might not have been the best reaction.  Looking closely at the text of the Talmud, there might be some implication of this, in that the Talmud says that while God does not rejoice at the downfall of the wicked, God does cause others to rejoice at that downfall, citing as an example the celebration by Israel’s enemies at Israel’s downfall, which might imply that such responses, while understandable, are not necessarily laudable.

Regardless of whether Moshe as Miriam were right to lead the Israelites in song at the Red Sea, I think we can see a common thread in the difference between God’s and Moshe’s response to the situation immediately prior and immediately after the parting of the sea.  In both instances, Moshe’s instinct is to aggrandize God, while God’s instinct is to emphasize the importance of humanity.  As the Israelites feel trapped, Moshe tells them to await God’s salvation.  God tells Moshe that the Israelites should do whatever was within their capacity to do at that moment.  After the Israelites survive the situation, Moshe’s instinct is to lead the Israelites in a song celebrating God’s feat.  God’s instinct is to recognize the human tragedy of the moment.

As we celebrate Passover, praising God for taking us out of Egypt, we should be thinking about what that story tells us about our what we can and should do, much as God tells Moshe that the Israelites at the Red Sea should do what they could.  We can learn a lot about what we can and should do from God’s response to the angels.  We need to focus on recognizing human suffering and to see that human suffering, even if we think it justified, as a tragedy and work to create a world that minimizes such suffering in the future.

[1] My teacher Rabbi Alan J. Yuter has expressed concern that this (relatively late) practice might constitute waste of food (bal tashit).  Therefore, I suggest that one spill the wine onto one’s plate and then put haraoseth onto that place.

[2] See e.g. Exodus Rabbah 23:7 שמות רבה (וילנא) פרשת בשלח פרשה כג סימן ז.  Other related sources can be found in a footnote preceding the text of Exodus Rabbah 23:7 in my source sheet referenced above.

[3] See e.g. Exodus Rabbah 23:7 שמות רבה (וילנא) פרשת בשלח פרשה כג סימן ז.  Other related sources can be found in a footnote preceding the text of Exodus Rabbah 23:7 in my source sheet referenced above.

[4] Babylonian Talmud Megillah 10b תלמוד בבלי מגילה דף י:.

[5] Babylonian Talmud Sanhedrin 39b תלמוד בבלי סנהדרין לט:.

[6] https://utj.org/viewpoints/parashat/beshalach-acting-on-instinct-and-asking-for-guidance/