Changes of Heart — Beshelach 5781
Changes of heart happen, sometimes often. I had a change of heart recently, about the future of this podcast, something I've been thinking about for a while. I thought I wanted to put it to bed, having accomplished all of my goals for this project. When I didn't post an episode for a full month, people started reaching out to me. So I'm back, and excited to be sharing this podcast again, and in a week where changes of heart seem to dominate our weekly Torah portion, Beshelach. I promise, I didn't plan it that way.
Written Format
I haven’t made a show in a few weeks, and I’m sorry for that. The truth is that I started this podcast as learning project. I needed to learn how to produce a podcast, all the technical nuts and bolts, so I could make one with my mom about our experiences as an interfaith Jewish family in southern Kentucky. It’s called 72 Miles, which was the distance we traveled every week to attend Hebrew school in Nashville, TN, and it’ll be out later this year.
So, early on in the COVID-19 pandemic, when it became clear we weren’t going to be travelling any time soon, and start actually recording 72 Miles, I launched Modern Torah. It was the first podcast I ever made.
At the time, I was taking a class at the PRX Podcast Garage in Boston, on scoring podcasts with music. The class had quickly moved online after the first week, and by the third week we were told to score one of our own shows and the instructor would give us feedback. I didn’t have a podcast yet, but I was supposed to give the d’var at my synagogue’s online service that Friday night, so I recorded it with the equipment I’d bought for 72 Miles, and loaded it onto all the platforms, and that was the first episode. Before I took a break at the end of 2020, I’d produced 40 total episodes.
Most podcasts stop around 10 episodes, or continue on to over 100, very few kick out where I had seemed to, but I’d learned so much about podcasting through Modern Torah, and launched two more podcasts since—COVID Stories, documenting real people’s experiences during the pandemic, and The Parentacons, three dads, all big geeks, discussing their lives as geeks, as parents, and as parents of geeks. Modern Torah seemed to have come to a natural conclusion, and I didn’t feel bad putting it down.
But then, as the the weeks passed, I continued to get new downloads and listens, new followers and subscribers. And when I didn’t post an episode for a month, folks started to reach out and ask what was up. It occurred to me that more people had come to listen to this podcast than I realized, and that some of them had chosen to build it into their weekly routine, in some form or fashion.
So I had a change of heart, and I’m back, in a week where changes of heart seem to dominate our weekly Torah portion. I promise I didn’t plan it this way.
This week we read about the crossing of the Red Sea, or the Sea of Reeds as it’s translated in most modern Hebrew Bibles. As the Israelite’s leave Egypt with Pharaoh’s permission, G-d instructs Moses to take them the long way to Canaan, fearing that the Israelites might have a change of heart if they take the wrong path.
Exodus 13:17
Now when Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them by way of the land of the Phillistines, although it was nearer; for God said, “The people may have a change of heart when they see war, and return to Egypt.”
So Moses led the people roundabout, by way of the wilderness at the Sea of Reeds.
When the Israelites arrived at the Sea of Reeds, however, Pharaoh’s army of chariots was hot on their heels. It was here that some of the Israelites, in the face of Pharaoh’s apparent change of heart about freeing the Israelites, experienced their own collective change of heart about leaving Egypt in the first place.
Exodus 14
When the king of Egypt was told that the people had fled, Pharaoh and his courtiers had a change of heart about the people and said, “What is this we have done, releasing Israel from our service?”
He ordered his chariot and took his men with him; he took six hundred of his picked chariots, and the rest of the chariots of Egypt, with officers in all of them.
The LORD stiffened the heart of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and he gave chase to the Israelites. As the Israelites were departing defiantly, the Egyptians gave chase to them, and all the chariot horses of Pharaoh, his horsemen, and his warriors overtook them encamped by the sea, near Pi-hahiroth, before Baal-zephon.
As Pharaoh drew near, the Israelites caught sight of the Egyptians advancing upon them. Greatly frightened, the Israelites cried out to the LORD.
And they said to Moses, “Was it for want of graves in Egypt that you brought us to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us, taking us out of Egypt?
Is this not the very thing we told you in Egypt, saying, ‘Let us be, and we will serve the Egyptians, for it is better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness’?”
Then, in one of the most famous scenes of the Torah, Moses holds up his staff, and as the first Israelite bravely steps into the sea, the waters split, allowing the Israelites to cross on dry land. They watch from the opposite shore as those same waters come crashing down on the Egyptian army. Afterwards, they sing and dance in celebration of their freedom, but the next day, as they awake to a barren camp with no food in sight, the Israelites have another collective change of heart.
Exodus 16
Setting out from Elim, the whole Israelite community came to the wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after their departure from the land of Egypt.
In the wilderness, the whole Israelite community grumbled against Moses and Aaron.
The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the hand of the LORD in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots, when we ate our fill of bread! For you have brought us out into this wilderness to starve this whole congregation to death.”
In response, G-d covered the camp with quail at night, providing meat for the people to eat, and a fine frost of manna on the ground, bread for the people to eat.
“It was like coriander seed, white, and it tasted like wafers in honey.”
Moses said, “This is what the LORD has commanded: Let one omer of it be kept throughout the ages, in order that they may see the bread that I fed you in the wilderness when I brought you out from the land of Egypt.”
And Moses said to Aaron, “Take a jar, put one omer of manna in it, and place it before the LORD, to be kept throughout the ages.”
As the LORD had commanded Moses, Aaron placed it before the Pact, to be kept.
And the Israelites ate manna forty years, until they came to a settled land; they ate the manna until they came to the border of the land of Canaan.
This last commandment regarding manna, to safeguard a single omer of it for future generations, presents and odd challenge in Jewish law. Or HaChaim, the 18th century Moroccan commentator, points out that Hebrew word translated as “to be kept” has two possible meanings, each equally appropriate for the verse. Or HaChaim says:
“We have a rule, that when a word is capable of being interpreted in two ways we give equal weight to either possibility; as a result, any action that has to be undertaken in response to a commandment which is ambiguous has to satisfy the requirements of either interpretation because we are not competent to exclude either interpretation.
In other words, when you’re standing at a fork in the road, Or HaChaim says take both paths, just in case, and while that might work for many aspects of Jewish law, it doesn’t always work in life. Mostly, we’re forced to make a choice, and deal with any changes of heart we might have later. Other times, a choice is kept from us, to prevent our having a change of heart, just as G-d tells Moses to take the long way round to Canaan in the beginning of this week’s parsha.
But changes of heart don’t have to be all bad, and they can lead to new opportunities, just as the Israelites change of heart on the shores of the Reed Sea encourage G-d to bring bread forth from the earth to sustain the people.
I had a change of heart, about this podcast, and came back to it, even after making peace with walking away. Maybe it will lead to new opportunities, manna to nourish myself and this community. Maybe I’ll run into the Philistines and regret the whole endeavor. Who knows, but unlike Or HaChaim, I’m choosing to pick a path, and stick to it, and try at least not to worry about what the other path might have led to, had I chosen it.
Shabbat Shalom
