Of all the Jewish holidays, Pessach is my favourite. It started many years ago when my family and I were invited to a seder while visiting Baltimore. The people who invited us had a tradition in which each year, one family member would be responsible for the ritual aspect of the seder. This role included consulting several haggadot and selecting what would be read and what would be sung that year. I was amazed— in my family, the main function of the seder was simply to bring everyone together. We had all the appropriate food, the seder plate, and everything else, but we did not open the haggadah, and we certainly did not discuss its contemporary meaning. However, that year in Baltimore, something magical happened: the texts became starting points for conversations about freedom in our world, about contemporary slavery, and about the many communities still suffering from oppression. Since then, I have collected haggadot that include contemporary perspectives and, every few years, I try to compile a new haggadah for my family, drawing from these different sources.
I especially appreciate the section of the seder when we remove drops of wine from our cups as we recite the מכות, the hits inflicted upon Egypt and the Egyptians. This serves as a symbol that we should not rejoice in the suffering of others. For many years, I have included in my family’s haggadah a reading of a midrash in which God criticises the angels for dancing in celebration when the Israelites reached the other side of the Sea of Reeds in safety, not recognising the death of the Egyptian soldiers in the water. “The work of My hands are drowning in the sea and you say songs?!”, God would have said, according to two parallel passages in the Talmud. [1] I have always been moved by this passage because it acknowledges that, while the downfall of our oppressors may have been necessary for our liberation, it still involved the loss of human lives —people created in the Divine image, with the same intrinsic value as any of us. As Prof. Daniel Statman, from the University of Haifa and the Shalom Hartman Institute, put it: “We rejoice in the redemption of our ancestors as they crossed the Sea, but the joy is restrained, because so many Egyptian lives were lost.” [2] A passage from Proverbs reinforces this understanding: “If your enemy falls, do not exult; If he trips, let your heart not rejoice.” [3]
It was only this past week that I realised that the midrash has a more complicated take on the issue. While doing some research about Shirat haYam, the “Song of the Sea” the Israelites sang upon safely arriving at the other margin, which is replete with militaristic images and celebrations of the fall of Egypt, I found a continuation to the text I never knew existed. After the rabbis comment on God criticising the angels for celebrating without acknowledging the death of the Egyptians, they add: “God does not rejoice, but causes other to feel joy.” [1]
That means: it was not right for the angels to sing, but regarding the Israelites, it was not only acceptable for them to celebrate the deaths of the Egyptians, it was God who had caused it! That new understanding came to me as a shock!
As I continued my research, I found several contemporary commentators who felt good with a perspective that made me uncomfortable… One of them wrote:
“Why would God tell the angels not to celebrate and yet allow the Jews to sing? And God’s people were dying because He himself killed them!
What God is saying to the angels is that this is not a happy day for Him. He did not create the Egyptians for them to do evil, but they chose evil, and now evil had to be eliminated. But the Jewish people had suffered at the hand of the Egyptians; they not only had the right to celebrate, they must celebrate.” [4]
Some of these commentators even propose a different reading of the Talmudic midrash. To them, when God chastised the angels, mentioning “the work of My Hands”, it was a reference to the Israelites, not to the Egyptians. And they quote another verse from Proverbs, that says: “When the wicked perish there are shouts of joy.” [5]
This might have seemed a purely theoretical debate some time ago, but given the conflicts in which we have been recently involved, in Israel and in other parts of the world, they became quite concrete for a lot of people. How are we supposed to react when we hear the news that leaders of Hamas, Al-Qaeda or ISIS were killed? Is joy appropriate, or should we adopt a more sober reaction? What about situations in which those killed were not armed combatants, but civilians “on the other side”?
Returning to Prof. Statman:
“These conflicting readings reflect two opposing attitudes found in times of national or religious conflict. Both start with the premise that the most important goal, one to which all energies must be channeled, is the defeat of the enemy. In the case of the Israelites vs. the Egyptians, surely God’s main concern is to make sure that the Israelites are neither killed by their pursuers (or by the sea), nor forced to return to Egypt.
But beyond this premise, a gap opens between the two positions. According to the former, there is also genuine concern for the human beings on the enemy side; at the very least, regret for their deaths or suffering, at the most, an active effort to reduce harm and mortality. According to the latter position, the humanity of those who threaten is depersonalized, which has the effect of blocking genuine empathy with the suffering of people on the other side, a fortiori, the adoption of strategies aimed at the actual reduction of enemy casualties.”
An article in the Jewish Chronicle attempted to reconcile these two perspectives:
“Maybe the dramatic image of the sea splitting is the actual metaphor for this dichotomy. The two shores of the sea represent the two sides of the story. And we must pass through the middle, preserving and valuing life, yet not drowning in war and hate. The middle path between justice and mercy is a difficult one to tread and at any moment we can be washed away.” [6]
I learned a tradition from a very dear professor of mine, Rabbi Ebn Leader. Ebn would fast on Taanit Ester (the fast that precedes Purim), Taanit Bechorot (the fast that precedes Pessach and applies only to firstborns, which was not his case), and on Yom HaZikaron (the day before Yom HaAtzmaut, in remembrance of those fallen for the establishment of the State of Israel, a fast not codified in the Jewish tradition or common Israeli practice). His reasoning was that these three holidays — Pesach, Purim, and Yom HaAtzmaut — marked situations in which we conquered our freedom, but they all came at the expense of too many lives, on our side and on our opponents’. He taught that, while it is appropriate to celebrate our victories, we must also acknowledge the price they exacted.
May we find a road that lets us recognise our own pain and celebrate our victories in current conflicts, while not dehumanising those whose circumstances of life simply placed them on the other side of these conflicts.
Shabbat Shalom
[1] Talmud Bavli Megilah 10b and Sanhedrin 39b.
[2] https://www.hartman.org.il/rejoicing-in-the-death-of-ones-enemy/
[3] Proverbs 24:17
[4] https://aish.com/celebrating-the-fall-of-evil/
[5] Proverbs 11:10
[6] https://www.thejc.com/judaism/why-did-we-sing-when-the-egyptians-drowned-t1anz5d2[1] Ex. 17:14
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