Caution: Breathe Before Acting
Exercise: The next time you experience a difficult or frightening choice, take a deep breath. Sit for a moment, a moment of thought, a moment to connect with your deep, true self. Then exhale. Take one more breath for good measure. There is no effort here in thinking about the choice, or trying to overcome your fear. It is much simpler. The exercise is simply to breathe. Just to take two breaths, a brief pause of reconnection with yourself, and then act.
Background: There is a paradox in action. On the one hand, when we find ourselves standing at the Sea of Reeds waiting for redemption, we want God to act. We want something from the outside to fix the situation, to provide a resolution. At the same time, our fears and concerns push us to overreact. Fear invites a strong response when a more measured response might be helpful.
So in this paradoxical space of action / inaction, God offers a practice. As Moses and the people stand at the Sea of Reeds, the army of Pharoah behind them and the Sea in front of them, they return to their familiar kvetch, “Weren’t there enough graves in Egypt? Why have you brought us here?” Their fear turns to anger directed at Moses. Since they feel trapped, they turn on the closest target, namely Moses.
In turn, as Moses attempts to hold that anger, he makes a promise he cannot keep. Moses responds by saying, “Have no fear! Stand and watch God’s deliverance… God will deliver you, you be quiet.” Out of his own desperation, rising from the pressure of the people on him, Moses promises on God’s behalf that it will all work out with no effort on their part.
God then responds to Moses. “Why are you talking to Me? Tell the people to go!” In other words, there is a time for prayer and a time for action. I, God, will only deliver the people if they take the first step. Redemption can only occur when the people step into the Sea. The midrash teaches that in this moment everyone hesitated, afraid to step into the rushing waters of the Sea. Nachshon, a young man of 13, heard God’s call and stepped into the Sea. Only once he took that leap of action did the Sea split open.
Our challenging and frightening choices fall into this paradox. There is a temptation to fear and blame, to inaction that waits for someone else to fix what is disturbing us. Moses is teaching the people: don’t respond from fear. Breath into fear. Pause. Then see the hopeful possibilities that were closed to you before that moment of stillness and only then act.
Even as Moses imparts this deep wisdom, he still cannot imagine the people taking the first step. He needs God’s voice to remind him. Deliverance always exists in potential. We can find it in the stillness and the pause. But then we have to take the first step. We have to make the leap of faith, faith in the people around us, faith in the world, and faith in God. That leap, as Heschel says, is a leap of action. A leap to do even when the forces of Pharoah are seemingly arrayed against us.
May we remember to breathe, to be still, and then find the strength to act in ways that invite God’s redemption into our broken world.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi David Booth
