This past weekend, for the second Shabbat in a row, we were fortunate to celebrate a beautiful Bat Mitzvah. Talia and her family celebrated in the sanctuary, on the Society Hill Synagogue Bimah, where multiple generations of this family have now become Bat Mitzvah.
Talia’s parashah (Torah portion) was Beshallah. Beshallah means “in the sending forth” or “in the letting go” referring to the first verse of the parashah when Pharaoh finally lets the Israelites go after ten devastating plagues.
The parashah is famous because it contains Shirat Hayam, the Song of the Sea, that unique excerpt of Torah text that looks different than every other column of Torah (depicted above) in that the text is composed to evoke the Israelites marching between two walls of the parted sea on their way to freedom.
After gorgeously chanting this special (and especially challenging) musical text, Talia reflected on what the Israelites did with that first taste of freedom: complain. Or, perhaps more accurately, question. In the face of a raging sea they question how they will be able to cross it; in the face of a barren wilderness they question where they’ll find food; and in the face of an oppressive sun they question where they’ll find water.
But though we’ve been taught to experience the Israelites here as ungrateful and burdensome to Moses, Talia flipped this understanding on its head: “Ask good questions,” Talia’s dad would always tell her when she was dropped off at school, so often that it became something of a family joke. But in this quip, Talia found Torah, the seeds for which had been planted by generations of her ancestors questioning what was before them—even when that questioning came across gratingly.
As Talia pointed out, in the prior lives under the thumb of Egyptian oppression, the Israelites could not speak out, could not question. When they became free, that questioning of their circumstances and what was in store for them was an expression, grasping out, of the human spirit. When Talia’s dad urges her to “ask good questions,” Talia teaches us that this is a piece of Jewish advice that has reverberated throughout the generations.
Thank you for reminding us of it, Talia. Mazal Tov to you and your whole family who made this Bat Mitzvah celebration possible.
