Throughout life, we go between complaint and ecstasy.

In moments of ecstasy, we spontaneously sing and dance.

When things don’t go our way, we complain.

We make transitions, crossings of sorts, and we celebrate. Or we should—according to Rabbi Shefa Gold, it’s not optional.

But soon after the ecstasy, problems present themselves with the next part of our journey.

Perhaps anxiety sets in.

We went left instead of right. Backward instead of forward.

Perhaps we’re paralyzed, unsure how to proceed.

We stagnate.

We have regrets.

We ask so many questions:

What? How? Why?

From the start of their “freedom,” the Israelites are deliberately put on a winding path, a zigzag through the desert, by God.

No sooner are they free of the Egyptians, broken out into song and dance, with the women led by Miriam, than they become nervous again.

But what is their song?

It is ecstasy at their freedom, but it must necessarily be tinged with grief.

They’ve just witnessed a horrendous thing: Moses, with God’s help, splits the sea, the Israelites pass through on dry ground, and all the Egyptians are swallowed up as it crashes in on them.

More trauma.

It’s the beginning of their zigzag between complaint and ecstasy.

Complaints about the food—and lots of questions: how and what will we eat?

And the water—so bitter it is undrinkable.

With sarcasm they ask, why did you take us out of Egypt? Can there possibly be enough graves?

But miracles abound for them, and gifts are given.

Moses takes a tree and makes the water sweet.

God makes manna fall from the sky, the mysterious (and monotonous) food they will eat throughout their forty years in the desert.

They are given Shabbat, an unwelcome gift of spiritual practice; they must learn to gather only as much manna as they need or it will be infested with maggots and rot.

How hard it is not to take more than we need.

How hard it is to stop.

After all, they are stagnating. There’s nothing to do but gather manna every day.

If they stop, they will feel the stagnation.

The Parsha ends with Amalek, and a battle, and a strange story of Moses holding his hands up in the air; as long as he held his hands high above him, Israel prevailed, and when he let them down, Amalek prevailed.

Avivah Zornberg, in The Particulars of Rapture, asks of this story, “in what sense can the Torah mean that victory and defeat depend on Moses’ hands? Is this a magical effect of the charismatic leader who can manipulate destiny?”

In answer, she quotes a midrash:

“Did Moses’ hands make or break the fortunes of war? No! But as long as Moses raised his hands, the Israelites would look at him, and have faith in the One who had commanded him to do so. As a result, God did miracles for them…” (p.245)

As Zornberg explains, Moses’ hands are raised in the age-old position of prayer—or perhaps “like a conductor of an orchestra, he stands in full view of the people craning their necks to look upward.”

And the music Moses generates, says Zornberg, is the complex music that is both joyful and sad—of the human heart.

To support Moses, there is a stone, and two humans on either side of Moses that place the stone under his arms. But the two people supporting him also help hold his hands steady when they grow weary, so he can hold them high until the sun sets.

The word used for “steady” is emunah, meaning firm, unwavering—and faithful.

As Rashi says, “Moses’ hands were held in faith, spread out to heaven, in a firm and faithful prayer.” (p.245)

Can the people “produce the inner music that is life and strength”?

True singing, says Zornberg, is of a split mind; there is ecstasy and sadness all at once within music and song; “No longer miracles—but song and prayer. As he models prayer, Moses’ hands no longer hold the staff, imperiously outstretched over sky, land, and sea. His hands are empty, they quiver beseechingly with the weight of flesh, they create faith in the hearts of the people.” (p.246)

“God takes the indirect route, says the midrash…, so that they may traverse the wilderness, eat manna, drink of (Miriam’s) well, ‘and the Torah will settle in their bodies.’

“…Given world enough and time, the vibrations of a new music may liberate them from the decrees of Egypt.”

“Every disease is a musical problem, every cure a musical solution.”

So as we continue to zigzag our way through life, with our fears, traumas, regrets, unsure which way to turn, and with song that reflects our ecstasy and grief, may we tap into our inner strength and faith, supported by others—and, to quote from Shefa God, “surrender in faith to the taste of today’s bounty.” (Torah Journeys, p.76)

And say Amen.