A Thought on Parshas B'shalach

...v'lo yachlu li'shtos mayim mi'mara ki marim heim..." (15:23) "...but they were not able to drink the Waters of Mara because they were bitter..." Moshe led the people to Mara, but they complained that the waters there were bitter. They named that place Mara, which means "Bitter". HaShem then showed Moshe a tree, which he threw into the water. Then the water became sweet and the people's thirst was sated. There is more going on here than meets the eye. HaShem has Moshe lead the thirsty people to this oasis, yet the water is too bitter to drink? The people complain, yet this earns them a supernatural remedy? There are different approaches to this passage. ibn Shu'aib draws on a lesser-known midrash. The Torah is most delicately illustrating for us, in subtle ways, that there were those among the people whose struggles with faith were more intense. They were the first to assume Divine neglect, or even malevolence, when events did not please them. They viewed the post-Yam Suf trek as random wandering, and had cynical thoughts about both Moshe and HaShem, ka'va'yachol. This meant that once they had reached the pessimistic conclusion that they were going to die of thirst and rot in the wilderness, they could not change gears and appreciate or even recognize when something positive was now occurring. This is an example of what some call cognitive dissonance theory. When one has reached a conclusion and is fixated on it, new information will only strengthen one's prior conclusion, rather than freeing them to rethink and reinterpret in view of the new emerging information. ibn Shu'aib writes, "when someone has horseradish in his mouth, sweet things will also taste bitter to him." The people who had convinced themselves that they were going to die in the desert were unable to accept that Moshe had brought them to healthy waters. They were sure that this was a trick, and were unable to drink the water ki marim heim - because they, the people, were embittered. The words "because they were bitter" are not referring to the water! They are referring to the people! The embittered ones could not swallow this emerging truth that there were actually sweet waters awaiting them in the wilderness. HaShem showed Moshe a tree, and he threw it into the water. ibn Shu'aib observes that the word is not really "he showed" (which would have to be written with an alef after the reish.) Rather, the word means "he taught". Moshe utilized "the tree", which is synonymous with Torah. He taught those whose faith was weak to rethink, to reframe, and to learn a Torah outlook. Torah can be the remedy to our embittered assumptions. It can be a source of refreshment when our perception needs sweetening. Good Shabbos. D Fox