Parshas Beshalach - Yud Shvat: Singing While We Walk
Yud Shvat reminds us of a quiet but demanding idea.
It marks a moment, three-quarters of a century ago, when the leadership of Chabad passed to the Lubavitcher Rebbe, bringing renewed focus to a simple but challenging question: where does G-d show up in real life?
The teaching most associated with that moment, Basi LeGani, isn’t about spiritual escape or transcendence. It’s about G-d choosing to dwell within ordinary human experience. Not after fear is resolved, but inside it. Not once we’re elevated or ready, but right in the middle of our process.
Reading Parshas Beshalach through that lens sharpens everything.
There was a shorter road out of Egypt.
The Torah tells us G-d deliberately avoided it. Not because He didn’t know the way, but because He knew the people taking it. If fear showed up too soon, turning back would be easy. So the path became longer, less familiar, and harder to reverse. A road shaped not just by geography, but by human psychology.
That doesn’t read as punishment.
It reads as care.
It reframes the stage where I find myself right now, and where many of us find ourselves in at different points in life. However indirect, slow, or uncomfortable the path feels, it isn’t accidental. G-d weighs the pros and cons, our tendencies under pressure, and our instinct to retreat when things feel overwhelming. The road itself becomes part of the guidance.
Beshalach invites us to consider that the shape of the road may already be taking us into account.
What feels loud, reactive, or uncomfortable may itself be part of what the road is working on.
This isn’t distance from G-d.
This is G-d coming closer.
And along that road, the challenge isn’t always fear.
Sometimes it’s pull.
Not the urge to turn back to where we once were, but the urge to drift. To quiet something without fully answering it. To step sideways for a moment instead of continuing forward. Maybe even to stumble and steady yourself.
Those moments don’t mean the road is mistaken or that we’re broken.
They mean we’re human.
The question becomes not whether the path is right, but how to stay on it without giving up.
How to remain present without needing to resolve everything immediately.
You know what a GPS does when you take a wrong turn?
It reroutes you.
It doesn’t tell you to go back home and start over.
It adjusts the path and keeps you moving forward.
Sometimes it adds a few minutes.
It never cancels the journey.
And even without everything resolved, the journey keeps moving. Not cleanly. Not confidently. But forward. Eventually, that forward motion brings the people to the sea.
Standing there, the struggle doesn’t disappear.
If anything, it intensifies.
The Torah describes the people splitting into different camps.
- Some want to jump into the water. Better drown than return to slavery.
- Some want to go back to Egypt. Better slavery than death.
- Some want to fight. At least go out with a bang.
- Some want to cry out, placing the responsibility entirely on someone else.
Four different responses to the same pressure: collapse, retreat, control, or prayer without movement.
There’s no speech that settles the debate.
No resolution that quiets the fear.
There is movement.
Nachshon ben Aminadav steps forward before anything is resolved. Before the sea splits. Before there’s proof it will work. Not as an argument and not as a strategy. Just a step taken in the right direction.
Not because the fear is gone.
But because one step forward is still one step forward.
Human movement makes space for G-d to act.
One step creates movement.
Movement creates momentum.
The sea splits.
They make it through.
They see the danger behind them collapse.
And then something striking happens.
There’s no explanation.
No “I told you so.”
No processing.
No theology.
The people just sing.
Not because the journey is over, but because something has shifted inside them.
What couldn’t be articulated while trapped and afraid now has somewhere to go.
Shira isn’t commentary.
It’s accompaniment.
Music doesn’t always remove the difficulty. Sometimes it helps us stay present while moving through it. Anyone who’s been at a farbrengen or a kumzitz knows this. Or who’s used rhythm to get through a hard workout. Or who’s felt how the right song, late at night, can hold something steady while the questions are still open.
This isn’t the grand finale.
The music doesn’t end the journey.
It makes it possible to stay inside it.
That feels very Yud Shvat.
If G-d chooses to dwell within the work itself, not just at the destination, then it makes sense that some of the tools we’re given aren’t intellectual. Rhythm. Breathing. Melody. Ways of integrating experience before it’s fully understood.
Sometimes the song comes after the sea splits.
Sometimes the song is what helps us keep walking toward it.
Beshalach reminds us that G-d doesn’t just send us on the long road. He walks it with us, in clouds by day and fire by night.
Yud Shvat reminds us what that means: Divine presence enters our process itself.
And along the way, music can become one of the strong supports that helps carry us forward. Not to escape the pull, but to remain present long enough to choose our next step with integrity.
Sometimes avodah isn’t about reaching a higher place.
It’s about bringing G-dliness into the place we’re already standing.
The long road doesn’t end in song.
The song helps us stay present long enough to build something here.
Good Shabbos,
Berke
Some songs that have felt like this kind of accompaniment for me lately:
אלוהי נשמה – עלמא
Niggun Shamil