Ran Gvili: A Lesson in Jewish Courage
Parshat Beshalach offers a seminar on courage. It begins by declaring that, “God did not lead them by way of the land of the Philistines, although it was nearer; for God said, ‘The people may have a change of heart when they see war, and return to Egypt.’” The newly freed slaves were not ready for war.
Later in the parsha, the Torah confirms this concern. When Pharaoh’s army gives chase and reaches the Jews at the Red Sea, the Jews cry out, and then assail Moses for redeeming them:
“The children of Israel lifted their eyes, and behold, the Egyptians marched after them. So they were very afraid, and the children of Israel cried out to the Lord. And they said to Moses, ‘Was it for want of graves in Egypt that you brought us to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us, taking us out of Egypt? Is this not the very thing we told you in Egypt, saying, ‘Let us be, and we will serve the Egyptians, for it is better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness?’”
Then, at the end of the parsha, the text tells us how Amalek unexpectedly attacked the Jews in the desert. Joshua leads the Jews into battle, and they emerge victorious.
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks wonders what had changed. At the beginning of the parsha, the Jews were not ready for war. Now, just a few weeks later, they field an army and battle with Amalek. What is the source of their newfound courage?
Sacks explains that crossing the Red Sea left the Jews with no path of retreat, and their survival now depended entirely on whether they could achieve victory. They no longer could be cowards; to survive, they would have to fight.
Desperate people can find a great deal of courage within.
Ibn Ezra arrives at a very different conclusion. He says the war against Amalek required very little courage. The Jews far outnumbered Amalek, and the actual victory was a miracle, the product of Moses’s prayers during the war.
Instead, Ibn Ezra argues that “this generation that went out of Egypt had learned from its youth to bear the yoke of Egypt, and its spirit was low.” The former slaves had a slave mentality; and they never would become brave enough to fight for their destiny.
The evidence is in Ibn Ezra’s favor. During the episode of the spies a year later, the Jews once again showed their lack of courage. Right after hearing the spies’ report, the Jews began organizing their return to Egypt.
Rabbinic literature adds another lesson about courage. Perhaps much of the community was cowardly. But what matters is that one man was a hero. And it is right at the edge of the Red Sea that we meet a man who will become a role model of Jewish courage.
As the Egyptians approach the Jews camped on the Red Sea, chaos ensues. Based on inconsistencies in the text, the Mekhilta, a second-century midrash, explains that the Jews split into multiple groups:
“Israel stood by the sea in four groups.
One said, ‘Let us fall into the sea’ [i.e., give up and drown].
One said, ‘Let us return to Egypt.’
One said, ‘Let us make war.’
And one said, ‘Let us cry out’ [in prayer].”
Competing factions choose the paths of despair, cowardice, faith and defiance. Panicked and fearful, no one knows what to do next.
God tells Moses, “Tell the children of Israel to go forward.” They are to march right into the Red Sea. According to the Talmud, everyone refuses to do so; an entire people are stuck in limbo. Only one man, Nachshon ben Aminadav, jumps into the depths of the sea.
Nachshon exemplifies Jewish courage. There is a modern Hebrew idiom that translates as “taking a Nachshon jump.” During the years before Israel’s War of Independence, this phrase became popular. That too was a time of uncertainty and crisis; there was a realization that the only way forward would be to be like Nachshon and jump right into creating a state, despite the risks.
People usually see courage as a matter of either mental attitude or willpower. For the Stoics, mental preparation allows a person to overcome fear. Seneca wrote that “he who is brave is fearless.” It makes no difference what one faces, even death and torture; all that matters is one’s inner attitude. To have courage means to have the proper wisdom about life, to accept the ”commands of reason.” When that happens, you recognize that even the worst threats “are not evils, but only seem to be.”
To have courage means to have the proper wisdom about life, to accept the ”commands of reason.”
Many Jewish thinkers also adopt this view of courage as well. Bahya ibn Pakuda writes in his Chovot Halevavot: “One who trusts God does not fear any man on account of his trust. On the contrary, it is a source of pride, as King David said: ‘In God I trust. I am not afraid; what can mere humans do to me?’”
Another theory is that courage is a matter of willpower. Fear is an instinct we can never banish; we simply need to force ourselves to overcome our fears. Nelson Mandela, when reflecting on his own life, remarked, “The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.” Courage is imposing your will on your fears.
In Nachshon, we see a different paradigm of courage. Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, asks a simple question about this passage: Why didn’t Moses jump into the sea before Nachshon?
He explains it was far from clear on a rational level what the correct course of action was. Moses was a man of intellect, but in this case there was no logical solution. Nachshon followed the path of mesirat nefesh, self-sacrifice; he plunged forward without asking, without deliberations and without calculations.
Nachshon offers a new type of courage, built of pure devotion. This courage will lead one to embrace the absurd and leap into the abyss, much like Nachshon did. When you are filled with passion, nothing seems too difficult.
This courage is the secret to Jewish survival. Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik offers a powerful description of its impact:
“There are situations in life with which clear-cut logical processes and utilitarian approaches fail to cope, while the sudden spontaneous leap into the absurd (to use a Kierkegaardian phrase) may save man when he finds himself in utter distress. This non-rational and impractical action is heroic … Is it not in fact the story of Knesset Israel, an entity which is engaged in an ‘absurd’ struggle for survival for thousands of years?”
We are here by virtue of generations of Jews who, against all odds, made that jump.
Ran Gvili was the last hostage to come home from Gaza. The 24-year-old was in an elite Yasam unit. Despite still recovering from a broken shoulder sustained in a motorcycle accident, Gvili rushed to the Gaza border communities in southern Israel, fighting first at Kibbutz Alumim and then rescuing survivors at the Sa’ad Junction. After evacuating victims of the Nova massacre, he returned to fight at Kibbutz Alumim, where Hamas killed him. Hamas took his body to Gaza and held him hostage for 843 days.
On Wednesday morning he was laid to rest.
At the funeral, Gvili’s father Itzik addressed his eulogy to his son. With a slight smile, he said: “You dummy, you had every chance to stay at home. But you said, ‘Dad.’ What did you tell me? ‘I won’t leave my friends to fight alone.’”
Ran and tens of thousands like him ran to the front after Oct. 7th. They did not think. Had they done so, they might have stayed home. But like Nachshon, they leaped into the abyss in an act of pure self-sacrifice.
It is because of them that the State of Israel survived this horrible attack.
May their memory be a blessing.
Rabbi Chaim Steinmetz is the Senior Rabbi of Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun in New York.
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