“Trapped, are we?” - King Caerleon

[An arrow hits one of Caerleon's men. Merlin's pursuers find themselves surrounded by the Knights of Camelot. Merlin smiles.]

“That’s the idea.” - Merlin (The Adventures of Merlin, His Father’s Son)

Why did G-d scare the Jewish people like that?

It was not, as Yul Brenner’s Ramses would have us believe, that the Lord “is a poor general” (at about 1:25 in). It was all planned. The Jews weren’t trapped between the sea, the mountains and the Egyptian host. It was a trap all right, but for the Pharaoh.

But the Jews, newly freed slaves, not even a week into emancipation don’t know this. They see a steadily advancing line of chariots to their rear and before them, a raging sea. They are, in a word: petrified.

Why does the Almighty feel this need to terrify them?

Because as newly freemen who still turned to jelly at even the sight of an Egyptian battle formation – despite everything they have witnessed – G-d had one more lesson.

Never lose hope. As Lord Sacks, Britain’s chief rabbi, has noted more than once (and I myself have quoted before): to be a Jew or a student of Jewish history by definition means you are no optimist. Jews didn’t bequeath optimism to the world. They taught hope.

And one place they learned it was on the seashore. G-d taught them that even when it all seems hopelessly lost. When the choice is between drowning or being put to the sword, even then, always hope. Always try.

It is easy in politics to be the naysayer. To latch onto the fears of people to inflame their despair. Despots and tyrants have done that since people tried to build a tower in Babel. But to give hope of a better day, even in the darkest hour, that’s true leadership.

In our own lives too, it is easy in our communities, our homes and our schools or businesses to complain and to surrender, to assume it can’t or won’t get better. But we need to learn the lesson of the sea.

Words to consider. Ideas to ponder. Politics and the parsha.