The last part of the special Torah reading presents for us a universal problem of immense proportions and eternal relevance. It is the question of how to sweeten the bitterness of life, how to blunt the sharp edge of life’s disappointments. It is after Moses and Israel sing their victory song at the shores of the Red Sea that we read ולא יכלו לשתות מים ממרה כי מרים הם. The waters of Marah were bitter, and the children of Israel were thirsty. The taste of victory had soured in their mouths. Instead of the exulting cry of triumph, there came the fleeting whimper of complaint. The people were accustomed to victory, of having things go their own way. Now the waters were bitter, and they knew not what to do. So revolution was threatened and rebellion brewed and Moses grew apprehensive. And thus Moses turned to G-d and asked him how to sweeten the waters of Marah, even as we so often come here to this synagogue to learn how to sweeten the bitterness in our own lives ויצעק אל ה – with Moses we cry to G-d asking Him for the secret, how to sweeten life’s bitterness.
One answer that has always suggested itself is: knowledge. Enlightenment makes for happiness. Science means progress, and progress will sweeten life’s bitter pill. The more education, the more science and knowledge, the more life will be pleasant.
This answer, it must be said, is thoroughly false. For when Moses asked G-d that question of how to sweeten the waters of Marah, we read ויורהו ה’ עץ וישלך אל המים וימתקו המים. And one sage asks: Why a special tree? – Why not use the same “Staff of Moses” which had performed so many miracles in the past? And he answers (see Torah Shelamah Exodus 15:262) that the staff of Moses was fashioned from the Tree of Knowledge, which had caused death to Adam, and hence could not be a source of sweetness to his descendants. So that the first thing that Moses taught us, negatively, by not using his own staff, was that knowledge is no automatic guarantee of happiness. Knowledge can be deadly as well as enlightening. Science can kill and maim and threaten the universe as well as save and reclaim and open new horizons. Today, we have more college graduates than ever, universal free education, and the greatest age of science and technology. Yet there is more unhappiness than ever before. And – curiously enough – the scientists themselves seem to be the most unhappy and the most embittered. “He who increases the knowledge, increases the pain.”
The second possible answer is psychological; it is a matter of perspective. If you think the waters are bitter, then remember that other people must drink of far deeper wells of bitterness. That is why one sage (Rabbi Elazar) identifies the Tree Moses used with the olive tree, עץ זית – המר מכל העצים. It is a valid psychological trick for people who imagine their difficulties to be greater than they really are. All of us ought to use the approach of the olive tree when we feel prone to complain about our personal conditions. At this time of Yizkor, when we remember tenderly, etc., it will perhaps be beneficial to us to compare our conveniences and luxuries with the economic level attained by the parents of most of us here. Our Grandparents and Parents were mostly hardworking peddlers or shopkeepers, who labored long hours with no vacations, and usually lived in a cold-water flat without an elevator. Yet despite these severe material limitations, they were able not only to survive but also to be happy. If any of us this day, therefore, feel inclined to protest and to complain because we do not have all we want, because we think life has borne down on us overly hard, because we think that the waters of our lives are troubled and tinged with the bitter taste of frustration and hardship – then let us cast in to these troubled bitter waters which our imaginations have created, the olive branch of our parents’ life. By remembering the true hardships they had to endure, the bitter struggles of the poor immigrant family for economic survival and social recognition, their heartaches and their disappointments – sometimes with us – then we shall have cured our bitterness with their bitterness.
In the final analysis, however, the “Olive Tree” is only a psychological device and has nothing to offer on the real problems of life. Psychology is a valid tool in the quest for religious enlightenment – but it is not the essence of Religion. Certainly, Judaism does not have as its primary goal making people “feel good” – though indeed it often does accomplish that for us. But if this were its main goal, it would never demand sacrifice of us. The psychological approach for sweetening life and curing it of its ills, the eitz zayis medicine, is good but not sufficient. The waters may not taste as bitter as they did before – but they still are unpleasant. The eitz zayis approach has not sweetened the bitterness; it has merely made us satisfied with it.
The real answer given by the Sages lies in a different direction. The “tree” or “eitz” refers to the “eitz ha-chayyim” – the Tree of Life. And the Tree of Life – that is Torah: eitz chayyim ee la’machzikim bah. Torah is the Tree of Life, “and its ways are the ways of pleasantness,” it and it alone can guarantee the sweetening of life’s unhappiness. So too do our Rabbis explain the word va’yoreihu – He showed him a tree – the word means not only “showed” but also “taught” – horeihu davar min ha’torah, by virtue of G-d’s Torah were the waters of Marah sweetened and the sere spirits of Israel soothed in the hot and lonely desert.
And let me make it clear at this point that Torah means more than knowledge. “Knowledge” has no religious value and no curative effect on a man’s life unless it is related to his behavior, to his conduct, and to his every action. The only knowledge that really counts in the long run is the knowledge of G-d – or, as we would call it, Torah. When Isaiah predicts the Messianic Age, he foretells a world filled not just with knowledge, but “and the world will be filled with knowledge of the L-rd, even as the waters cover the sea.” If we want our children to have meaningful lives and to escape the bitter frustration so common to the last generation of their parents, we must send them to Hebrew School for more than just knowledge. Merely knowing how to read Hebrew or chant a Maftir is not enough. The Hebrew must be prayed, and the Maftir meant, for knowledge alone will not sweeten the young waters; Torah will.
Many people deny that there is such a thing as a “Jewish Neurosis.” A special anxiety common to modern American Jews. Personally, I believe that it does exist, except for truly devout Jews. Life is somehow more bitter for those of us who have lost our bearings, who want to prove ourselves and are so eager to acquire status and to mimic others. And this, indeed, is the basic problem of the modern Jew. Our alienation, our sense of being lost, is because we have cut ourselves off from our roots, our roots from the Tree of Life. To a Jew, alienation from Torah is the same as departure from life. And, therefore, a life of Torah – is study, practice, and love – is the secret G-d gave Moses of how to sweeten the Marsh of life.
More material advantages will not make us any happier. Rabbi Isaac Elkanan was so poverty-stricken that he bought bread from beggars and had to soak it in water in order to make it edible. And yet, the great Rabbi of Kovno was not an unhappy man. The waters of his life were sweetened by the Torah’s Tree of Life. The famous scholar, known by the name of his immortal book “The Shaagas Aryoh,” never owned a pair of socks and did not have enough money to buy candles, so that he had to study at night by moonlight. But it was a happy life. So it is with all Jews. ordinary laymen as well as saints and scholars. When Torah has been our concern, we were immunized against the disappointments and harshness of life. It is often that the Jew had to swallow Marror – but as long as he could convert that act to an act of mitzvah and still recite a brochah over it – then he could enjoy it, then the bitterness was gone and only the spiritual satisfaction remained.
Story of Dr. Moshe Wallach of Shaarai Zedek Hospital in Jerusalem – died last year – great physician and great Tzadek. Very sick patient called him, and he gave him personal medical attention in the best bedside manner – “Eitz ha-daas” and “Eitz Zayis.” But the patient was dissatisfied. Instead, “Dr… say Tehillim with me.” In times of crisis, only Torah is a Tree of Life; only that can sweeten life’s bitterness. ויאמר אם שמוע תשמע וכו’ כל המחלה אשר שמתי וכו’ כי אני ה’ רופאך.
If we shall live by this Tree of Life, that G-d has given us, the Tree whose significance and benefit transcend the scientific Tree of Knowledge and the psychological Olive Tree, then the bitterness and illness of Egypt will not ever take us – for this is the Eternal prescription given to us by the greatest physician of all – אני ה’ רופאך – the L-rd who healeth us.
