The world is full of charismatic people saying, "Hey, listen to me man, I know what's right
for you."
And their friends crowding in saying, "You should believe in him, he's got a special
connection to G-d."
This leaves you wondering, "Should I have faith in these guys?
Or are they just a bunch of phonies?"
The Jewish tradition doesn't get worked up over questions of faith, because it doesn't
hold that anyone has a monopoly on G-d.
Here's why.
In parshat beshalach, we find the Israelites trapped between slaughter by the sword of
Pharaoh, and drowning in the depths of the Red Sea.
They cry out to Moses, "Why did you lead us out of slavery only to destroy us in the desert?"
Moses stretches out his arm and says, "Let me ask you a question: are you ready for G-d?
Because here he comes!"
And with that, a holy hurricane comes howling down from the heavens, and hammers at the
sea until, miraculously, a dry path emerges between walls of towering water.
They cross and then Pharaoh's legions come charging in after them, only to be struck
with pillars of fire and consumed in a boiling cauldron.
And the people rejoiced, saying, "Now this is my G-d."
So G-d revealed itself not to one person alone, but to the entire nation of Israel.
Think about it.
We're talking mass revelation here to some 3 million people.
Our ancestors then passed this amazing story down from generation to generation.
An unbroken chain leading to you.
Today.
Right now.
That's why the sages of old tell us, "You don't need to have faith in anyone but your
parents.
If your mother and father are telling you the truth, then you can follow their story
back up the chain to the splitting of the sea to know G-d is true."
We often forget that the freed slaves from Egypt never made it across the Jordan.
After a generation of wandering, it was their children that got to cross that river into
the promised land.
We all know a chain can't begin without a first link.
But it's the second one that is most important.
It decides whether the first is a link in a chain, or just a lonely metal ring.
Imagine being part of that fragile second generation.
The one born in the desert.
You never felt the bite of the lash, or the ecstasy of the Red Sea.
You have no memory of those defining moments.
You have only sand and rocks and the endless drone of your parents.
They're telling you about the supernatural exodus, but are they over-selling it?
And now they're going on and on about how bad slavery was.
You have to ask yourself, "Are they exaggerating the cruelty?
The depravation?"
And however bad it was, you begin to wonder, is the monotony of the desert any better?
And finally there's the never-ending trash-talk about Amalek.
This tribe of violent people descended from Esau, still fuming that their ancestor was
swindled out of his birthright.
When your parents were still stumbling out of Egypt, tired and thirsty, Amalek heard
them coming, swarmed out of the mountains like voracious locusts and ambushed them in
their moment of weakness.
Your folks successfully fought Amalek off, but now Mom and Dad are asking you to take
holy vows to mercilessly destroy Amalek the next time you happen to bump into them in
a canyon somewhere.
Really folks?
Sounds like a pretty violent solution for people so offended by violence.
And maybe all this leads you to start thinking, "If I hate Amalek because of what my parents
told me, maybe Amalek hates me because of what their parents told them."
And all of a sudden that silly question of faith that the other nations have to worry
about becomes your problem too.
Are your parents faithfully linking you back to the exodus from Egypt?
Or are they destined to end up a lonely metal ring?
Only you can decide.