That sea won't part itself, you know!

A meditation on procrastination and perceived calamity.

Poo

As Pharaoh drew near, the Israelites looked back, and there were the Egyptians advancing on them. In great fear the Israelites cried out to the Lord. They said to Moses, “Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us, bringing us out of Egypt? Is this not the very thing we told you in Egypt, ‘Let us alone and let us serve the Egyptians’? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness. 

- Exodus 14:10-13

When the tribes were standing at the sea, each of them said: I will not go down first into the sea, viz…. Nachshon the son of Aminadav leaped into the sea. Of him Scripture writes (Psalms 69:2-3 ) "Save me, O God, for the waters have reached my soul. I am sinking in the slimy depths and I find no foothold. I have come into the watery depths, and the flood sweeps me away." (Ibid. 16) "Let the floodwaters not sweep me away, and let the deep not swallow me, and let the mouth of the pit not close over me." At that time Moses waxed long in prayer — whereupon the Lord said to him: My loved ones are drowning in the sea, and the sea is raging, and the foe is pursuing, and you stand and wax long in prayer? To which Moses replied: Lord of the universe, what can I do? And He said to him (Exodus 14:16) "And you, raise your staff."

- Rabbi Yehuda, Mekhilta d'Rabbi Yishmael 14:22

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I have an amends to make to you dear readers. This article is a month late. I intended to write one of these every week, but that did not happen and I aim to do so from now on. This undesirable pause in my writing inspired me to take a biblical look at procrastination.

For those not immediately familiar with the Exodus text, we are right before the parting of the Red Sea/Sea of Reeds. The just-freed Israelites witnessed God perform ten acts of Oscar-worthy divine spectacle to liberate them from bondage and punish their captors. God didn't stop there, she guided them out of Egypt by taking the form of a pillar cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. Now as they stand by the shores of the sea, watching the Egyptian war machine hurtle towards them, they slide into despair. Things suddenly seemed better when they were enslaved, before their cosmic creator made an awe-inspiring menace upon Egypt for their sake. Go figure.

I am glad that this is one of many moments in the Torah where the people of Israel complain, whine, and lose hope on their journey to the promised land in spite of God freeing them from Egypt, giving them Mana, making a covenant with them, and providing leadership through Moses. The ease with which their minds turn to doom and ruin is a problem we all share, even when we have all the help and support we need (like the Israelites, who literally have God on their side). While the protagonists in this story were pondering the trumpeting Egyptian horde, we often ponder the same level of dread over much smaller things: telling your partner how you feel, learning something new, admitting that you are wrong…or writing your substack article (ahem). It all comes down to vulnerability. I like the definition given by Brené Brown: “The definition of vulnerability is uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure.” Vulnerability is about the sense of threat you personally experience. For someone who cherishes self-reliance, asking for help can feel like facing the threat of death itself but for me, it’s the other way around, I hate doing things myself.

Right now, I am typing this article next to a pile of laundry large enough to stop a train. I hate being self-reliant, and sadly I am not wealthy enough for a coterie of butlers to tend to my every need. How I got to be this way is a long story, but a good deal of it had to do with ADHD messing with my confidence. I couldn’t behave well and get stuff done, while at the same time completely understanding why behaving well and getting stuff done was important and how to do it. Every mistake became a terrifying reminder of my perceived incompetence. As I became a teenager, I didn’t act out with drugs or booze; I turned to procrastination and helplessness. Failure isn’t really failure if I’m getting in my own way (right?), and the drama inherent to putting things off untill the last moment was quite addictive. I skated by in college, I got fired a ton as an adult, all while living as small of a life as possible. I was this way from about 10 to 35 years old when the ache of my actions forced me to get it together. Now, four years later, I have a mid-level job managing clients for a software company, an apartment of my own, and this substack which came from an eight-month side-gig writing for a website called The Chapel (sorry, no link, the website has been discontinued). In spite of all the hard work and successes that got me here, the idea of finishing this article leaves me paralyzed by the fear. What if I’m not as brilliant as I think? What if this won’t take off? I’ll never be as good as I should be. No one will care. All I can see are Pharoah’s charioteers on the horizon; all I can hear are their trumpets of war.

Our traumas make us think that vulnerability is doom, no matter how silly it may seem. All the work that went into getting my well-paying job and a one-bedroom apartment in NYC doesn’t matter, having written close to 100 articles for The Chapel doesn’t matter. Do I have a friend who offered to help with catching typos and punctuation errors? Yes. Did another friend spend 90 minutes with me to help create a vision for this newsletter? Yes. Is this a nauseating amount of blessed bounty? You betcha. If this isn’t God swooping in and personally guiding me out of a land of self-imposed bondage, I don’t know what the fuck is. But just like the Israelites, once there is a new impasse, I fall apart. As much as trauma recovery can look like healing a wound, it’s also a lot like wack-a-mole– something new always pops up. In spite of all the experience I amassed, and all the assistance I have, I still believe I'm incompetent and this whole project will end in shame and ruin.

But clearly, the Israelites crossed the sea, and you’re now reading this finished article. This is where the second text comes in, a lesson in how to take action when we feel no hope. It comes from the Midrash, which can be defined as sacred Rabbinical fan-fiction. The ancient Rabbis created new stories to help explain and reflect upon scripture. In this legend, written by Rabbi Yehudah, right before Moses parts the sea, the tribal leaders bickered about who should jump in first. I'm the midst of this arguing, Naschon, a leader in the tribe of Judah, goes for it and keeps moving forward to the point where he cries “Save me, O God, for the waters have reached my soul. I am sinking in the slimy depths and I find no foothold…Let the floodwaters not sweep me away, and let the deep not swallow me”. Naschon takes action while being completely terrified, while also giving his fear over to God. That blessed mix of faith and action gets God’s attention. Then God tells Moses to stop praying, get off his fat ass, and part the Red Sea himself.

In as much as God created the universe, people create their own lives in how they respond to the world.

God gifts us with abilities and opportunities, but they are of whatever use we make of them. It is action and faith mixed together that creates our fortunes, as Nachshon shows us. Every action we take is a prayer: “Dear God, I really hope this works.” As scary as taking that step into the sea can be, how uncomfortable its slimy waters feel, taking action shows God our commitment to a stronger and more loving world, even if it’s just doing the laundry. 

For God’s chosen people to come into their own, they had to stop treating God as a divine nanny and start seeing themselves co-creating the world they wanted. As Rabbi Yehuda taught in the midrash, no matter how scary it is to wade into the sea, God’s got your back.

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