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The Account of the Clownfish

Writer's picture: Leann ShamashLeann Shamash

Parshat Beshalach is the Parshah of miracles and music. Aside from the revelation at Sinai, it is one of the memorable and descriptive of the parshiyot. Probably the strangest thing about the crossing of the sea is that one might think that the experience might have been transformative to the people and they would arrive at the other side of the sea as nation, even a transformed nation, but that is not to be. Instead we find a nation of frightened complainers and the story of the wanderings begins.

The complaints we will leave for another day. For today we will imagine the crossing from the perspective of the clownfish and the sooty full, both species found in the ecosystem of the Red Sea.

With wishes for a Shabbat filled with song.

Leann


PS. By the way, this is dedicated to my fellow doodlers, Elizabeth, Iris, Barbara, Nyanna, Suzanne, Ellen, Amy and Amy. Thank you.

 

The Account of the Clownfish


It happened. It did.

The waters churned and roiled

And for a day

(It seemed a year)

The waters towered upward

climbing upwards to the clouds

and we, the scorpion fish, the sharks, the eels

were gathered upward

how swiftly we rose

to the summit of this mountain of water

and there we were suspended as in glass.

I struggled to find my breath,

and from the heights I saw a swarming river

of humanity passing far below.

With wide eyes I followed

and I marveled.

These humans were so different from us

they moved clumsily, without the dancelike agility of a fish,

they trampled on the sands below.

I feared for the crabs just below the surface of the sand.

Some tripped over themselves.

Some ran and some proceeded as in a trance.

Forward they moved as their toes clawed in the sand.


And in that mountain of water it was strangely still.

I could hear their collective breath, their cries of surprise, of fear.

Their eyes were wide and they knew not whether to look at each other,

at the mountain of water or to the bright skies above.


When the very last of these humans finished their trek

only their footprints marked the sands below,

the mesa of water crashed downward from the heights.

Those of us suspended in the water tumbled downward.

In the violence of the reversal of the waters

Many of my family were killed or displaced

For us, the clownfish, it was the great unsettling,

but with time we found our place in the sea once again.

and we continued to swim in the azure waters.

It was as though it never happened,

But for the many wheels of the chariots,

which floated on the surface of sea, like a bouquet of flowers,

a memorial of sorts

which spread across the waters.



Image from Wikimedia Free Images by Diego Delso  (1974–)  


A Note From the Sooty Gull


On that day I saw a strange arrangement of the seas from high above

as I soared on the eastern winds.

As the winds grew stronger I struggled to hold my altitude.

I felt the wind force my feathers outward

and I needed great strength to steady myself.

Slowly, far below me, as though in slow motion

the sea, paisley patterned and churning,

was dissected through its center by a

 a narrow path,

slowly opening.

 On this path advanced a long column

of undulating color.

Oh, such energy this line had,

It was a curious sight, indeed

as it pushed its way forward,

 pulsing with rhythm


With my sharp eyes, I saw the aqua sea rise above

this living, vibrating column that moved slowly forward.

until it finally arrived at the shoreline

and the column formed a billowing dark mass

followed far behind by bronze of chariots that caught the sun.

And then I saw the zipper close and

the sea roared back over that path between the waters.

I gasped as the waters churned over them and they disappeared into the deep.

And then, it was as though the sea belched,

as though it had swallowed something distasteful.


I was never the same after witnessing that day.

Image Created by AI




One nation's miracle is another’s disaster

One nation’s victory is another’s loss.

In the middle of the scales of justice and injustice

the children dangle precipitously.


Yet, all prayers go to the same God.


 


For more information on wildlife of the Red Sea







 


" Then Moses held out his arm over the sea and the LORD drove back the sea with a strong east wind all that night, and turned the sea into dry ground. The waters were split,and the Israelites went into the sea on dry ground, the waters forming a wall for them on their right and on their left." Exodus 14:21, 22

הַיָּ֖ם





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