Have you ever experienced a moment where you connected so deeply with the group around you that you forgot yourself for a moment? It might have been a close soccer game that you won, participating in the parade after the Seahawks won the championship, drumming in a drumming circle or a collective singing of a song. In a moment of emotional intensity, a group of people can seemingly become one whole. The Israelites experience such a moment in B’shalach as they break out in song after escaping from Pharaoh. The Hebrew tells us “Moses and the Israelites sang” but uses the singular form of the verb to sing. We can understand that to mean they all sang as one, for they were united as one.
When have you felt a part of something like that? How can we use our collective identity to care for the individuals among us?