A lot of people don’t like to change things too quickly. I, however, am not one of those people. After I got married, it was no more than 10 days before my wife and I were on a flight on our way to live the first two years of our marriage in Jerusalem. People often said we were crazy – newly married, starting a new life together and moving across the world all in just over a week?! But I’m certain that this move was the key to our successful transition into true independence.
Amidst the words of preparation to the Israelites from Moses before receiving the Torah, Moses, speaking on behalf of God tells the Israelites “You have seen what I did to the Egyptians; how I carried you on the wings of eagles, and brought you to Me” (v. 19). The Torah is filled with beautiful imagery, so what is it about eagles that made them the appropriate bird for this imagery? What message is the Torah trying to get across with the choice of an eagle rather than any other bird?
Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch (1808 – 1888, Germany) noticed something unique about the eagle –eaglet relationship. Remember when you were a little kid and you wanted your parents to give you a piggy-back ride? They bent over so you could just get right on their shoulders and carried you away. Not so, says Rav Hirsch, with the eaglet and eagle. The mother eagle, eager to carry its young through the air, comes close, but not into the nest, and waits for the eaglet to jump out and onto its mother’s wings. For the eaglet to fly, to leave the nest, it must first jump.
Often that dividing line between dependent and independent is the willingness to take that leap. We are often stuck somewhere and can’t progress because we are too afraid that when we jump, we’ll fall. What God is telling the Jewish people is that in order to become a nation, they must be ready to take a leap into something bigger and better than where they are now. To become, as the chapter says later, “a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation,” the Israelites must be willing to take that leap.
The same is true for all of us every day. My wife and I took a leap and moved across the world, with no one to hold our hands through the decisions of adult life, but we knew that the protective wings of our parents were always under us, making sure we’d never fall. A phone call away, or deeply embedded advice in our mind, the wings were always under us.
The Talmud, when discussing the duties of a parent to a child, states that according to one opinion, parents must teach their children to swim. Swimming is just like that first flight of an eaglet – you can’t go swimming unless you take a leap first.
Don’t be afraid to take a leap, you’ll soar higher than you can ever imagine.

David Wallach teaches Judaic Studiess at Azrieli Herzliah High School in Montreal, Quebec.

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