Parshat Beshalach  13 Shevat 5762, 26 January 2002

By Shlomo Riskin

Efrat, Israel - This week’s Torah portion opens with the words, “And it was that when Pharaoh sent out the nation…” Did Pharaoh then “send out” the Israelites of his own volition, “send them away” as the literal Hebrew would lead us to believe, more his will than their will? Have we not been reading for the past few Sabbaths about how difficult it was to convince this totalitarian despot, how it took ten plagues to finally convince him? The Divine forcing of Pharaoh’s hand would be a far more apt description than “when Pharaoh sent out the nation”!

Secondly, the highlight of this week’s Torah portion is the magnificent “Song at the sea,” the psalm of praise to the Almighty when the Red Sea split into twelve sections of dry land, resulting in the drowning of the assailant Egyptians and the rescue of the fleeing Israelites. What does seem strange, however is a curious redundancy in the text. When Moses initially extends his hand over the sea in accordance with the Divine command, and the waters are divided, the Bible exults: “And the children of Israel went in the midst of the sea on the dry land, and the waters were for them as a wall to their right and to their left” (Exodus 14:22). The story continues with the Egyptians chasing after them into the split Red Sea, G-d panicking the Egyptians towards the end of the night with a pillar of fire and cloud, Moses again extending his hand over the sea which restores the waters to their ordinary volume and force, and all of the Egyptians drowning, cavalry together with chariots. And then comes a repetition of the earlier verse, “And the children of Israel went on the dry land in the midst of the sea, and the waters were for them as a wall to their right and to their left” (Exodus 14: 29). In accordance with the storyline, the Israelites should already have passed the edge of the Red Sea on the other side before the waters were restored to their former strength by Moses’ second hand extension. Why repeat, seemingly gratuitously, the deliverance of the Israelites? And why reverse the order of words, first stating “in the midst of the sea on the dry land” and then, in the repeated verse, “on the dry land in the midst of the sea”?

I believe that Pharaoh did “send out” the Hebrews, almost “force out” his free laborers, because of a simple but stark truth: at least, with the tenth plague of the slaying of the first born, he became frightened for his own life. According to the midrash, his own first born was killed, but, even more to the point, remember that Pharaoh himself was a first born; that’s how, according to the custom of Egypt, he became Pharaoh in the first place. Pharaoh wanted the Israelites out before he himself would be struck by the plague.

And herein lies a crucial message regarding all totalitarian leaders: since they need not answer to their constituencies, and since they have little concern for anyone else’s comfort or life, the only thing which moves them is danger to their own lives or stations. Hence the first nine plagues adversely affected the Egyptians – fouling their water, blighting their grain, destroying their livestock – but had little affect on Pharaoh. Only when the autocrat felt the knife of the Divine nearing his own neck, did he “send out,” even by force if necessary, the Israelites from Egypt. And so today the leadership of the Palestine Authority remain largely indifferent to the suffering their terrorist actions of the last year and one-half has brought to the Palestinian people….

The message of the repeated verses surrounding the division of the Red Sea harks back to a crucial lesson the Bible taught in last week’s Torah portion. On the fourteenth day of Nissan, after each Hebrew family acceded to the Divine request of slaughtering a lamb and placing the blood on the doorpost of the house, the Bible declares that “this day shall be to you a memorial, and you shall celebrate it as a celebration to G-d” (Exodus 12:14). The very next verse begins a description of the seven day Festival, to begin on the night of the fifteenth day of Nissan, known as the Festival of Matzot (unleavened bread, Exodus 12:15 – 20).

Apparently the Bible knows of two distinct Festivals, the Festival of Passover or the Paschal Sacrifice on the 14th of Nissan and the Festival of the Matzot from the fifteenth to the twenty-second. The first Festival is to be a memorial – to the willingness of the Israelites to put their lives on the line by sacrificing the lamb-god of the Egyptians to the Lord of Israel and the Universe; the second Festival is our Festival of Freedom. The message is loud and clear: there can be no redemption without the Israelite’s commitment – even to the point of committing their lives!

After the Hebrews left Egypt, their cruel enemies changed their minds and chased after them. With the Egyptian cavalry behind them and the fierce red sea in front of them, they could only pray to G-d for help. The Almighty responds to Moses: “Why cry out to me? Speak to the Israelites, and let them start going” (Exodus 14:15) The Divine message is clear: demonstrate your commitment, jump into the rushing waves; only then will I help you. And so, the verse declares “And the children of Israel went into the midst of the sea” – when they entered, the sea was still raging tumultuously,- “on the dry land,” for G-d then made His miracle, “and the waters were for them as a wall to their right and to their left” (verse 22)

But this was only one group of faithful stalwarts, who followed Nahshon ben Aminadav, according to the Midrash. There was a second group who waited at the shores to see what would happen. Only after the Red Sea was divided and the dry land was in evidence, did they jump in. Hence, at the end of the story of the Egyptian drowning, the Bible reports on the second group: “And the children of Israel went on the dry land in the midst of the Sea.” The great Gaon of Vilna adds a magnificent detail: in the first verse, the Torah states that “the waters were for them as a wall” – homa, which means fortress, protection, because of their faith and commitment; the repeated verse spells the Hebrew world, “homa” without a “vav,” which can be read as hema which means anger. G-d saved the second group of Israelites as well, but because of the lesson that had to be taught to the Egyptians and not because of their own merit. Only as a result of the commitment of the first group, who risked their lives by jumping into the fierce waves, were we miraculously rescued from the Sea by G-d. And this is the commitment that the citizens of Israel are demonstrating daily in the face of Palestinian terrorist attacks. May we soon have the joy of singing our song of redemption.

Shabbat Shalom.

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