"Torah Lights"
 
Video Insights on the Parsha
 
 by Rabbi Shlomo Riskin

Efrat, Israel: “G-d will fight for you; you must silently hold your peace” (Exodus 14:14) 

The Exodus from Egypt and the miracle of the splitting of the Reed Sea has fired our imagination for 4,000 years. Hence, it is not surprising that one of Hollywood’s great directors, Cecil B. DeMille, capped his career with his grand finale film, The Ten Commandments. Yet despite the dazzling display of special effects, which was one of the most powerful visual experiences ever presented, the oft-heard comment made by filmgoers upon leaving a movie that the “book was better” also applied in this case; our “Book of Books,” the Bible, was better.

The Bible remains better because, in addition to describing the historic events which provide the basis for the powerful images illuminating the movie screen, the Bible explores and amplifies the emotions felt by the Israelites leading up to the miracle, the groundwork for the Divine lessons that G-d desired to teach His people.  In this way, the miracle of the splitting of the Reed Sea becomes not only a once-in-a-nation’s history extra-sensory experience, but rather a watershed phenomenon that helped form the psyche of our nation in its development from slavery to freedom. 

Chapter 14 of the Book of Exodus, the central account of the Splitting of the Sea in this week’s Biblical portion of Beshalach, is actually divided into two almost equal parts (verses 1-14, 15-31), as magnificently analyzed by R. Elhanan Samet in his ‘Studies of the Biblical Portions.’ From an initial perspective, the first half catalogues Pharaoh’s aggressive military initiative to return the Israelites to Egypt, the stark fear of the Israelites, and Moses’ ringing promise, “G-d will fight for you; you must silently hold your peace” (14:14). The second half describes the miracle at the Sea and the stunning, upset victory of the Israelites. 

What adds to the profundity of the Biblical text is that twice in the first half of chapter 14 we are told the precise location of the Israelites in the desert: the very opening verse (14:1) informs us that G-d told Moses to “turn back [the Israelites] and camp before the Temple of Horus (probably “per cheru” a generic term for the shrines of the idol Horus), between the tower and the sea, facing the Master Idol of the North…” and then again, only nine verses later, “the Egyptians overtook them while they were camping at the sea, near the Temple of Horus, opposite the Master Idol of the North.” What is remarkable about this twice mentioned geographic location is that it is given to us in relation to the positions of two major idolatrous centers, a rare occurrence for the Bible of ethical monotheism.  

Furthermore, how are we to understand the total paralysis of the Israelites in the face of this Egyptian danger? Even after G-d informs them that He “will triumph over Pharaoh and his entire army, and Egypt will know that I am G-d” (14:4), the Hebrews seem devastated by the Egyptian armies and virtually resigned to their deaths in the desert (14: 10-12). What adds to our [the reader’s] frustration is the Biblical report that Pharaoh took “…six hundred chosen chariots as well as the whole chariot corps of Egypt, three times the amount of all of these” (14:7). Does this mean another 1800 chariots? Josephus writes that besides the 600 war chariots, there were 50,000 horsemen and 200,000 foot-men (Antiquities 2:15:3), and even though this seems to be a truly high number, remember that the Israelites were 600,000 men, and they emerged from Egypt armed with weaponry (Exodus 13:18). Why didn’t they face the Egyptians in war, fighting for their freedom?! This is the critical question of the Ibn Ezra, and our question as well. Why does the possibility of Israel’s fighting back not seem to be an option for these newly-freed émigrés? The sad truth is that fighting isn’t even on Moses’ radar screen: “G-d will fight for you; you must silently hold your peace” are the words of the prophet. 

Enter the second half of chapter 14, with a Divine rebuke to Moses and a Divine charge to the Israelites: “And the Lord said to Moses, ‘Why are you crying out to Me in prayer? Speak to the children of Israel, and let them get moving” (Exodus 14:15). It is not by accident that the precise geographic location of Israelites is between the Shrine of Horus and Master Idol of the North, and that in Hebrew the Shrine of Horus is “pi hahirut”, which can also be translated to mean “by the mouth, or cusp of freedom (herut).” G-d is telling Moses as well as Israel that they are no longer slaves to Egypt and neither are they enslaved to Egyptian idolatry! Idol worshippers believe that human beings are powerless pawns, manipulated by the all-powerful idolatrous gods whose petty feuds control what happens on earth; the most that the people can do is bribe, or propitiate, those gods!  

The message of Israel to the world is dramatically different. Our G-d is a G-d of love and justice who has created us in His image and as His partners. He is the G-d of history – “ I will be what I will be” – and history is a partnership between G-d, His chosen nation and the world. G-d may be the leader of the orchestra, but we humans must play the instruments – and whether the result in the world is silence, cacophony or a magnificent symphony will depend, in great measure, upon us. Hence G-d charges Israel with diving into the waters of the Reed Sea if they truly wish to be free; active partnership with the Divine means risking your lives in unchartered depths on behalf of freedom and redemption. 

Shabbat Shalom