Parshas Beshalach starts a new chapter in Jewish History, one where the nation’s faith in Hashem is built, their entire existence is dependent on clear miracles, and the Nation of Israel is formed. This all starts in this week’s parshah with the first of several major miracles Krias Yam Suf, the Splitting of the Red Sea. It continues throughout the parshah with the sweetening of the waters at Marah, the man (manna), Moshe hitting the rock to draw out water, and the Jew’s victory over Amalek in battle. However, before all this, we must first see how the Jews left Egypt, or more specifically, how they prepared themselves for the way ahead.
The Kli Yakar comments on a very interesting choice of words in the first few pesukim in the parshah. The parshah starts off, “וַיְהִי בְּשַׁלַּח פַּרְעֹה אֶת הָעָם וְלֹא נָחָם אֱ־לֹהִים דֶּרֶךְ אֶרֶץ פְּלִשְׁתִּים כִּי קָרוֹב הוּא כִּי אָמַר אֱ־לֹהִים פֶּן יִנָּחֵם הָעָם…” “And it happened when Paroh sent (out) the nation that God did not lead them towards the land of the Philistines, because it was near, for God said, ‘perhaps the nation will reconsider…” (13:17). The next pasuk says, “וַיַּסֵּב אֱ־לֹהִים אֶת הָעָם” “And God led the people around…” We see in these three places that the Jews are referred to as the common noun “nation”. However, later on in the same pasuk, we see them referred to as the pronoun. As it says, “…וַחֲמֻשִׁים עָלוּ בְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל מֵאֶרֶץ מִצְרָיִם” “…and the Children of Israel went up armed from Egypt”(13:18).
The Kli Yakar asks several questions based on these pesukim. First off, how come the Jews are referred to as “the nation” the first three times in the parshah and the fourth time they are called the Children of Israel? For his next questions, he brings a midrash that when it says that they were armed, it means that they were each armed with five different weapons of war. Why did they need weapons? Weren’t they the Jewish people watched over and protected by an all-powerful and mighty God? Even if you want to say that a person must do his part to succeed on a natural level and what the person does not accomplish, the miracle will, still, how come we need to know how many weapons they each had? Lastly, these people had been slaves for their entire lives. They had no idea how to fight with real weapons! The best thing for them to do would have been to find some good, sturdy clubs and fight with those?
He answers these questions by understanding why the Jews had to have the miracle Krias Yam Suf and travel through the desert in the first place. He explains first off that the midrash is not referring to five weapons of war, but rather the five books of the Torah as the word “חֲמֻשִׁים”, armed, is related to the word חמש, five. He explains that when B’nei Yisrael left Egypt, they were not worthy of receiving the Torah, only after experiencing Krias Yam Suf and the journey through the desert did they reach that level. What exactly was lacking? We see after they crossed the Red Sea, the pasuk states, “וַיַּאֲמִינוּ בַּי־הֹוָ־ה וּבְמֹשֶׁה עַבְדּוֹ” “And they believed in God and Moshe his servant” (14:31). It’s obvious that they could not accept the Torah if they did not believe fully in Hashem or his messengers. That’s why they needed the miracle of the Yam Suf. Another trait necessary before accepting the Torah is to rid yourself of your materialistic needs. This was accomplished through the manna, which was literally nothing more than fried dough (though its potential was enormous). A nation which could survive on nothing but that had clearly taken this character trait to heart. The rest of the miracles in the desert just added on to their level of emunah (belief in God).
Furthermore, the only thing which separates the Jewish People from the rest of the world is that we have the Torah. Yes, we’ve had some really great people as ancestors, but at the end of the day, without the Torah, we are just another nation. This is the reason why the parshah opens with B’nei Yisrael being referred to as the “nation”, as long as we didn’t have our “weapons”, we were no different than anyone else. We needed the Torah before we could be anything special. Therefore, “וַיַּסֵּב אֱ־לֹהִים אֶת הָעָם” “And God led the people around…”, he led them back around towards the Yam Suf in order to start the process of strengthening our belief in order for us to accept the Torah. Only then are we referred to as בְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל, even before the pasuk ends! But we still hadn’t accepted the Torah, how can the pasuk say we were armed? The answer is that as soon as we had begun the process of accepting the Torah by trusting in Hashem and following him into the desolate wilderness, we already had the Torah’s protection over us.
We can all take something very important from this. Even if it seems to us as if we don’t trust in Hashem like we should or we don’t keep everything the Torah says to keep, it does not take much work to come back! All it takes is to start the process. Once you start, the Torah’s influence will already be on you, making it easy to come all the way back to where you should be. Because only with the Torah are we worthy of being called B’nei Yisrael as opposed to being like everyone else.
Shabbat Shalom!
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