This Week In The Torah



Parsha Beshelach Shemos/Exodus Ch.13/17 - 17/16


The Last Jews in Egypt
by Rabbi Yechezkel Fox

G-d spoke to Moses, saying, "Speak to the Children of Israel and let them turn back and encamp before Pi-hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea. Pharaoh will say of the Children of Israel, 'They are imprisoned in the land, the wilderness has locked them in.' " Ch.14/1-3

The above translation follows the plain meaning of the text, the phrase l'vnei Yisrael rendered as of the Children of Israel. However, this same phrase can be rendered as to the Children of Israel. If so, it would mean that Pharaoh was destined to speak once again with the Children of Israel. But which Jews would be left in Egypt for him to talk to? Didn't they all leave in the Exodus? The great sage, Yonason ben Uliel, says that Dosan and Aviram stayed behind, and they were to be Pharaoh's interlocutors. They had already been big troublemakers for Moshe (see Rashi Ch2/13), and would continue with their pro-Egyptian stance to the end (see Bamidbar Ch16/12-14).

Still, the holdover of Dosan and Aviram in Egypt is difficult. For according to our Sages, four-fifths of the Jewish people died in the plague of darkness because G-d knew they didn't want to leave Egypt. That being so, why didn't Dosan and Aviram die with them?

The Sages tell us that Moshe prayed for the salvation of the four-fifths; but G-d would not reverse his decision. G-d knew, of course, that such wholesale destruction would have been a terrible ordeal for Moshe. How would Moshe be able to justify G-d's action to himself? For that reason He determined that Dosan and Aviram would survive. They would be the representative remnant of a wicked generation, and Moshe would understand why it had to be.

Sources:Sharei Aahron

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The Bittersweet Truth

They came to Marah, but they could not drink the waters of Marah because they were bitter; therefore they named it Marah. The people complained against Moshe saying "What shall we drink?". He cried out to G-d, and G-d showed him a tree; he threw it into the water and the water become sweet. Ch.15/23-25

Wood, as we all know is bitter, so why was it used to sweeten the waters? Couldn't G-d have used something more conventional, like Sukrazit?

G-d was teaching us an eternal lesson: bitter + bitter = sweet.

The evil inclination (where our baser desires come from) is our bitter enemy. The fight to conquer it is a bitter fight which will require all our spititual strength. But the resulting victory, no matter how small, is true sweetness. On the other hand, by giving the evil inclination the sweet solutions he asks for, we are in fact only strengthening his position.

Sources: Gateshead Yeshiva

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The Aleph-Beis of Sustenance
by Rabbi Yechezkel Fox

This is the thing that G-d has commanded, "Gather from it, for every man according to what he eats - an omer per person - according to the number of your people, everyone according to whomever is in his tent shall you take." Ch.16/16

In this verse, which is refering to the manna, if one looks at the original Hebrew text, one would see that all twenty-two letters of the aleph-beis (Jewish alphabet) are present. This is very rare in the Torah, occuring in only one other place (see Deut. Ch.4/34).

The Ba'al HaTurim learns a great lesson from this anomaly occuring specifically in the verse where the Jewish People were promised the heavenly gift of manna for their sustenance. He writes as follows: It is telling you that all who keep the Torah (symbolized by the whole aleph-beis with which the Torah is written) G-d will prepare his sustenance without the reciepient needing to exert any effort, just like those who ate the manna.

Just as in the Wilderness, where we had all our needs provided for us in order to learn and keep the Torah, so too today, G-d offers the same deal.



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