By Elijah Stone

It's that time of the year again! God is gonna kill the Egyptian army! WHOOOOO!!!!!! Then a bunch of Jews complain, big surprise there, then god is gonna help them out, then the Jews disobey a little bit and then god gets angry. For a more complete summary of the parsha go here! But please allow me to take you through this magical journey.

The Jews have left Egypt for the HOLY LAND... kind of, God really is “leading” the Jewish people to the Holy Land but is taking the scenic route. For anyone who has gone on a road trip with their parents who decided to take the scenic route knows that it SUCKS! But getting back to the story, God takes the scenic route for two reasons, the first being that if the Israelite's took the direct route they would arrive at the Holy Land and have many confrontations with the natives for the land. God believes that the Israelis would not be ready for this, they would become scared and they would run back into the hands of the Egyptians. The Second reason is that God wants to lure the Egyptians into a trap. God takes the Israelis to the Red Sea, again via the scenic route, and some back tracking, all to convince the Egyptians that they were lost. The Egyptians take the bait and fallow them to the Red Sea. Moses splits the Red Sea, and the Israelis go through while God holds off the Egyptians with a pillar of fire. I don't know about you but that sounds BAD ASS! Anywho, The Israeli's get to the other side of the sea and the Egyptians are allowed to pursue them to only have the walls of the Sea crash down on top of them. Then the women singed and danced....but only the women, or at least that's what the parsha leads me to believe. The rest of the parsha is about Jews complaining about food. They run out of water, God gives them water. They run out of food God makes manna fall from the haven, which is apparently bread, but God makes restrictions on how much manna people should take. One Omer (a biblical measurement) per person per day, two Omers on Friday and none on Saturday. But,

people didn't stick to this and god get angry, and spoils any manna or takes away any extra manna. Then Finally the People of Amalekite attack. The Jews win and god tells Moses to “Inscribe this [as] a memorial in the book, and recite it into Joshua's ears, that I will surely obliterate the remembrance of Amalek from beneath the heavens” Thus ends the parsha on a weird note that makes me believe something real bad happened to the Amalekites.

I'm really glad I got this parsha because it is a beautiful example of a troubling message the bible sends about oppressed people: that they can't free themselves. That they need some external force and a charismatic leader to bring them out of oppression, and that they need that same leadership to guide them through those steps afterwards, or else they'll just revert back into what they were before. However, the Jews do take active steps in their liberation (read Emily's awesome drash for an example) but for the most part it is all under Gods/Moses's dictation. God, also ensures that the old generation of Jews who were enslaved dies off before the people are taken to the holy land, only then will the Jewish people be ready to be free. God, also makes these grand shows of power to convince the Jews to worship him and fallow him, and if you don't God will get real pissed. This message is incredibly important to us... why? Well lets look at our wonderful constitution. I apologize for not having the updated version, There is an addition to it about environmental sustainability, but it says under aims that we will:

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