By Zev Dever

This week's parsha in Beshalach, and there's a lot going on here! So bear with me. Or don't...

Here's the full version for your pleasurable perusal. Or just refer to the fantastically scored cartoon musical: The Prince of Egypt.

SUMMARY: Basically in the first part, the Israelites leave Egypt lead by Moses (carrying Josephs bones), and by God as a pillar of cloud by day, and a pillar of fire by night, through the (philistine free) desert, to the sea. But as we know by the time they get there the Egyptians have come after them. So god gets moshe to split the sea, lead the Jews through, followed by the Egyptians, upon whom the sea crashes down leaving "not one survivor". The Israelite sing a song praising god as vengeful and efficient master of war, accompanied by a sweet timbrel solo and dance routine care of Miriam, the first woman to be a prophet (but not the only one this week!).

Then to make a long story short the Jews venture into the desert, and complain a lot and each time they do they get some water, or some mana, or some qual, etc. but they never forget the good food they had in Egypt. Eventually Moshe has to strike a rock to get water out of it, some Amalekites attack, Joshua leads a battle against them that we are told should last for all generations.

And then the Jews lived happily ever after and nothing bad happened again I assume...

WHAT'S INTERESTING (a non exhaustive list):

I.) The first thing that stood out to me is that it was God who made the Egyptians come after the Israelites. God says "I shall harden the hearts of the Egyptians, and I shall be glorified through Pharoh, through his chariots, and through his horsemen." Indicating that in order to prove his worth

as their new leader, god must vanquish their old master in a sea of blood (take note Zebo, this is how leaders earn legitimacy) and indeed, it is only after seeing him destroy pharohs army that "the people feared the Lord, and they believed in the Lord".

At first I thought it petty that god wanted to fight the Israelite's old boyfriend, rather than taking the high road, but perhaps it had to be this way. The whole reason god led the Israelites by the sea is that he thought if they had to fight through philistines they would fear war and flea back to the relative safety of slavery, and to his credit upon seeing the Egyptians the first things the Jews said to moses was "were there not enough graves in Egypt that you've led us here to die in this desert?" (even back then we were witty and biting). and only when they felt the might of god was on their side were they willing to take on the rest of Cannan.

What sucks about this is that legitimacy of leadership here is tied to fear. It makes it seem as that the israelites didn't really stop being slaves, they simply got a new master, a more powerful, more warlike one (who still regulates when you work and what you eat by the way).

But perhaps this is more true to life; there is no such thing as complete freedom, we are all of slaves to something or another, in that we must live within certain perimeters to survive in the life and society we've chosen. Perhaps the only thing that marks the beginning of 'freedom' is being able to intentionally choose what it is you will be a slave to. So it is that I may choose to break the shackles of a

Next Page >>