1.
The Exodus from Egypt is a long process, a historical process that does not take place only within the generation that left the Egyptian house of bondage, but within their descendants forever. Each generation has its own Egypt, and its own house of slaves into which it is cast. Sometimes this is physical enslavement; at other times it is mental and psychological bondage.
As noted in earlier columns, the central symbol threading through the foundational book of our people is the womb: Eden as a cosmic womb containing the human embryo awaiting birth, that is, expulsion; Noah's ark as a human-made womb; the cave in which Lot's daughters conceived Moab and Ammon from their father; the Cave of Machpelah that holds within its womb the national memory; Rebecca, whose womb becomes an arena of struggle between two nations that turn out to be two civilizations; the pit into which Joseph was cast and from which he was born as a slave destined to rule; and so on, up to the Egyptian womb, into which Jacob's family entered and from which, hundreds of years later, they were born as a new people on the road to eternal freedom.
2.
Conception in the womb and birth are powerful historiosophical symbols that encourage the human spirit not to sink into final thoughts and despair, in the sense of "Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off" (Ezekiel 37:11). Our hope is not lost; it never has been, even in the harshest times and places into which we were thrown by human tyrants. We have always known how to renew ourselves and rise from the ashes like the wondrous phoenix, as the Sages interpreted the verse in Psalms: "Your youth is renewed like the eagle's" (Psalms 103:5).
The Jerusalemite prophet Isaiah, who lived in the eighth century BCE, encouraged us across the generations: "Do not fear, O worm Jacob" (Isaiah 41:14). Not just any worm; in ancient tradition the prophet was speaking of the silkworm that becomes a cocoon. If we force the end and tear open the cocoon, we will find little there, almost death. But if we wait patiently and believe, we will be privileged to see the butterfly emerge.
Alterman understood this as well, toward the end of World War II, when he envisioned our national rebirth in his poem "Ayelet": "And as a marvel a butterfly is born from the worm,\ so wondrous is your living smile that bursts from the dead." Incidentally, the smile he mentions is that of "the firstborn of every generation." Before every birth and historical renewal, the poet says, there comes a plague of the firstborn.
At times, these are our own firstborn. We, the generations living in a sovereign Jewish state that arose after nearly 2,000 years of exile and some three years after we were reduced to ashes in the death camps, can testify that we have seen it with our own eyes.
3.
This Sabbath, the people are swallowed into a new womb, the Red Sea. They cross it after trials and mortal fear, until on the far shore they see their enemies vanish and understand that this is the last time they will see their oppressors; their old sources of authority have sunk into the sea's depths: "For as you have seen Egypt this day, you shall never see them again forever" (Exodus 14:13). From now on they must manage on their own. This is still not enough to shed the consciousness of slavery entirely, but it is another brick on the road to full independence.
The adults may struggle to complete the mental revolution, but the small children who crossed the sea "with a strong east wind all that night" (Exodus 14:21), holding their mothers' hands and rowing bravely toward the shore, will succeed. They will become the generation of conquerors that took Canaan by storm.
4.
It is worth returning to the beginning of the portion: "When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them by way of the land of the Philistines, although it was near" (Exodus 13:17). The coastal road through Philistine territory was the shortest route to Canaan, yet Moses was instructed to take them the long way. They even turned back: "Speak to the children of Israel, that they turn back and encamp before Baal Zephon, facing it, by the sea" (Exodus 14:2). Why? "For God said, lest the people regret when they see war, and return to Egypt" (Exodus 13:17). The coastal route from Egypt to Canaan passed through Gaza (yes…), where the ancient Philistines lay in wait, or earlier still, Egyptian revolutionary guard units manned roadblocks.
"And the children of Israel went up armed from the land of Egypt" (Exodus 13:18). Even so, despite the weapons, and despite slaughtering Egypt's god in the Passover sacrifice (see my previous article), and despite the death of Egypt's firstborn that drove the oppressors to expel the Hebrews, they could not, in a single stroke, erase traits forged over generations of bondage, abuse, fear of the taskmaster and an extreme reluctance to assume responsibility for their own fate and existence. "For it is not in human nature that one raised in the work of slavery, in mortar and bricks and the like, should then wash his hands, in a moment, of its filth and suddenly fight the children of giants," Maimonides explained in the 12th century.
His contemporary Abraham Ibn Ezra observed the generation of Egypt and perhaps saw his own generation in the depths of exile: "For the Egyptians were masters over Israel, and this generation that left Egypt learned from its youth to bear the yoke of Egypt, and its spirit was lowly. How could it now fight its masters? And Israel were weak and untrained in war."
5.
Thus Moses leads them, seemingly, into a dead end: the sea before them and behind them "Egypt was marching after them". The masters pursue the fleeing slaves, and terror soars: "They were very afraid". Some pray: "The children of Israel cried out to the Lord", while others attack the leader: "Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you took us to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt?". We prefer to remain slaves rather than die in the desert. We told you then: "Let us alone, that we may serve the Egyptians" (Exodus 14:10-12).
The only homeland they had known was Egypt, and in a moment of crisis they clung to its memory as a safe haven. We, thousands of years later, know this was not a one-time event but a historical formula that recurred in our history: "The Jew, in general, would forget his origin… and imagine that Berlin is Jerusalem," as Rabbi Meir Simcha HaCohen of Dvinsk warned in the second half of the 19th century.
Now they stood before the raging sea, hearing the command: "Speak to the children of Israel, that they go forward… and come into the sea" (Exodus 14:15–16). Who would be the first to jump, to push beyond the boundaries of reality and split not only the sea but stride courageously into the long historical path of this people just born, in the valley of the shadow of death among nations and empires, bondage and redemption? "Nachshon son of Amminadav leapt in, and his tribe (Judah) after him, into the waves of the sea; therefore, Judah merited to rule in Israel," say the Sages.
After them the others entered, slogging through mud and salt water, "and Reuben would say to Simeon: In Egypt—mud, and in the sea—mud; in Egypt—in mortar and bricks, and in the sea—in mortar of many waters," as the Midrash describes the small-mindedness of some of those crossing.
6.
That is why they had to cross the sea. Despite the lack of faith and the fear, they had to be swallowed into its depths like into a giant womb, and shed the husks of mental enslavement. Those who led then reappeared in later generations, up to the generation of victory in our own time. The Nachshons of every age: before the sea split, they split the rigid thinking of their generation on the way to mental freedom.
And then, when they emerged on the far shore, they were born anew and a new song burst from their throats, one that sang not only of what they had seen but also of the future song: "You will bring them and plant them on the mountain of Your inheritance… the sanctuary", and kingship, "The Lord shall reign forever and ever" (Exodus 15:17-18). We will see it with our own eyes.
