Two Minute Torah Podcast

B'Shallah 5769 by Lewis Grafman

Shalom! This is Lewis Grafman, Executive Director of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism Mid-Atlantic Region. Welcome to the KOACH 2-minute Torah, a project of the college department of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism.

One of the primary images of B’Shallah, found in the intial verse (Exodus 13:17), is God leading the people from Egypt, through the Sea of Reeds, and ultimately to Mount Sinai, where revelation will take place. While it is Moshe who lifts up the staff and holds his arm over the sea, it is God who splits the sea, who initially blocks Pharaoh’s army, and who ultimately hurls the Egyptians into the sea. As we know, it is God who remains the guide for the Israelites throughout their forty year journey.

Yet we also know from the second verse of the parasha (Exodus 13:18), that the Israelites were armed as they left Egypt, and that the Israelites marched “troop by troop”, in some military fashion. (Exodus 6:26, 12:51.) While the Israelites never do battle with the Egyptians, they are well served by having armed themselves, since at the end of the Parasha we read how the Israelites are attacked by and do battle with Amalek (Exodus 17:8-16).

The battle with the Amalekites represents a significant shift in the Exodus story. Throughout the ten plagues, the splitting of the sea, the bitter waters at Marah, the appearance of manna, and the lack of water at Massah and Meribah, it is some miraculous intervention by God through Moshe, often through the physical manifestation of Moshe’s staff, which solves the problem. Yet when Amalek attacks, God does not perform any miracles. The Israelites must do battle themselves.

Moshe goes to the top of hill, where he can be seen by the Israelites with the staff in his hand. Whenever Moshe holds up his hands, the Israelites prevail; when Moshe’s hands falter, Amalek advances. So that Moshe will not falter, he sits on a stone, and Aaron and Hur hold up his hands. With Moshe’s hands steady, Joshua and the Israelites are victorious in battle.

Joshua and the troops recognize that the hands and staff of Moshe create a powerful symbol of the presence of God in the midst of the Israelites. So long as they can see Moshe’s hands and staff, the Israelites are able to prevail militarily. There is no mysterious focusing of supernatural power on Israel. As written in the Talmud in tractate Rosh HaShana, the hands of Moshe did not wage war or crush the enemy. Rather “so long as the Israelites set their sites on High and subjected themselves to their Father in Heaven they prevailed; otherwise they failed.” (Nahum Sarna, JPS Torah Commentary, Exodus, p. 96 n.11).

The successful battle with Amalek represents both the tremendous faith of the Israelites in God and, equally important, for the first time, confidence of the Israelites in themselves, when coupled with faith in God. May we all strive to combine these traits in all that we do as Jews today in the modern world.