Parashat Beshallah: The Beginning of the Journey

The children of Israel, on the eve of their departure from Egypt in last week’s parsha, paint their doorposts and lintels with the blood of the paschal lamb. The Sefat Emet suggests that the image of the doorway is significant. They are on the cusp of a new life. God has created a doorway into the Torah for them.

It turns out the door does not simply open into a place of residence, but leads instead to a long twisting pathway, a road to be travelled. The path created by the parting of the two walls of the Red Sea symbolizes this road, and God’s choice of the “long way around” the desert mentioned in the first verse of this week’s parsha makes it clear that the road will be a long one.

This sense of journey is an important counter-point to the exhilaration of the exodus of last week’s parsha. Even after 10 plagues, the job is not done. One’s enemies, and in the classic Hasidic interpretation, one’s spiritual challenges, will continually follow one around. Steps forward are made. The Israelites see the Egyptians lying dead on the banks of the sea, believe in God, and, overcome by clarity and gratitude, sing the great Song of the Sea. But what next? Even this great moment – during which the midrash says that a maid-servant saw God with greater clarity than the greatest of prophets – does not last. Changes, spiritual changes, must happen slowly and gradually. Immediately after the parting of the Red Sea, the people complain of thirst.

Thirst is their next challenge. Facing the Red Sea, there was too much water; what they needed then was dry land. Now they are on the other side of the Sea, facing the next spiritual challenge, a problem of the other extreme, a lack of water. Later in the parsha, they will confront problems of hunger , a return of thirst, and another enemy attack, Amalek.

The problems and challenges of the long road through the desert continue throughout most of the rest of the Torah. Such is life. Such is a Torah life. It is not without moments of exhilaration and clarity, moments of standing in one place and singing out one’s praise to God. But it is mostly a journey. Like the waters of the Sea, the image of life here is not stagnant, but continuously moving, moving and growing, always with an eye to the Promised Land, but never actually getting there.

The ability to travel this journey is a privilege and a blessing. Slaves cannot travel, cannot move forward or upward, always chained to their place in society. The exodus was a door not to the land itself – with all its implications of settling down-- but to a road, an opening and an opportunity to travel this challenging yet rewarding journey.