This week’s parsha (Torah portion) is called b’shalach, and it finishes off the pharaoh and Egypt portion of our story.  And likewise, we will conclude the discussion on the breaking of habits that control us. After all, if pharaoh represents the part of us that wants to keep us enslaved to a habit, it would make sense that his destruction signifies the destruction of whatever is keeping us from being free.  But that is not all that happens in the parsha.  We also find singing and and complaints of lack and haShem (god) providing, and we end with Amelak attacking and the sons of  Yaakov (Jacob) defeating them.  One could write for years on just this parsha alone. As we live in a busy world, I will just focus on the topic we started a few weeks ago: the breaking of pharaoh and the habits that we have become slaves to.

The parsha opens with the tribes turning around and returning to the yam Soof (sea of Reeds). There they camp at Pi-haHiroth between Migdol and the yam (sea), before Baal Zephon.  It is here that pharaoh comes at them, seemingly trapping those following Moshe (Moses) by the sea and cliffs.

Let’s translate the names and see where they really are. Pi-haHiroth translates to the mouth of freedom. Migdol means tower. But if you change the vowels, it becomes the verb to grow. Yam is a little more complicated. In Hebrew, the word for water is mayim and is always plural.  A yam takes the plural mayim and connects it into a single body of water, a sea.  So yam has the connotation of connectedness. And Baal Zephon means the master of what is hidden.  If we put this all together, we find that we have come out of a narrow, restrictive place (Egypt in Hebrew is Mitzrayim which means narrows) to the mouth of freedom, between growth and connectedness near the master of mysteries.

If we look at this from the view that the sons of Yaakov represent each one of us (like we have over the past few weeks), we can see that we have come to the mouth of freedom. This implies that we have not quite overcome the habit we have been enslaved to, for we still have yet to enter into freedom.  We have stopped at the entrance and we see no way to continue.  At this point, it would be easy just to stay in this place of limbo, not following the old habit, but also not doing anything new.  And this is why haShem hardens pharaoh’s heart to come after us.  We need that one final push from the threat of slavery to push us on.  But where do we go?  A few years ago, I was with Rabbi Asi over shabbat, and he talked about how a body of water represents the unknown because you really don’t know what is going on underneath it.  And this is precisely where we need to go.  We need to have faith that the unknown is not going to hurt us.  And so we/the tribes/the children of Yaakov walk into the yam Soof, the sea of Reeds. And lo and behold, the waters part!  The unknown becomes known to us, just by our going in and experiencing something new.  The master of hidden allows the hidden to be revealed and we feel like the waters of the womb have broken and we are born anew.

Pharaoh’s armies are fast approaching; the habit that enslaved us is trying to hook us one final time.  But they get covered over by the waters, by a mystery, for we are no longer afraid of our taskmasters and the pull of the habit gets destroyed.  We have truly become free of that old habit.

And now it is time to sing and rejoice in our new-found/won freedom. And that is exactly what happens next in the parsha. However, the parsha continues with the sons of Yaakov complaining of lack. As I said above, I could write many more pages on the rest of this parsha. Suffice it to say that just because we are free does not mean that we don’t still have work to do.  These tests, these lacks and how they get resolved represent a person exploring his new freedoms to determine what to do next.  And this just might be the topic of this week’s parsha.

I bless you all to keep on trekking and preparing to meet thy maker and for revelation coming soon from a mountain near you.  🙂

About the Author

Shmuel Shalom Cohen spent 10 years studying Torah in Jerusalem. Six years ago, he started Conscious Torah to help Jews connect to their tradition in ways they didn’t think possible. Shmuel also started, and is the executive directory of Jewish Events Willamette-valley, a non-profit whose mission is to build Jewish community, pride, and learning. In his free time, Shmuel likes walks in nature, playing music, writing poetry, and time with good friends.