“Now, when Pharaoh let the people go, Hashem did not lead them by way of the land of the Philistines.” (13:17)
The exile of Egypt was the matrix for all the other exiles that the Jewish People would endure, and therefore the manner of their exodus from that exile laid down a matrix, a pattern for all the other exiles that the Jewish People would suffer.
“Hashem did not lead them by way of the land of the Philistines.”
Rather, Hashem took them the long way, the way of the wilderness, to instill in the Jewish People’s genes the ability to serve Hashem even at a great distance both physically and spiritually.
When the ‘going got tough’ during our many persecutions and long exile ‘way off the beaten track,’ the experience of traversing the wilderness of the desert prepared the unborn souls of the Jewish People for the long and difficult unpaved road of exile.
Source: Sfat Emet
