Which Way to Eretz Yisrael?
Now that the Jews had left Egypt, the wilderness stretched out in front of them, full of hope and promise... and unknown dangers. To get to Eretz Yisrael, the Jews could have gone in a straight line, right through the land of the Plishtim (Philistines). It wasn't that far away! But HaShem led them on a roundabout route through the desert -- for 40 years! HaShem made sure they had to twist and turn and wind their way around... They went straight, then turned around, backtracked toward Egypt, then zigzagged to the left, and left again! That way, it would be harder for them to change their minds and go back to Egypt if they faced wars along the way.
To show the Jews the way to go, HaShem sent a very special cloud ahead of the people during the day, called the Cloud of Glory. By night He sent a tall pillar of fire, that lit up the way just like a giant lantern. By following the cloud and the fire, the Jews knew which way to travel.
After Them!
Meanwhile, back in Egypt, Paraoh was kicking himself for letting the Jews go! Three days had passed, and the Jews had not returned. "What have I done?" said Paraoh in despair. "What on earth was I thinking, letting my slaves go?" "We must have been crazy to send them away... they even have all of our gold and silver!" agreed Paraoh's servants. Paraoh wanted to jump up and run after the Jews, but the Ten Plagues were still vivid in his memory, and he thought twice about it. But when Paraoh heard that the Jews seemed to be going in circles, he thought, "Aha! They're lost in the desert! Now's my chance!" With renewed determination, Paraoh harnessed his horses and chariot, called his servants, his generals, and his soldiers, and cried, "After them! Hurry! Hurry!" Paraoh led his army of 600 chariots in a chase after the Jews. But even while he was speeding through the desert, Paraoh still had doubts about what he was doing. He was nervous about what might happen. But HaShem hardened his heart, and he kept on going. It didn't take long for Paraoh's cavalry to catch up with the Jews!
The Jews has set up camp by the Yam Suf (the Red Sea). When they looked up and saw the Egyptians hot on their heels, they were terrified! In front of them was the raging sea, and closing in behind them was Paraoh's huge army! Paraoh's soldiers were trying to attack them from behind with their bows... but HaShem moved His Cloud of Glory from the front to the back of the Jews -- and all of the Egyptians' arrows were caught in the cloud.
Come On In, The Water's Fine
The Jews all cried out to HaShem, "HELP!" "Hey Moshe!" some of the Jews shouted. "Weren't there enough graves in Egypt? You had to bring us out into the desert to die? We should have just stayed in Egypt. Let's go back to Paraoh! Being slaves would be better than this!!" "No!" others shouted. "We must fight Paraoh -- now! Or we'll all be killed!" "We should pray to HaShem," said others. "Only He can help us now!" "There's no time for lengthy prayers," said still others. "We have no choice but to go straight ahead -- through the sea!" "Please, everyone, quiet. Don't be afraid," said Moshe. "Now HaShem is going to show us the greatest miracles of all. HaShem will fight for you." Then Moshe stood by the water and prayed. "Moshe," HaShem said. "I have already planned your miraculous escape. Command everyone to go forward -- toward the Yam Suf." Almost everyone took one look at the waves crashing and the deep, dark water splashing as far out as the eye could see, and stood fearfully at the edge of the water, their feet planted firmly on solid ground. But time was running out -- the Egyptians were getting closer by the second. One brave man, Nachshon ben Aminadav, the leader of the tribe of Yehudah, had pure faith in Hashem and was ready to follow His command. Without hesitating, he jumped right into the water and kept going forward. Following his lead, more people jumped in after him, and they all walked forward, deeper and deeper... until the water reached their necks!
HaShem saw that the Jewish people were willing to do as He commanded, and He said to Moshe: "Stretch your staff out over the sea and split the water. Then you will all walk across the sea on dry land."
Splitting of the Sea
Moshe did -- and HaShem made a strong wind blow from the east... and the sea split! The water rose up like walls of icy glass to the right and to the left of the people. and everyone walked right through on dry land. Each of the twelve tribes had its own tunnel to travel through, and as the Jewish men, women, and children walked, HaShem took good care of them so that they would all arrive safely on the other side of the sea. If a child got thirsty while walking, a fountain of pure water would spring forth from the wall of ice. And if a child was hungry, fresh fruit would emerge from the ice, ready to be picked and eaten.
Follow Those Jews!
The Egyptians were driving their chariots as fast as their horses would go, but HaShem slowed them down by sending a storm of hail and coal from the sky. Finally, they reached the Yam Suf and saw the Jews escaping! "Full speed ahead!" they cried, and raced after the Jews, straight into the ice-tunnels. But the ground didn't feel solid and dry to them... it was sticky and muddy. Their horses' hooves and their chariots' wheels got stuck in the muck. They pressed on, forward into the midst of the sea. But as the morning sun began to rise, and the last of the Jews stepped out safely on the far side of the sea, the walls of ice melted and came crashing in around the Egyptians, drowning them all.
A Song of Thanks
It was the seventh day of Passover when HaShem parted the waters. Now that they were out of the sea, the danger behind them, the Jews understood that HaShem had saved their lives with amazing miracles! Every single one of them, from the noblest to the lowliest, believed completely in HaShem and was given a prophecy even greater than that of the great prophet Yechezkel (Ezekiel).
And they all began to sing together "Az Yashir", a beautiful song of thanks to HaShem! (To this day, we sing their special shirah every year on the seventh day of Passover, and every day in our morning prayers.)
Moshe led the men in singing, and they all repeated the words of the song after him. Miriam led the women in singing their part of the song, and they repeated after her. The women danced joyfully and sang and played their tambourines. Tambourines - in the desert? Of course! The Jewish women had such great faith that HaShem would perform miracles so they took tambourines with them going out of Egypt - ready to celebrate!
Bitter Sweet
Three days later, the Jews arrived in a place called Marah. "Marah" means bitter, and the town got its name from the taste of the water there. It was undrinkable. That was a problem, because for the three days that the Jews were traveling in the desert, they had been looking for water -- and this was the first water they had found. They were very, very thirsty. Some people complained to Moshe, "We're SO thirsty! What will we drink?" Moshe prayed to HaShem for water, and HaShem said: "Take a branch from that bitter-tasting tree, and throw it into the bitter water." Moshe did was he was supposed to do, even though it sounded a bit strange -- and it worked! The bitter wood turned the bitter water into sweet, fresh water.
The Jews drank, grateful for yet another miracle. After that, HaShem gave the Jews a few mitzvot (commandments) as a sneak preview of what would later be given to Moshe... on Mount Sinai!
Miracle Food
The Jews continued on their journey, and it wasn't long before they used up the supply of matzah they had brought with them. When their food ran out, they all complained to Moshe and Aharon: "We're going to starve to death! We should have stayed in Egypt! At least there we had bread and meat!" HaShem was not happy that the Jews were complaining -- and asking for a luxury like meat was a bit too much -- but He heard them and answered their requests. The very next morning, when the people looked out of their tents, they saw something very unusual: the ground was covered with shiny, round, white flakes.
Moshe explained to them, "This is bread from the sky that HaShem has sent. You will collect just enough for your families every morning." "Super! HaShem has given us FOOD!" the people said to each other. It was different than anything else they had ever seen, so they called it simply mon (which means "prepared food"). Everyone set out to gather their portions (except the tzaddikim, purely righteous people, who found their portions right outside their tent doors). Nobody measured exactly how much they were gathering, but even if someone took a bit too little or a bit too much, when they went home and measured it, they found that it had become exactly the right amount of mon -- no more and no less. Moshe had told them to eat all of the mon they gathered, because HaShem would provide new mon every morning. But some people still tried to save some overnight -- but when they tried to eat it the next morning, they found that the leftovers had become spoiled and full of worms.
Moshe taught the people to say a blessing before eating the mon: Hamotzie Lechem Min HaShamayim -- "Who brings forth bread from the sky"! (You may be familiar with the blessing for bread, Hamotzie Lechem Min Ha'aretz... but the mon didn't come from wheat harvested from the ground. It came directly from HaShem -- miraculously.) The mon was an amazing food. It tasted like wafers in honey... or whatever food the person eating it desired. Just imagine - If someone had a craving for a nice piece of steak - Poof! The mon tasted just like steak. Or if someone else wanted a seven-layer chocolate cake... there it was! Pretty convenient. Every morning, for the entire 40 years the Jews wandered in the desert, the mon that rained down during the night was waiting on the ground, ready to be gathered. And in the evening, HaShem sent down slav -- quails -- a fat, kosher bird that they could eat.
On Friday, everyone gathered their family's portions of mon as usual, but when they brought it home they found that their portions had doubled! They asked Moshe what was going on. "Tomorrow is Shabbat," Moshe explained. "It's a day of rest. No mon will fall tomorrow, but the mon you gathered today will be enough to feed your families for two days. You can cook it or bake it into anything you want, to prepare food for the Shabbat meals." (Do you remember Datan and Aviram, the men whose fight Moshe broke up back in their slavery days in Egypt? Well, they were still a couple of trouble-makers. It was their mon that turned wormy when they tried to save it during the week -- and now, on Shabbat day, they insisted on going out to search for mon. Of course, there was none to be found!) When the mon fell, each flake was sandwiched between two drops of dew. When we celebrate Shabbat today, we use two loaves of challah -- lechem mishneh -- to remind us of those two drops that carried our miracle food in the desert.
Water from the Rock
The Jews traveled on through the desert, until they reached a place called Refidim. There were no wells to be found there anywhere, and the people were getting very thirsty again. Some Jews started nagging, "Where's HaShem now, Moshe? We're dying of thirst! We need water!"
Moshe prayed to HaShem, and HaShem told Moshe: "Take your staff -- the one you used to strike the Nile River -- and go to the rock in a place called Chorev. Hit the rock with your stick, and water will flow out." Moshe did exactly as HaShem told him, and water came pouring out of the rock like a fountain! There was plenty of water for everyone.
They named the rock "the Well of Miriam," since it was only because of Miriam's righteousness that they deserved the miracle. From then on, wherever the Jews traveled in the desert, the Well of Miriam went with them.
Trouble!
It seems that there was never a dull moment for the Jews as they traveled through the dangerous desert wilderness. When they reached Refidim, they ran into an old enemy... the nation of Amalek, the descendants of Eisav. Just as Eisav hated his brother Yaakov, so did his people hate the Jewish people. And when they met the Jews in Refidim, the Amalekites were ready to fight! They sneaked up behind the Jews and started shooting arrows at them. The arrows got caught in the Clouds of Glory protecting the Jews -- but Moshe knew that they must prepare to fight their vicious enemy.
Moshe called his loyal student, Yehoshua: "Get an army of good men together, and tomorrow you will go outside the Clouds of Glory that are protecting us -- and fight Amalek. I will go up on that hill over there and pray to HaShem that we will win the war!" The next day, Moshe went up on the hill with his brother, Aharon, and his nephew, Chur (Miriam's son). Moshe raised his hands up toward the sky -- and the Jewish army looked up and were encouraged. HaShem gave them strength. But after a while, Moshe got tired and put his hands down to rest. And then... the army of Amalek started to win! Quickly, Aharon and Chur found a huge rock for Moshe to sit on, and positioned themselves on Moshe's right and left sides and held up his arms for him. Once again the Jews were winning, until finally the evil Amalekites were totally defeated.
Think about it... only a short while before, the Jews were all slaves in Egypt, and now they were victorious over one of the greatest and fiercest armies in the world! Moshe built an altar to thank HaShem for this amazing miracle. With that taken care of, the Jews were ready for their next big adventure. Their next stop -- Mount Sinai and the most amazing event in Jewish history!
