Pesach Day 7

On this 7th day of Pesach, we read Exodus 13:17 – 15:26. It begins with, “When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them by the way of the Philistines, although that was near; for God said: The people might change their minds when they see war and want to return to Egypt.”   This shows us that GOD is a loving father and protector who knows our nature and guides us along the best path for our safety and well-being. He also knows our limitations. What an awesome thing to remember, especially today when we are surrounded by so many enemies who want to destroy us, like the ancient Israelites.

Verse 18 tells us that we left Egypt ‘armed’, ‘in battle array’. We left Egypt as slaves who would now have to fight for the right to be free; freedom is not handed to us on a silver platter.  Life is a battle that begins from the moment of our birth, when we fight for our first breath and ends on the day when we take our last.  None of us is born equipped for battle.  Rav. Shaul advised us to put on the whole armour of God, so that we may be able to stand against the wiles of our adversaries. Our fight is not just a physical one; it’s a spiritual one, at the soul level. What does this armour look like? Our covering comes from knowing the foundation of Truth found in God’s Torah. Once we are armed with truth combined with the gift of Free Will, Bechirah Chofsheet, we can choose to do the right thing, allowing us to live a righteous life. Then, our Kavanah, our intention, will be to always seek a wise and peaceful solution to our problems.  We can use the gift of Emunah (Faith) to move us into Bitachon (Trust), so that we can learn to trust God little by little, as we pray for wisdom and courage.

This was depicted when another Saul, the first King of Israel, tried to put his armour on David, the shepherd boy, who was going to fight the giant Goliath. David refused Saul’s cumbersome armour, stating that the only armour he needed was his trust in the God who helped him fight off bears and lions. If David hadn’t spent all that time in solitude with God while taking care of sheep, he would have never known what he was capable of doing. We may hate the small things we have to do daily, but this is our training ground so that we can do our part, however small, in God’s greater plan for humanity.

Verse 19 tells us that Moses took the bones of Joseph out of Egypt to fulfill the oath made to him by the children of Israel hundreds of years earlier. Why was this important enough for Moses to mention? He wanted us, his people, to see the necessity of keeping our word and passing this on to future generations. That is the very essence of the message of Pesach. The story of our liberation is essential for us to know that we are not victims of our fate, but with God at the helm, we can overcome anything, because we are not in the battle alone.

How can we be assured of that?  Exodus 13:22–23 tells us that when the Israelites had set out on their journey, “The LORD (יהוה ) went before them in a pillar of cloud by day to guide them along the way and in a pillar of fire by night to give them light so that they could travel both day and night. The pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night did not depart from before the people.”  And Malachi 3:6 tells us, “Ani יהוה, LO SHANITI. I am יהוה; I do not change. From the days of your fathers, you have turned aside from my ordinances and have not kept them.  Return to me and I will return to you,” says the God of the armies. 

This is the pattern that God set up for His people.  He guided the Israelites day and night, and when they turned away from Him, He always gave them the way to come back.   If God does not change, He will do the same for us today!

When I was a little girl, we sat at the Seder table and heard the story of the Passover. We listened with ears that could not hear and read with eyes that could not see.  The focus was not on the God who freed us from Egypt, but on the Stanley Cup playoffs as we rushed through the Haggadah, which no one understood. Something inside of me longed to know what it was all about, but the guides were blind, leading the blind. Our prophet Isaiah stated in chapter 1, verse 3:  “The ox knows its owner, and a donkey recognizes its master’s care, but Israel doesn’t know its Master; My people don’t recognize My care for them”.  

Today, we are celebrating the second of the two sacred days that God called for in the written Torah…the first and seventh day of Pesach. They are to be holy days for us on which no work is to be done.  Our sages consider this day to be the day when God parted Yam Suf, the Sea of Reeds, for the Israelites to cross over to safety. When we reached the other shore, Moses led us in singing a song of victory and deliverance. The seventh day of the week is a Shabbat day of rest, for us remember that because we are no longer slaves, we can take a day of rest,  along with our servants, our animals and the stranger among us; so too on this seventh day of Pesach, we can rejoice for our freedom.  It’s the last day on which we must eat matzah, unleavened bread, representing a rest from pride, i.e., our puffed-up nature, since leaven causes the bread to rise.

Pharaoh’s pride caused misery both to the Hebrews and his people. On the other hand, the humility of Moses is the example that God wants us to imitate. It is not something we can conjure up because our egos are constantly looking to be fed and protected. It took Moses many years to develop this trait; like wisdom, it takes life’s harsh lessons to develop this in us. He wrote about them in his Torah so that we might learn from them, become wise and humble and avoid as much pain and suffering as possible.

Exodus 14:13 “But Moses said to the people, “Have no fear! Stand by and witness the deliverance which יהוה will work for you today; for the Egyptians whom you see today, you will never see again. יהוה will battle for you; you hold your peace!”  Very few people admit that GOD is still doing battle for us today. We may think that Israel is winning the war against our enemies because of the strength of our armies and our technology, but GOD is telling us today, “hold your peace” and “witness the deliverance” that He will perform for us. This doesn’t mean we don’t have to fight; it means we are not in this alone.

Moses had spoken to God from the burning bush. He had a hand in the miracles of the ten plagues, and had moved forward when God told him to “Tell the Israelites to go forward. And you – lift your rod and hold out your arm over the sea and split it, so that the Israelites may march into the sea on dry ground.”  These stories remind us to go forward when we are down and discouraged; that the sea can part for us like it did for these ancient people. GOD always prepares the road ahead for us, even when we can’t see it. We may not all hear His voice giving us specific instructions on what to do and how to do it, but when we don’t know what to do next, we can be still and ask God for someone or something to help us. If, however, we choose to remain in a state of constant fear to the point that we can no longer move forward in our lives, remember – that’s our choice. We are humans – we can be afraid, we can falter, lose our faith, doubt ourselves, doubt GOD, and even want to run away, but all these emotions stop us from fulfilling the role in life that GOD has prepared for us. He gave us the ability to take control of these emotions and move forward in stages, like He did with Israel.

The picture of the Sea parting is a powerful one. It’s all about taking a step of faith, like the Israelites believing that the walls of water would remain that way until they reached the other shore and that the Egyptians who were being held at bay by the pillars of cloud would not overtake them. Although they had left fully armed and outnumbered the Egyptian army, their minds would not allow them to see that the Pharaoh and his soldiers no longer had a hold on them. We struggle every day with the things in our past that keep our minds enslaved, not allowing us to move forward into who we were meant to be.

Turning faith into trust is not easy, but that is our journey through this life. We often don’t realize how much we’ve progressed until we stop to take stock of who we are today in comparison with who we were last year. Let’s not forget to do that.

This can be applied to us both personally and nationally. Egypt represents all the nations of the world, while Israel represents the nation chosen for God’s purpose…to show the rest of the world that He also fights for them against their enemies. Our Creator wants us all to know that when we, like Pharaoh, stiffen our hearts against Him and His people Israel, there will be consequences. When we open our hearts to His nation and their GOD, everything changes; He can bring peace and brotherhood to all peoples. After we reached the other shore, chapter 15, Moses sings the song of joy and victory, but this rarely happens unless we have gone through the greatest trials and passed them.

Exodus 15:26 takes us to the next step in our development: [God] said, “If you will heed your GOD יהוהdiligently, doing what is upright in God’s sight, giving ear to God’s mitzvot, (commandments) and keeping all God’s chukkim (statutes), then I will not bring upon you any of the diseases that I brought upon the Egyptians, for I יהוה am your healer.” Sometimes we simply need to start again. We can’t change the past, but we can start by doing the right thing from where we are right now. That’s what God did when He set the Israelites free, but their freedom was not free; it came at a cost. That cost is called responsibility.

You and I are responsible for making the right choices in our lives. We can’t keep blaming others for where we are now, because the past is gone, but we can learn how to do the right thing by listening to the advice of people we respect and would like to emulate. The stories in the Torah help us see that no human is perfect and that we can learn wisdom from their mistakes and also from what they did right.  Proverbs 15:22 tells us:  “Plans are foiled for lack of counsel, but they succeed through many advisers.”

 That’s why, for 3500 years, we have been telling the Pesach story to our children, so that they can learn from the mistakes of our ancestors and hopefully not repeat them.  It’s up to us. What will we choose to do? Will we listen, or will we ignore them as many generations have?