Parashat Beshalach encompasses many major events, both sublime and momentous: the first stages of the Exodus, the miraculous splitting of the Sea of Reeds and the Divine revelations that attended it, the subsequent song of praise, the descent of the heavenly manna and quails, and the victorious battle against Amalek.
Yet the parashah is not named after any of these events; it is called Beshalach—"when [Pharaoh] sent [the people] out." Since this word was chosen as the name of the parashah, there is evidently something about it that both encompasses and transcends the parashah's other elements.
On the other hand, the word beshalach implies that the Jews were unwilling to leave Egypt and had to be forcibly expelled. It is hard to imagine that this idea could be the underlying and unifying theme of the parashah; moreover, it seems to be a denigrating and derogatory comment on the state of the Jewish people at that time.
If we pause to consider, it indeed seems strange that Pharaoh would have to send the people out. Why would any Jew not wish to leave Egypt? Egypt was a harsh dictatorial state that subjected the Jews to oppressive slavery. Moses had promised the Jews that their exodus would lead to the pinnacle of spirituality—to be chosen by God as His nation and given the Torah on Mount Sinai. That, in turn, would be the precursor to their entry to the Promised Land. Who would not jump at such an opportunity? True, as we have seen, there were a significant number of Jews who did not wish to leave Egypt, but we also saw that all these Jews died during the plague of darkness. Thus, those who were actually liberated from Egypt were only those who desired to go out. Why, then, did Pharaoh have to "send" them?
The answer is that there were two dimensions of the Jews' desire to leave Egypt. On the one hand, they were eager to leave the oppression and become the chosen people at Mount Sinai, as we said. This desire, strong and genuine as it was, was simply a direct result of the situation and the opportunities available to them. It was a rational desire that was essentially dictated by logic, a desire about which they had virtually no choice.
But the moment they were freed, they experienced an altogether different type of desire to leave. The minute they breathed the fresh air of freedom, the profound contrast between their enslavement to the idolatry of Egyptian materialism and the freedom from it afforded by the Godly life hit home. The intensity of their desire to leave immediately rose far above what it had been when their desire was dictated by calculated logic. Their flight from Egypt became suddenly supra-rational, a frenzied obsession, an ontological necessity. Relative to the transcendent intensity of their new desire, their former desire was forced and imposed.
This contrast is underscored by the use of the word Beshalach as the name of the parashah. This name reminds us that as intensely and sincerely we yearned for the freedom to fulfill our Divine destiny all the years of the oppression, our desire to leave shrinks to the equivalence of a forced expulsion when compared to the yearning for this freedom we experienced once the shackles of slavery were broken.
In this context, all the miraculous events of this parashah can indeed be considered subordinate to the general tenor expressed in the word Beshalach, for once the Jews began to relate to God on the supra-rational level, the stage was set for God to transcend the laws of nature in His reciprocal relationship with them. It was precisely this ascent to a supra-rational connection with God that provided the spiritual impetus for all the miraculous events of the ensuing narrative to take place.
The reality of this dynamic applies to us today, as well. It is certainly commendable to help other people out of their personal "Egypt," the constrictions that prevent them from experiencing life in the fullness God intended and from fulfilling their Divine mission. God will surely reward anyone who catalyzes another person's personal redemption by liberating him, as well, from whatever "Egypt" constricts him in his own life.
But sometimes we meet someone who has no conscious desire to be liberated. He is so entrenched in the materialism of life that he is oblivious to the possibility that there is anything better. In such a case, our job first and foremost is to create within him a desire to be free. God's reward in such a case is commensurate with the accomplishment: just as we created a will where there was none, He transforms our will into a desire so intense that our previous desire will seem forced by comparison.
The word Beshalach also alludes to what the Jews accomplished in this process. As we have seen, every action we take has a concomitant reaction in the spiritual world. Here, when the Jews' desire for Divine freedom became so intense that its previous form appeared as coercion by comparison, this caused a backlash in the world at large. The radical transition from the darkness of exile to the light of redemption caused Pharaoh himself to change from being the personification of evil to a force for holiness. The very same Pharaoh who had earlier crassly proclaimed "Who is God, that I should heed His word and send the Jews out of my land" was totally transformed—he not only allowed them to leave, but actively sent them away.
This lesson, too, applies to us today, as well. A conception of God and relationship with Him that is based solely on reason is equally limited in its intensity. We are called upon to go beyond the limitations of reason and reach an appreciation of God that is beyond our own selves. In this manner, it is possible to transform even "Pharaoh"—our most cynical and materialistic characteristics—into being aware and conscious of God. And indeed, this is the litmus test of our success in transforming the world into holiness. When we see the very forces of nature that constituted our most insurmountable obstacle in fulfilling our Divine mission transformed into forces that aid us—when, like Pharaoh, they forcibly "send" us out of Egypt—we know that we are achieving our goal.
When Pharaoh "sent out the people," he was unwittingly sending them on the first leg of their journey toward the Giving of the Torah and their entry into the Land of Israel. So it is with us: by elevating our relationship with God to the supra-rational level and transforming the gross materialism of reality into an active force for holiness, we will hasten the Messianic redemption and the new revelations of the Torah that will finally and ultimately transform this world into God's true home.1
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