QUESTIONS AND
COMMENTARY FOR PARASHAT BESHALLACH
1. What happened at
the location named Mara? What lesson are we meant to learn from this story? On
a spiritual level, how might it point to the self-sacrifice of Messiah Yeshua?
Rabbi Jason Sobel
One month after leaving Egypt and wandering in the
wilderness, the Children of Israel ran out of water and began to complain about
it. God intentionally allowed this to happen in order to test the Israelites
and teach them an important lesson. They had to learn to trust the Lord to meet
all of their needs. As a people, Israel had become dependant upon
the Egyptians to provide for their basic needs. Although they were no longer
slaves in Egypt
they still need to be liberated from the debilitating and demoralizing fear of
not having their basic physical needs met. Through this miracle Moses performed
by casting of the tree into the bitter water to make it sweet, the Lord was
trying to teach Israel to trust and depend upon him alone to meet their
spiritual and material needs.
Messiah Yeshua also underscores the importance of
trusting in the Lord to provide for the basic necessities of life when he says
in this week's Besora reading:
Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what
you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on.
Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds
of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your
heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Which of you
by worrying can add one cubit to his stature? So why do you worry about
clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil
nor spin; and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not
arrayed like one of these. Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which
today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe
you, O you of little faith?
Matthew 6:25-30 (NKJV)
Like the generation that left Egypt, we also need to learn to
free ourselves from the anxieties of life by trusting the Lord if we ever hope
to be truly free to fulfill our destiny as "a royal priesthood and holy nation"
(Exodus 19:6).
On a spiritual level, our lives are like the waters of
Mara due to the bitterness of sin, sickness, and death. The source of this
bitterness goes all the way back to the first Adam who ate from the forbidden
fruit of tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Once Adam and Chava partook of
this tree, humanity became like it, a mixture of good and evil. This struggle
between our good and evil inclination embitters our lives and ultimately leads
to physical as well as spiritual death for some.
Death however is not the final word. Through Yeshua's
self-sacrifice on a tree, we can see an illusion to the incident at Mara as
well as a reversal of the sin committed by the First Adam (both of which are
connected to a tree). Thus Yeshua died a bitter death upon a tree in order to
sweeten our lives which are embittered by slavery to sin and death. By placing
our faith in Messiah Yeshua, our lives are made sweet like the bitter waters of
Mara. Therefore, let us never harden our hearts and lose faith in the Lord and
his provisions as our ancestors did at Mara.
2. What is the
"statute and ordinance" given at Mara (Exodus 15:22-25)? Why are they given at this point on the
Children of Israel's
journey before they reach Sinai?
Nick Amic
Directly after the experience at the sea, the Children
of Israel were lifted to new spiritual heights. Their "spiritual high" is
challenged, however, in the desert
of Shur, where there was
no water to be found. The people complain to Moses-surely looking for some
miraculous answer-and God responds by providing them water and a choq
umishpat. Why does God give them commandments here, and what are they?
An equally confusing explanation is given in response to
this confusing text (Exodus 15:25).
The Talmud explains what the commandments were:
The Israelites were given ten precepts at Mara, seven of
which had already been accepted by the children of Noah, to which were added at
Mara social laws, the Sabbath, and honoring one's parents . . . for it is
written, "There he made for them a statute and an ordinance" . . . and "As the
Lord your God commanded you."
b. Sanhedrin 56b
The Talmud asserts that since these same mitzvot -
as mentioned in the Decalogue - are the only ones to carry the phrase "as the
Lord thy God commanded you," these are what the choq umishpat
taught at Mara refer. The "social laws" and honoring of one's parents are not
hard to fathom, and the concept of Shabbat is born out in the next passage
relating the gathering of the manna (see Exodus 16:23-30). This simple explanation is complicated,
however, by Rashi's commentary (see Rashi on 15:25). He takes the three mitzvot mentioned above
and adds a fourth: para aduma (the red heifer; see Numbers 19).
His reasoning is quite simple, the word choq in Exodus 15:25 implies the laws of para
aduma -which is considered the ultimate choq in the Torah.
Assuming that the Gemara and Rashi make accurate textual cases, why are any
commandments given at this point at all?
As previously mentioned, the Children of Israel are on a
"spiritual high" at this point on their journey. They have just learned the
lesson of God's superiority over the Egyptian "gods" and are now ready to learn
the next lesson - self subjugation. Our sages have derived the custom of a
three day reading cycle of the Torah from this passage - "and they went three
days in the wilderness and found no water" - upon which those who expound
verses metaphorically said:
Water means nothing but Torah . . . (Isaiah 55:1) . . . The
prophets among them thereupon rose and enacted that they should publicly read
the law on Shabbat, Monday . . . Thursday and then make a break on Friday so
that they should not be kept for three days without Torah.
b. Baba Kamma
82a
A natural consequence of coming down from a "spiritual
high" is the realization of one's base desires: thirst and hunger. God gives us
Torah and Shabbat, the true water and food for our souls. Let us remember
through the example of the Children of Israel in the desert what Yeshua
proclaimed "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they
shall be satisfied" (Matthew 5:6).
Rabbi Jonathan Kaplan
Matthew 6:19-34 - Correct Perception
Whereas last week's Besora reading addressed
questions of proper intention in our acts of piety, this week's reading deals
with the theme of correct perception of the world around you and of one's
relationship to God. This theme is common throughout the wisdom literature of
the ancient Near East and Israel
in particular. For instance in Proverbs it says, "Happy is the person who
receives wisdom, who achieves understanding" (3:12) and "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of
wisdom" (1:7). Yeshua evokes these themes concerning the importance of the
correct perception of reality and one's relationship to God through a series of
four images.
In the first section, Yeshua admonishes us not "to store
up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust consume and where
thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasure in heaven,
where neither moth nor rust consumes and thieves do not break in and steal"
(Matthew 6:19-20). The contrast is sharp. On one side are earth, moths, rust,
and thieves. On the other side are heaven and surety for our treasures. One
might think that this refers explicitly to money, but in reality it is about
that which we value. Yeshua makes this clear when he states, "For where your treasure
is, there your heart will be also" (21).
In the next section, Yeshua uses the eye and its
relationship to the body as a metaphor for the health of a person - both spiritual
and physical. Again a contrast is drawn. A healthy eye or an eye which focuses
on the right things is an indication of a healthy body. But an eye which
occupies itself with darkness and unhealthy and dark things will lead to
darkness for the whole body.
In the third section, Yeshua uses the image of slavery
to describe our relationship to God. Like a slave, we cannot serve two masters.
We must make a choice. He closes this section with a very direct statement
about the choice we have between serving God and focusing on amassing
possessions. "You cannot serve God and wealth" (24).
In the fourth and final section of this week's readings,
Yeshua concludes for us that we "do not [need to] worry about . . . life" (25).
Instead our task is to orient ourselves towards God's kingdom and to affirm
that all that we have, all the provision we have in life, is God's gift to us
(33). This life orientation gives direction and focus to our perception of and
action in the world.
Parashat Beshallach
1. What happened at the
location named Mara? What lesson are we meant to learn from this story? On a
spiritual level, how might it point to the self-sacrifice of Messiah Yeshua?
2. What is the "statute
and ordinance" given at Mara (Exodus 15:22-25)?
Why are they given at this point on the Children of Israel's journey before
they reach Sinai?
NEXT WEEK'S READINGS - PARASHAT YITRO
Exodus 18:1-20:23
Isaiah 6:1-7:6; 9:5-9:6 (Ashkenazim)
Isaiah
6:1-13 (Sephardim)
Matthew
7:1-12
UPCOMING YACHAD NETWORK EVENTS
3rd Annual Young Leaders Shabbaton
Beverly
Hills, CA ● June 8-9, 2007
6th Annual Young Messianic Jewish
Scholars Conference
Beverly
Hills, CA ● June 8-9, 2007
Learning 
