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There are many miracles in this week’s parsha - but only one of them made it into the movies. The iconic splitting of the sea, with the walls of water on either side, is clearly a peak cinematic moment for the Torah. 

But what if that moment were only an afterthought? Is there a counterfactual version of events that we should seriously consider? 

The parsha opens with a rare insight into God’s decision making process: 

וַיְהִ֗י בְּשַׁלַּ֣ח פַּרְעֹה֮ אֶת־הָעָם֒ וְלֹא־נָחָ֣ם אֱלֹהִ֗ים דֶּ֚רֶךְ אֶ֣רֶץ פְּלִשְׁתִּ֔ים כִּ֥י קָר֖וֹב ה֑וּא כִּ֣י ׀ אָמַ֣ר אֱלֹהִ֗ים פֶּֽן־יִנָּחֵ֥ם הָעָ֛ם בִּרְאֹתָ֥ם מִלְחָמָ֖ה וְשָׁ֥בוּ מִצְרָֽיְמָה׃

Now when Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them by way of the land of the Philistines, although it was nearer; for God said, “The people may have a change of heart when they see war, and return to Egypt.”

God is contemplating the best route, and decides that even though if you plotted it on  Google maps, this would not have been the fastest route to our destination, there are other obstacles to consider. If they take the faster route, the people may be faced with war, and will return to Egypt - or, as Rashi has it, they will at least want to return to Egypt. So instead, God takes them via the sea, walls of water and all. It was plan B, because the first route had too many pitfalls. 

The word that echoes in this verse is “nacham” or “yenachem.” This word can mean “comfort” or “regret” or “reconsider.” Rashi suggests that the first use of the term in this verse is actually a different root, nachah, which means to lead. In that case, though the sounds repeat, God doesn’t experience comfort or regret, but is worried that the people might reconsider their exodus from Egypt, if faced with a war. 

So God has a plan: to keep everything on a high note, after the amazing miracles of yetziat mitrayim, God will take the people the long way, thereby avoiding war and ensuring that everyone stays happy with their life choices.

And, how did that go? 

I never like to ask who was paying attention during Torah reading, so I’ll recap. After marching through the sea and singing victoriously, things start to fall apart. The people complain - again, and again, and again. 

When they complain about not having food, the complaint is phrased not just as being hungry, but in a way that implies that there is more going on for this newly released nation than mere hunger: 

וַיֹּאמְר֨וּ אֲלֵהֶ֜ם בְּנֵ֣י יִשְׂרָאֵ֗ל מִֽי־יִתֵּ֨ן מוּתֵ֤נוּ בְיַד־יְהֹוָה֙ בְּאֶ֣רֶץ מִצְרַ֔יִם בְּשִׁבְתֵּ֙נוּ֙ עַל־סִ֣יר הַבָּשָׂ֔ר בְּאׇכְלֵ֥נוּ לֶ֖חֶם לָשֹׂ֑בַע כִּֽי־הוֹצֵאתֶ֤ם אֹתָ֙נוּ֙ אֶל־הַמִּדְבָּ֣ר הַזֶּ֔ה לְהָמִ֛ית אֶת־כׇּל־הַקָּהָ֥ל הַזֶּ֖ה בָּרָעָֽב׃

The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the hand of the LORD in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots, when we ate our fill of bread! For you have brought us out into this wilderness to starve this whole congregation to death.”

Maybe they are just hangry, as we say in my house when people get grouchy around mealtimes, but it certainly sounds like they are experiencing regret at having left Egypt. God provides them with food, but there’s no validation from the people. After the song at the sea, there is no moment in this parsha when we hear them say, “oh, NOW we understand how wonderful it is that we left Egypt!”

And then, at the end of the parsha, the nation of Amalek attacks the people from behind. Suddenly, they are faced with war - a war that kicks off a forever vendetta, milchama hashem be’amelek midor dor. 

God sent them the long way around so that  they wouldn't encounter war and go back to Egypt and instead they encountered war and wanted to go back to Egypt. So what did God accomplish by leading them through the long way? 

I believe this question is unanswered until the book of Devarim. When Moshe looks back at all the years of wandering through the wilderness, he says:

וְזָכַרְתָּ֣ אֶת־כׇּל־הַדֶּ֗רֶךְ אֲשֶׁ֨ר הוֹלִֽיכְךָ֜ יְהֹוָ֧ה אֱלֹהֶ֛יךָ זֶ֛ה אַרְבָּעִ֥ים שָׁנָ֖ה בַּמִּדְבָּ֑ר לְמַ֨עַן עַנֹּֽתְךָ֜ לְנַסֹּֽתְךָ֗ לָדַ֜עַת אֶת־אֲשֶׁ֧ר בִּֽלְבָבְךָ֛ הֲתִשְׁמֹ֥ר מִצְוֺתָ֖ו אִם־לֹֽא׃

Remember the long way that the LORD your God has made you travel in the wilderness these past forty years, that God might test you by hardships to learn what was in your hearts: whether you would keep God’s commandments or not.

God wanted to know what was in our hearts. The faster path would lead to regret and to war - and actually, the long way also led to regret, to pain, and to conflict. Time after time, the people had to grapple with feelings of disappointment, of fear, and of regret. But regret and pain are unavoidable in life. The high point of crossing the sea is amazing, but it isn’t sustainable, and that kind of triumph can actually have the effect of cutting people off from real life. We become rigid and inflexible, feeling that no change is needed, because we are winning. By taking the long way, God taught us all about vulnerability, about opening our hearts to the full range of human experience. 

Last Shabbat, like this week, we celebrated the release of three more hostages - three humans, held in captivity for month after month, finally returned to their families. Just as we celebrated here at Ohev, Jewish communities all over the world rejoiced, including in Jerusalem. Rav Benny Lau, who was the rabbi of the shul we attended when our family lived in Jerusalem, spoke at a gathering in our old neighborhood. David was there, along with many of our friends, as Rav Benny talked about his own emotions at seeing the hostages returned, and about how those emotions were heightened by having seen the faces of the hostages around him, on posters, for so long. Seeing the faces of the hostages softens and sensitizes us to their suffering, he argued. We see the face of the other, and our hearts become softer - not the softness of weakness, he said, but a softening that allows for love and empathy. 

Rav Beny is correct. Weakness and softness can be a source of national pride and resilience. And the first example we have of this is in Parashat Beshalach. Once again, God has hardened Pharoah’s heart - וְחִזַּקְתִּ֣י אֶת־לֵב־פַּרְעֹה֮, God says, I have stiffened his heart - and made him unable to see any other way forward. Pharaoh was strong; no one could accuse him of cowardice or being overly sympathetic to his people - and that strength led to his destruction. 

It isn’t only God’s direct intervention that can make a person’s heart hard. Intense emotions - triumph is one example, but also grief or panic, as the people of Israel experienced when they had no water, and no food - those can also lead to a kind of hardening of the heart. We become convinced that the world exists in black and white; that things are terrible, that they should change, that the circumstances are wrong and we are right. Someone overconfident like Pharaoh and someone gripped with panic like Bnai Yisrael at Marah are actually more alike than they appear; both are blind to factors that contradict their current experience of the world.  

God’s concern about taking the people on the shortest possible route is “pen yenachem ha’am” - lest the people feel regret, or, lest there be quick comfort in returning to Egypt. We know that the longer route included war, drought, and also regret and a desire to return to Egypt. What was gained by the longer route? In the end, “yenachem ha’aem” was not avoided, but it took place at a pace that enabled something positive. 

Being comforted and regretting something may seem like opposites, but actually, they share a source:, both represent a softening of the heart. Your heart can harden from fear, or grief, from losing a job, or losing another person, or worrying that you might, or the anger and sense of powerlessness that comes with any or all of those things. It gets to be too much to feel all the things, all the time, so we close ourselves off. What comfort and regret have in common is that they signify a kind of softening, a little bit of relenting, in the face of reality. 

“C.S Lewis, in the book he wrote after his beloved wife passed away, writes: “There is a sort of invisible blanket between the world and me. I find it hard to take in what anyone says. Or perhaps, hard to want to take it in.” Grief or fear or any strong emotion can make it nearly impossible to correctly perceive the world around us. 

God was worried that immediate war would give rise to regret over leaving Egypt too quickly, and cause panic -  the kind of panic that would blind them to everything else. Our longer route ensured that regret and grief and fear and mourning would all make our hearts softer.

We had forty days to get ready for the revelation at Sinai, to open our hearts sufficiently to let Torah in. This is what we pray for, each time we recite the amidah. The final paragraph includes the words “petach libi betoratechah” - open my heart to your Torah. If it were simple - if our hearts were naturally open, always ready to absorb information and accept new experiences - we would not need to pray for it. 

So what does God do? The Holy Blessed One plans a long route, one in which the people have the experience of lacking water, and having God provide it, lacking food, and having God provide it, and creating bonds of love and care between the people and the Divine. Ultimately, we needed 40 years to develop the softness needed to overcome panic and overcome callousness and take responsibility for one another in Eretz Yisrael. We became a people who show strength through vulnerability; we include elements of mourning in our celebrations and we try to infuse mourning with religious meaning, and we do all of this communally. We know that we are on a journey together, and that the goal is not to take the fastest path, but to generate the most meaningful experience along the way.