Motsei Shabbos Reflections on Parsha Beshalach: Easier to Remove the Jew from Bondage than to Remove the Bondage from the Jew

Our Parsha opens by stating; “It happened when Pharoh sent out the people that Hashem did not lead them by the way of the Philistines, because it was near, for Hashem said, ‘Perhaps the people will reconsider when they see a war, and they will return to Mitzriyim.’” (Sefer Sh’mos, Perek 13, posuk 17)

R’ Baruch Abba Rakowsky, in a citing from Torah Gems asks why, after escaping from such a terrible enslavement, would the first problem they faced drive them to return to Mitzriyim? He reasons that all that the B’nai Yisrael had wanted was to be freed of their terrible physical work. They never dreamed of liberation from the enslavement. Because of the absence of such a dream, there was ample reason to fear that at the first sign of difficulty they would return to Mitzriyim. (Torah Gems, Aharon Yaakov Greenberg, Volume 2, page 100)

This mindset of seeking to run back to Mitzriyim at each problem, at each crisis i.e; the lack of water, the longing for meat, for fish, having to fight, etc., repeats itself again and again throughout Shemos, Vayikra and Bamidbar.

And while much discussion and concern has been exressed over the years about assimilation, the melting of Jews into the societies of the nations in which they happen to live, there is little discussion about an assimilation phenomenon which has been evolving in Israel over recent generations. That is the systematic extraction of Israeli secular youth of anything Jewish by the effete elite who control Israel’s education, information, electronic media and so-called court and justice system. And so this “too tired” dependency system has been inculcated into and reinforced in generations of Israelis who now seem totally divorced from any semblance of Jewish bearing.

But this malaise, this dependency mindset is not merely confined to secular Israelis. It seems to have it’s tenacles in segments of religious Jews as well. There seems to be a blockage somewhere in the learning process from the learning itself to intellectualizing the learning, to internalizing what is learned to the actualization, putting into practice that which was learned. And so in our contemporary times, even religious sectors are hard-pressed to emulate Moshe Rabbeinu’s feelings of oneness with his people. There is a lack of the need, the compulsion to act in tangible, meaningful ways to manifest our oneness and bonding with both our Land with our Brethren.