
|
Please include
Israel's captive soldiers in your tefillot: Zecharia Shlomo ben
Miriam Baumel, Tzvi ben Penina Feldman, Yekutiel Yehuda Nachman ben Sarah
Katz, Ron ben Batya Arad, Guy ben Rina Chever.
Friday, 10 Shevat 5772 – February 3, 2012
The Torah writes in Parashat Beshalach that after
the miracle of the splitting of the sea,
Benei Yisrael
spent three days journeying through the wilderness of Shur without encountering
any water sources – “…they traveled for three days and found no water” (15:22).
The Gemara in Masekhet Bava Kama (82a) famously interprets
this verse as referring to a “thirst” for Torah.
Benei Yisrael
went three days without engaging in any sort of study, thus resulting in a
“thirst” for Torah knowledge. The yearning
for the guidance and fulfillment that Torah study provides is comparable to the
sense of desperation felt when one thirsts for water.
And thus when the Torah describes
Benei Yisrael’s
lack of water, it alludes as well to their thirst for Torah.
The Gemara relates that it was at this point that Moshe enacted the practice of
keri’at ha-Torah on Shabbat, Mondays
and Thursdays, to ensure that we never again go three days without hearing words
of Torah.
We should perhaps view this comment of the Gemara in
conjunction with Rashi’s famous comments (citing the
Mekhilta) to the first words of this verse: “Va-yasa Moshe et Yisrael mi-Yam Suf” – “Moshe had the
people travel from Yam Suf.” Rashi notes
that the Torah ascribes this journey to Moshe, rather than simply stating that
the people left the shores of the Yam Suf and headed into the desert.
The reason for this formulation, Rashi explains, is that Moshe had to force
Benei
Yisrael to leave the banks of the sea, where they were busy
collecting the spoils of the drowned Egyptian army that washed onto the shore.
Rashi comments that the Egyptian horsemen adorned their chariots with gold,
silver and precious stones, all of which came ashore and kept
Benei Yisrael preoccupied until Moshe
finally succeeded in persuading them to embark onto the next leg of their
journey.
We
might draw a connection between
Benei Yisrael’s
preoccupation with the spoils of
Rav David Silverberg |
|
THE
COMPLETE SALT ARCHIVES CAN BE FOUND AT: www.vbm-torah.org/salt-archives.html (c) 2012 Israel Koschitzky Virtual Beit Midrash, Yeshivat Har Etzion.
|
|
|
Come study in the VIRTUAL BEIT
MIDRASH - Torah by email