Very Funny

By Rabbi Joshua (humorously known as The Hoffer) Hoffman



As the nation stands by the Yam Suf and watches the Egyptian army chasing after it, apparently with the now familiar Egyptian goal of driving them into the sea, they turn to Moshe and say, "Was it for a lack of graves in Egypt that you took us to die in the wilderness ? What is this that you have done to us to take us out of Egypt? " (Shemos 14:11). Moshe responds to them," Do not fear. Stand fast and see the salvation of God that He will perform for you today ; for that which you have seen Egypt, today, you shall not see them ever again" (Shemos 14:13). While the first part of Moshe's response, in which he tells the people that God will save them, is obviously appropriate to the situation, the second part is a little more difficult to understand. The Ramban writes that Moshe was telling them that God commanded them that they should never willingly return to Egypt. How did that prohibition speak to the fears that the people had mentioned to him ? Actually, Rabbi Shimshon Raphael Hirsch, in his Torah commentary, writes that the remark about graves that the people made to Moshe is a typical example of Jewish wit and irony, as if to say "What! They don't have enough graves in Egypt ?" He explains that this sense of irony is what has enabled the Jewish people to endure over the millennia, in the face of so many persecutions. Humor is an effective way of relieving tension at critical moments. If we look at the complaint to Moshe in this way, we can understand that since the people did not mean for their remarks to be taken seriously, Moshe did not answer them precisely to the point. However, with the background of a different incident in the parsha, I would like to suggest a different answer, which, I believe, will give us further insight into the minds of the nation standing at the Yam Suf.

After crossing the Yam Suf, the people traveled for three days in the wilderness of Shur, and could not find water to drink. They then arrived at Marah, where they could not drink the water because it was bitter, and so they proceeded to complain to Moshe, asking what they would drink. Moshe cried out to God, who instructed him to throw a tree into the water to make it sweet. Moshe followed God's instructions, and then delivered an oration to the people, saying," If you will listen diligently to the voice of God, and you will do what is just in His eyes, and you will give ear to His commandments and observe all His statutes, then any of the diseases that I placed upon Egypt, I will not place upon you, for I am God, your Healer" (Shemos 15:26). Rabbi Aryeh Leib Bakst, zt"l, in his Kol Aryeh, mentions a conversation he once had with Rabbi Yechezkel Levenstein, spiritual advisor, or mashgiach, of the Ponevezh yeshiva in Bnei Brak. Rabbi Levenstein asked why Moshe delivered a 'mussar shmooz,' or an ethical discourse, to the people when what they needed was simply a glass of water? As long as we are on the topic of Jewish humor, Rabbi Levenstein's observation reminds me of a comedy routine of the Jewish humorist, Shelly Berman, which I heard a recording of many years ago. A student at the University of Chicago was attending a philosophy class, and he asked his professor if he could leave in order to quench his tremendous thirst with a glass of water. Instead of simply answering yes or no, the professor delivered lengthy, profound discourse on the essence of a glass of water. What, he asked, is a glass of water. Is it really a glass of water ? He continued in this fashion for quite some time, until the student finally dropped dead of thirst! Moshe, however, was not a philosophy professor. Why, then, did he respond to the people's request in this way?



Rabbi Levenstein explained that the people were too caught up in their physical need for water, and did not understand what was going on behind the scenes. In actuality, as Rabbi Chaim Moshe Luzzatto says in his Mesillas Yesharim, everything that happens to us in life is really a test from God, to see if we will place our trust in Him. Thus, the water we drink, the bread and meat we eat, do not have intrinsic value. Rather, they all serve as props to help us develop our connection to God in this world. That is what Moshe was trying to tell the people. While God did provide them with the water they asked for, Moshe was trying to get them to focus on what was behind their need for water, and, therefore, gave them a talk on the importance of trusting in God. With this explanation in mind, we can return to our original question about Moshe's response to the people's remarks as the Egyptians approached them at the Yam Suf.


The rabbis tell us that at least eighty percent of the Jewish people died in Egypt during the plague of darkness, because they simply did not want to leave the country. They apparently had developed such a fascination with the place that they wanted to stay. Part of Moshe's task in taking the remaining Isrealites out of the Egypt was to rid them of any traces of this fascination. Perhaps this is why God hardened Paharaoh's heart again, after allowing the nation to leave, so that he would lead the Egyptians on a chase to catch the Jews and ultimately bring them to a watery death at the bottom of the Yam Suf. This was all done in order to rid the people of their fascination with Egypt, by seeing the ignoble end of that country's proud army. When the people started complaining to Moshe and saying that perhaps they would be better off in Egypt, Moshe realized that they were missing the whole point of what was happening. That is why he told them that they were prohibited from ever returning to Egypt. God, he said, would save them from the pursuing Egyptians, but they must understand that the reason for this entire episode was to rid them of their attachment to that country. For this reason, they could never return to Egypt, so that their attachment to it could never be revived. Moshe, then, was responding to the core problem that lay behind the immediate situation, just as he would later do at Marah, as we saw from Rabbi Levenstein.