We finally did it! The time has finally come for the Jewish people to leave Egypt and begin their journey to Eretz Yisrael, the promised land. Yet, Parshat Beshalach does not begin by jumping into the journey itself. Two pre-flight announcements are made:
וַיְהִ֗י בְּשַׁלַּ֣ח פַּרְעֹה֮ אֶת־הָעָם֒ וְלֹא־נָחָ֣ם אֱלֹהִ֗ים דֶּ֚רֶךְ אֶ֣רֶץ פְּלִשְׁתִּ֔ים כִּ֥י קָר֖וֹב ה֑וּא כִּ֣י ׀ אָמַ֣ר אֱלֹהִ֗ים פֶּֽן־יִנָּחֵ֥ם הָעָ֛ם בִּרְאֹתָ֥ם מִלְחָמָ֖ה וְשָׁ֥בוּ מִצְרָֽיְמָה׃
When Pharoah sent the nation, Hashem had mercy/grace and did not place the Jewish people on the path of the Plishtim (Phillistines) as He was afraid they would see war and run off to return to Egypt. - Shemot 13:17
If that was not strange enough, what Moshe does before he leaves makes us pause even further:
וַיִּקַּ֥ח מֹשֶׁ֛ה אֶת־עַצְמ֥וֹת יוֹסֵ֖ף עִמּ֑וֹ כִּי֩ הַשְׁבֵּ֨עַ הִשְׁבִּ֜יעַ אֶת־בְּנֵ֤י יִשְׂרָאֵל֙ לֵאמֹ֔ר פָּקֹ֨ד יִפְקֹ֤ד אֱלֹהִים֙ אֶתְכֶ֔ם וְהַעֲלִיתֶ֧ם אֶת־עַצְמֹתַ֛י מִזֶּ֖ה אִתְּכֶֽם׃
And Moshe took the bones of Yosef with him as he had made the Jewish people promise that they would remember him (Yosef) and bring his bones out of Egypt with them.
- Shemot 13:19
Only after these two announcements do we hear that the Jewish people actually leave Egypt and begin their journey to build a new nation. For what purpose did we need to know that Hashem directed us on a circuitous path for our own sake? The journey itself was a miracle and worthy of our appreciation to Hashem. Why do we need to be told something that we would only have known because it was shared with us? Is Hashem looking for a thank you?
Yosef’s burial seems strange. Yaakov was not buried in Egypt. There was a special ceremony of Jews and Egyptians to travel and bury him in the Land of Israel. If Yaakov was given that honor, why was Yosef, the second in command and the savior of the Egypt people, not given the same honor? What is the lesson we are supposed to learn from this moment?
The Rashbam, Rabbeinu Shmuel the son of Rabbi Meir, explained that Hashem was worried. The Jewish people were not a people at all. They were a rag tag group of recently freed slaves who were fragile. The slightest wrong turn or challenge they would wilt. As is seen immediately before the splitting of the Yam Suf (Red Sea), the Jews complain of the perceived safety that they enjoyed in Egypt compared to the peril they faced at this moment.
Abraham Maslow, the author of the Maslow’s Hierarchy of Need, placed our physiological needs - food and shelter - our basic needs for survival as the foundation to one’s mental health and strength. Maslow believed that for us to reach transcendence we first needed to be in a place where our physical needs were taken care of. Only then could we have the space and the tools to build ourselves up psychologically and spiritually. Hashem knew that best. For this reason, He chose to redirect us so that the first step out of “secure Egypt” would not be a place where our personal and physical safety was infringed upon and violated.
Yosef took it one step further. He knew that our spiritual pursuits were the ultimate goal of leaving Egypt, receiving the Torah and ultimately entering into the Land of Israel. What he knew most of all is that our ability to reach that pinnacle would be found in our ability to be linked to our past and to those who came before us to pave the way for us to not only survive but to thrive through it all.
The Torah uses a particular phraseology when describing the promise made to Yosef:
וַיִּקַּ֥ח מֹשֶׁ֛ה אֶת־עַצְמ֥וֹת יוֹסֵ֖ף עִמּ֑וֹ כִּי֩ הַשְׁבֵּ֨עַ הִשְׁבִּ֜יעַ אֶת־בְּנֵ֤י יִשְׂרָאֵל֙ לֵאמֹ֔ר פָּקֹ֨ד יִפְקֹ֤ד אֱלֹהִים֙ אֶתְכֶ֔ם וְהַעֲלִיתֶ֧ם אֶת־עַצְמֹתַ֛י מִזֶּ֖ה אִתְּכֶֽם׃
And Moshe took the bones of Yosef with him as he had made the Jewish people promise that they would remember him (Yosef) and bring his bones out of Egypt with them.
- Shemot 13:19
The double phrase of פקד יפקד was the same phraseology that Moshe used when presenting himself for the first time to the Jewish people as the messenger of Hashem. Just as Hashem wanted the Jewish people to link Moshe with their past, with the promise to the ancestors and the future that awaited them, the Torah looks to do the same. Yosef’s bones were carried throughout the desert and only buried once Yehoshua brought the Jews people into the land. They were the anchor to the past that reminded us of who came before, what they stood for and why we have been fighting the same fight for thousands of years.
Our Torah is not a history book. It doesn’t tell us every element of the stories of our Jewish role models. It is the foundation of our faith carrying both explicit and implicit messages meant for generations who preceded us and those who will come after us to remember that we need to do the hard work of supporting the whole person in their development before approaching their spiritual growth. When that foundation is strong and impervious to the outside stimuli, the connection to our past, the stories we tell our children to build their connection to that past will be the difference between our spiritual growth and vitality or lack thereof.