{"id":2588,"date":"2005-01-22T09:20:32","date_gmt":"2005-01-22T14:20:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kith.org\/journals\/vardibidian\/2005\/01\/22\/2588.html"},"modified":"2018-03-12T16:47:32","modified_gmt":"2018-03-12T21:47:32","slug":"parshah-bshalach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/2005\/01\/22\/parshah-bshalach\/","title":{"rendered":"Parshah B\u2019Shalach"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Parshah B’Shalach is Genesis 13:17<\/a>-17:16, and is generally thought of as the Shabbat Shirah portion, the crossing of the Red Sea and the song on the other side. The parshah goes on afterwards to start the actual journey, with mannah and quail, and Joshua’s first battle. That battle (17:8-16<\/a>), by the way, has one of the more memorable if inexplicable bits: Moses stands apart from the battle, and when he raises his hands, the Israelites win, and when he lowers them, they lose. But the battle goes on all day, so by the end of it he is sitting on a rock with Aaron and Hur on either side holding his hands up for him, and the Israelites win. If that’s a miracle of the Lord, what an odd way of doing it, and if it isn’t, what is it?\n

Anyway, there isn’t really a Moment of Decision in that, and besides I think Rabbi is a little tired of my picking the obscure bits and ignoring the main story, so I will ask about the Red Sea. Specifically, I’m thinking I will ask what happens if Moses doesn’t trust the Lord on this one and asks the Israelites to stand and fight. Remember, the Israelites are armed (13:18, and besides it’s implied in that battle story) and the Egyptians are not only demoralized and weakened by the Plagues, but have been hit with a pillar of cloud in the night, to prevent them getting a good start. And, of course, there’s the question: would the Lord have let the Israelites lose?\n

What do you think, Gentle Reader? If there had been a battle, instead of a miracle, would the Israelites still have been redeemed? And if they had, what sort of song would they have sung?\n

Thank you,
-Vardibidian.\n<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Parshah B\u2019Shalach is Genesis 13:17-17:16, and is generally thought of as the Shabbat Shirah portion, the crossing of the Red Sea and the song on the other side. The parshah goes on afterwards to start the actual journey, with mannah…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[207],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2588","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-scripture"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2588","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2588"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2588\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17277,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2588\/revisions\/17277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}