This week’s parsha contains some of the best-known and even best-loved stories. There are also a number of “firsts” that we encounter. In fact, for each of these, we can find an example of Jewish art testifying to the iconic nature of each of these stories. You’ll find a link to the artwork under each story we list out (all links accessed 07/03/2025).

Here’s what we encounter in this parsha:

• The first mention (among many to come) of the pillar of cloud and fire that led the Israelites through the desert.
• The passage of Israel through the Red Sea, with Egypt in hot pursuit.
• The Song of Miriam, in which she beats Bob Dylan’s “Tambourine Man” by a few thousand years.
• The first fall of the miraculous food, manna, together with the first Sabbath.
• The first time Moses strikes the rock, at God’s command, to provide water for the Israelites (later on he’ll strike a rock not at God’s command, with some consequences).
• Aaron and Hur keep Moses’ arms held up in order to win against Amalek.

As you can see, there is a lot going on! As we read through the text, it’s evident that there is a contrasting divide between what God does in bringing Israel out of Egypt (and the response by Moses and his family members) and the response from the mass of Israelites.

I’m originally from New York City (Brooklyn, to be specific, and the neighborhood of Canarsie, to be even more specific). There’s still a lot of New Yorker in me, and New Yorkers love to do one thing in particular: complain!

In New York, complaining binds us together. “You could wait forever for the bus to come!” “Can you believe the price they want for eggs now? Goniffs,1 all of them!” “Where do they find these cab drivers? The last one took me to Yennevelt2 —I was just going crosstown!”

Maybe Israel came out of New York instead of Egypt? But we know that’s not the case! Still, they responded in good New York fashion. The response by the people to every obstacle that Israel encountered—and there were a lot of them—was to panic and complain, wishing that they could be back in the relative safety of Egypt. For example:

When the Egyptian army pursued Israel:

… the people of Israel lifted up their eyes, and behold, the Egyptians were marching after them, and they feared greatly. And the people of Israel cried out to the Lord.

They said to Moses, “Is it because there are no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us in bringing us out of Egypt? Is not this what we said to you in Egypt: ‘Leave us alone that we may serve the Egyptians’? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness.” (Exodus 14:10–12)

When they needed water and it turned out to be bitter (which Moses remedied by throwing a log into the water at God’s command!):

And the people grumbled against Moses, saying, “What shall we drink?” (Exodus 15:24)

When there was a lack of food (remedied by God sending manna):

And the whole congregation of the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness, and the people of Israel said to them, “Would that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the meat pots and ate bread to the full, for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.” (Exodus 16:2–3)

When there was no water (no water, as opposed to the earlier bitter water):

Therefore, the people quarreled with Moses and said, “Give us water to drink.” And Moses said to them, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord?”

But the people thirsted there for water, and the people grumbled against Moses and said, “Why did you bring us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?”

So, Moses cried to the Lord, “What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me.” (Exodus 17:2–4)

How should we think about all this?

On the one hand, every obstacle that arose was overcome by a miraculous intervention by God through Moses. You’d think that after a few of those (starting even earlier, when Israel saw God’s miracles in the Ten Plagues), they’d catch on to the idea that God would see them safely through everything.

On the other hand —give them a break! Israel had just spent 400 years in slavery. They were used to a rigid schedule, and their responses were conditioned on fear of the taskmasters. Their daily life was pretty much set in advance. It was a sharp learning curve to step into the unknown: geographically, in terms of daily expectations, and in a relationship with God built on faith, not fear.

The parsha shows the interplay between uncertainty and faith, difficulties and trust, the life of slavery and the sometimes-perilous life of freedom. Might any of us have responded differently than the Israelites did? Any New Yorkers reading this right now??

A Side Note

There is a strange verse in Exodus 13:18 that reads as follows, with a certain Hebrew word italicized:

“The people of Israel went up out of the land of Egypt chamushim (13:18).”

Most translations render chamushim as “armed for battle” or something similar —sometimes as “in orderly array.” But some saw a problem here: how in the world would Israel be armed for battle after leaving slave conditions? Maybe when they “plundered” or “stripped” the Egyptians in Exodus 12:36? But that verse only mentions jewelry and clothing. Even if they had taken the Egyptians’ weapons as well, could they have known how to effectively use them in battle? Besides, Exodus 13:17 tells us that God wanted to avoid a war situation: “Lest the people change their minds when they see war and return to Egypt.”

As a result, what did some commentators do? They saw that the word chamushim is similar to the word chamesh, meaning “five.” They riffed off the idea of “five,” and here are three ways they interpreted the verse:

• The Septuagint—the translation of the Tanakh into Greek, made in the centuries before Jesus—translated the verse: “In the fifth generation, the children of Israel came out of Egypt.”
• The Midrash Tanhuma (about the 8th or 9th century BC) offers this interpretation:

Rabbi Joshua interpreted it thus: fivefold they came out of Egypt, for five times their number in converts were gathered into the people of Israel upon their departure from Egypt.

• And Rashi, the famed 11th-century commentator, says:

Another interpretation: one in five (chamesh) among the children of Israel came out of Egypt; four-fifths died during the three days of darkness [because they did not want to leave Egypt].

Which interpretation do you prefer? What do you think the verse was really saying?

Endnotes

1. Yiddish for “thieves.”

2. A Yiddish name for a faraway place that’s almost at the end of world.