The Weekly Shtikle - Acharon shel Pesach

The Weekly Shtikle is dedicated le'iluy nishmas my dear Zadie and Bubbie, HaRav Chaim Yaakov ben Yitzchak and Yehudis bas Reuven Pinchas.

    The great miracles at Yam Suf moved B'nei Yisroel to sing shirah. The pasuk that prefaces this shirah tells us (14:31) that B'nei Yisroel saw the Mighty Hand of HaShem...and the nation feared HaShem and they believed in HaShem and in Moshe, His servant.

 

    The ultimate defeat of the Egyptian oppression and the miracles which facilitated it brought about tremendous joy. One would have expected the initial emotion of B'nei Yisroel towards HaShem to be love, not fear.

 

    Perhaps this can be explained as follows: The pesukim actually recount a progression following the miracles at Yam Suf. Initially, the massive destruction, an entire army wiped away in the blink of an eye, instilled a great fear and awe in the nation. This, along with the ten plagues showed B'nei Yisroel how powerful and mighty HaShem is. This brought them to a higher level of emunah in HaShem and His prophet, Moshe. With all this recognition as a foundation, B'nei Yisroel were able to come to an even greater appreciation of HaShem's love and out of their own love, sprung forth in song. B'nei Yisroel followed the true progression of yirah to ahavah, fear to love, culminating ultimately in the shirah. This may explain the shirah's first word, "az." Rashi does his part to explain this word. But perhaps we may understand that after B'nei Yisroel established their fear and awe of HaShem's might and their belief in Moshe Rabbeinu, then they were able to rise to the next level and sing the praises of HaShem.

 

Have a good Yom Tov.

 

Eliezer Bulka
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