Parshas Beshalach 5785
When we first started looking for a house in Cherry Hill, our realtor gave us a critical piece of advice: “Whatever you do, don’t look at Google Maps.” What she meant by that was that we should make no assumptions about how far any given house in the community was to our shul based on the actual roadways that Google would use to plot our walk. Because, as any Cherry Hiller knows, you can walk through the baseball field, use the Politz cut-through, the Yeshiva cut-through, or even through the driveway and backyard of what ultimately came to be our own home.
Seeking out a shortcut is sage advice.
Sometimes.
The Jewish People are finally given leave from Mitzrayim and travel immediately. Really immediately. Like, in less than 18 minutes. So it could be understood if in the mad rush to suddenly move a mass of millions of men, women, and children, along with their animals and newly acquired wealth, they may have made a wrong turn. Ending up on a circuitous route, all by mistake.
Yet it was no mistake at all. The Torah notes that the roundabout path cut by the newly freed nation was completely intentional, at least so far as Hashem was concerned.
וַיְהִי בְּשַׁלַּח פַּרְעֹה אֶת־הָעָם וְלֹא־נָחָם אֱלֹקים דֶּרֶךְ אֶרֶץ פְּלִשְׁתִּים כִּי קָרוֹב הוּא כִּי אָמַר אֱלֹקים פֶּן־יִנָּחֵם הָעָם בִּרְאֹתָם מִלְחָמָה וְשָׁבוּ מִצְרָיְמָה׃
שמות יג:יז
And it was when Pharaoh sent the nation out that G-d did not lead them by way of the land of the Phillistines, for it was close. For G-d said, “Lest the nation reconsider when they see war and return to Egypt.”
Shemos 13:17
Had it been up to the people, had they been calling the shots, they certainly would have blazed the shortest trail to the Promised Land. The circuitous route was no accident, no lack of planning. Actually, it was due to profound, Divine insight. Had the people taken the shortcut, they’d have been frightened by the sight of war and have foolishly decided to return to Egypt. By taking them along a winding route, no such retreat was possible. Hashem led the people along the less convenient road in order to save them from themselves.
How often do we find ourselves in that same situation? One in which the terrain is so challenging, nothing seems to be going our way, and all our careful planning goes awry? The promotion went to someone else, the shidduch fell through, the buyers backed out of the deal at the last minute. We find ourselves being led along a circuitous route in life and are mired in frustration.
What if in those moments we pulled back and wondered, “Maybe there’s a reason for this. Maybe I’m being led down a different path because the shorter route wasn’t actually sweeter. Maybe Hashem is trying to save me from myself.”
Maybe the promotion would have robbed me of any margin in life. Maybe the shidduch would have led to lifelong marital strife. Maybe sealing the deal would have gone to my head and been the source of arrogance and self-adulation.
Maybe Google Maps has it right. The longer, windier road is often better.
But slow down.
In this instance, the Torah describes outright how it was that the Jewish People came to travel down the path they did. It wasn’t their choice; it was Hashem’s. Hashem had made the calculation, had recognized the challenges and pitfalls the short cut would have presented, and determined to lead them along an alternate route.
But it isn’t always that way. Sometimes the snags we hit, the long and winding paths we take are a function of our own planning or lack thereof.
Faith in Hashem is the only answer when we’ve crossed every “t” and dotted every “i”, but it can be a copout when we haven’t. When the shidduch falls through, sometimes we need to turn our eyes to the heavens. But sometimes to the stained shirt we didn’t bother to change, to the insufficient sleep we got the night before so we now appear harried and exhausted, or to that bad habit we have of interrupting other people mid-sentence in order to turn the conversation back to ourselves.
In cases such as those, it’s not Hashem Who directed us towards failure; it’s us. Working on our emunah is only distracting us from the cold hard truth that we need to strengthen our character, not our faith.
It’s one thing to buy a house right next to a public easement leading directly to the shul, only to find that the township decided to close it a week before you moved in. It’s quite another make no attempt to find the shortcut and assume that whatever path you end up on will simply be “Min Hashamayim.”
The very first pasuk of the parsha provides subtle yet critical direction in determining how to respond to life’s twist and turns. “כי נחם אלקים—For Hashem had directed.” When we hit the snag in the road, that’s the question we must ask ourselves. Who guided me here? If it was Hashem, then I need not second guess. As much as I’d have preferred a shorter route, a sweeter route, an easier route, perhaps those roads would ultimately have led to a bad place. Perhaps Hashem had to step in to save me from myself. But perhaps I landed in this place not because of Hashem’s intervention, but because of my own actions and behaviors. Perhaps where I find myself now is not an indication that Hashem was saving me from myself, but should serve as encouragement that there’s much that I can do to save me from myself.