Parshat Beshalach: The Courage to Keep Moving

Freedom isn’t proven at the sea. It’s proven the day after.

Introduction — The Moment After “Finally”

Parshat Bo ends with the beginning of freedom — not only because Bnei Yisrael are about to leave Egypt, but because something deeper is restored first: time, identity, and the first real steps of becoming a nation. Before they are physically redeemed, they are given ownership again. A calendar. A future. A sense that they are no longer living inside someone else’s urgency.

But then Parshat Beshalach begins, and the tone shifts immediately. Because once time is returned to you, you still have to live inside it. You still have to make decisions, take steps, and move forward into a world that is unfamiliar and unstable. Beshalach is what happens after the moment everyone is waiting for — not the dramatic breakthrough, but the day after. The moment when freedom stops being an idea and starts becoming real life.

This parsha is not describing a victory lap. It’s describing the slow work of becoming free. It’s what happens when a people finally escape, but their inner world hasn’t caught up yet. Fear returns. Needs resurface. The past still tries to pull them back.

And this is where the Maharal’s lens becomes so important. The Maharal explains that Yetziat Mitzrayim is not only the removal of oppression. It is the creation of something new. A slave population does not automatically become a nation the moment the chains come off. A people has to be rebuilt from the inside — into a different identity, different courage, different trust. That kind of redemption doesn’t happen in one scene. It unfolds step by step, through the very moments where the old instinct to retreat begins to surface again.

The Torah lays out a sequence that feels almost painfully human. First there is the breakthrough — the moment you’ve been waiting for, when the door finally opens and the pressure finally breaks. But then fear rushes back in, as if the body can’t quite believe the danger is actually over.

Rescue follows, not only in the form of salvation, but in the form of Hashem making space where there was none. Then comes voice — the ability to breathe again, to sing again, to express something deeper than panic.

And almost immediately after that, need returns. Hunger. Thirst. Uncertainty. The realization that freedom doesn’t erase vulnerability, it simply reveals it in a new way. And finally, attack — because the moment a person begins moving forward, something inevitably comes to challenge that movement, especially at the weak points. Beshalach is not one event. It is the unfolding of what change actually looks like when it’s real.

And that’s exactly why Beshalach matters. Because the point isn’t that they struggled. The point is that they kept going. Not perfectly. Not calmly. But forward.

So before the Torah even tells us what happens to them on the road, it first tells us something deeper: Hashem does not lead them out of Egypt in the fastest way.

Section I — Hashem Doesn’t Take Them the Short Way

Before the Torah even tells us what happens at the sea, it tells us something quieter but just as important: Hashem does not lead Bnei Yisrael out of Egypt by the shortest route.

“וְלֹא נָחָם אֱלֹקים דֶּרֶךְ אֶרֶץ פְּלִשְׁתִּים… כִּי קָרוֹב הוּא.”

The direct road is right there. It would be faster, simpler, more efficient. But Hashem avoids it on purpose.

Rashi explains why. If the people encounter war too soon, they may panic and decide it isn’t worth it. They may turn back. But Rashi then adds a detail that makes this feel less like strategy and more like emotional truth: “כִּי קָרוֹב הוּא” doesn’t only mean the road is close. It also means that the return is close. Going forward might be hard, but going backward would be easy. It would be familiar. It would be immediate. The moment pressure rises, Egypt would feel like an option again.

And that is one of the deepest lessons of this parsha. Hashem is not only guiding them geographically. He is guiding them psychologically. He is not only taking them somewhere — He is taking them in a way they can survive. Because redemption is not only about where you’re going. It’s also about what you can handle on the way there.

Sometimes the quickest path is not the safest one. Sometimes the route that looks like progress on the outside is too overwhelming on the inside. Sometimes the long way is not a punishment. It’s protection it’s Hashem building space around fragile beginnings so they don’t collapse under pressure.

The Ramban makes a similar point in his own way when he explains that the wilderness is not just a stretch of geography between Egypt and the Land. It is a stage of formation. A people shaped by slavery cannot simply enter a new reality without being rebuilt along the way. They need time to develop courage, learn trust, and become capable of living in freedom. The desert is not where life pauses. It’s where identity is constructed.

Chassidic teachings develop this even further. The Sfas Emes and the Nesivot Shalom both emphasize that redemption needs vessels. A person might leave Egypt in one day, but it takes longer for Egypt to leave the person. The wilderness is where fear is unlearned and trust is trained, until a people can actually carry the life they were freed to live.

But even when Hashem takes them the safer route, the parsha immediately shows that the danger isn’t over — because sometimes the hardest part of leaving is what happens when the past comes after you.

Section II — Pharaoh Chasing: The Past Doesn’t Let Go Easily

Bnei Yisrael have barely begun their journey when the parsha introduces the next reality: Pharaoh comes after them. The oppressor they thought they had escaped is suddenly behind them again, with horses and chariots, closing the distance. And the Torah describes what happens inside the people immediately. Panic erupts. Their confidence collapses. Their minds narrow into survival.

Their words are sharp and desperate: “הֲמִבְּלִי אֵין קְבָרִים בְּמִצְרַיִם…” — Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you took us out to die here? The sarcasm in that sentence is painful. But it’s important to understand what the Torah is showing us. This is not evil, and it isn’t ingratitude. This is what fear does to the human voice. It makes people speak in extremes. It makes them forget what happened yesterday. It rewrites reality in the language of panic.

The Meshech Chochmah helps us notice something subtle but crucial: Pharaoh doesn’t chase them later, once they are settled and stable. He chases them right away. The Torah places this pursuit at the very beginning of the journey because it is teaching that the first challenge after redemption is often not the road ahead — it is the fear that comes rushing back from behind. Sometimes the past doesn’t release its grip just because you walked away from it. Sometimes it tests you immediately, as if to say, “Are you really leaving, or will you collapse the moment pressure returns?”

Chazal deepen this by describing how a people behaves when they feel trapped. In a moment of crisis, the camp fractures into different reactions. Some are ready to fight, some want to surrender, some want to cry out, and some want to run back. That isn’t just a historical detail. It’s a map of the nervous system. Under threat, people don’t suddenly become wiser. They become reactive. They grab for whatever strategy feels most likely to stop the terror, even when those strategies contradict each other.

This is why this section matters so much. Because Pharaoh chasing them isn’t just a plot twist. It’s the Torah revealing something essential about what it means to leave Egypt. Sometimes the hardest part of freedom is not walking out. It’s what happens when the past reappears and your body starts believing you were never safe to begin with.

Chassidic teachings take this even further. The Kedushat Levi and the Nesivot Shalom both teach that Pharaoh is more than an external enemy. He represents the pull of an old identity — the part of a person that still thinks like a slave, even after they’ve left slavery behind. The physical Egypt may be behind them, but the inner Egypt is still active.

The reflex to collapse, to retreat, to surrender the future in exchange for familiarity — that doesn’t disappear overnight. Pharaoh chasing them is the Torah’s way of showing that freedom is not only about what you leave. It’s about what you no longer let define you.

And that panic becomes sharper because they aren’t just being chased — they’re being chased into a place where there is nowhere to go.

Section III — Kriyat Yam Suf: Moving When There Is No Path

This is the moment in Beshalach where everything tightens. Bnei Yisrael are not only afraid — they are trapped. The sea is in front of them. Egypt is behind them. The desert offers no escape. And the Torah makes us sit in that pressure long enough to feel what they felt: there is no obvious plan, no safe exit, no reasonable route forward.

Moshe speaks to them with reassurance. He tells them not to fear, to stand firm, to watch the salvation of Hashem. But then Hashem responds in a way that feels almost startling: “מַה תִּצְעַק אֵלַי… דַּבֵּר אֶל בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל וְיִסָּעוּ.” Why are you crying out to Me? Tell the people to move forward.

Rashi explains that this is not a rejection of prayer. It is Hashem teaching Moshe that this is not a moment where words alone can carry the people through. The next step has to happen even while fear is still present. There are times when the holiest thing a person can do is not to explain, not to resolve, not to create certainty — but to take the next right step forward, because staying frozen will only deepen the panic.

That line — “וְיִסָּעוּ” — is one of the most important words in the entire parsha. Because it reframes what courage looks like. Courage is not feeling calm. Courage is moving while you are not calm. It is stepping forward without knowing how the path will open, and refusing to let fear become the final authority over your direction.

Rav Soloveitchik writes that one of the defining differences between being trapped and being free is whether you experience life as something happening to you, or something you are able to respond to with choice and responsibility. In that sense, “וְיִסָּעוּ” is not only a travel command. It is the beginning of dignity — Hashem turning a terrified people into participants in their own redemption. Not because they already feel strong, but because freedom begins the moment you act like someone who has a future, even before you can fully feel it.

Chazal capture this in the Midrash of Nachshon ben Aminadav. The sea does not split while he stands at the edge debating the risk — it splits when he enters. Chassidic teachings sharpen the same idea from the inside: the sea did not only split externally. Something had to split internally as well — the assumption that we can only move once we feel safe. Sometimes safety comes second. Sometimes the path is revealed only after the first step is taken. Not because Hashem wants people to struggle, but because this is how freedom is formed: learning how to move without returning to Egypt every time fear rises.

And once they make it through, the Torah shows the first real sign that something has shifted inside them — not just that they survived, but that they can finally speak again.

Section IV — Shira: The First Sign of Freedom Is Voice

Immediately after they cross the sea, something happens that is easy to read as a triumphant ending — but the Torah presents it as something much deeper. “אָז יָשִׁיר מֹשֶׁה וּבְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל…” Moshe and Bnei Yisrael sing. And at first glance, it feels simple: they were saved, so they sang. But Beshalach is not just recording gratitude. It is recording transformation.

Because Shira is not only a reaction. It is a sign of inner freedom. Slaves can speak, but they rarely have voice. They can survive, but they don’t always have spaciousness. When a person has lived too long inside fear and pressure, the inner world becomes tight. Emotion becomes guarded. Hope becomes risky. Expression becomes unsafe. Slavery doesn’t only steal labor — it steals breath. It steals the ability to feel the future.

That is why Shira matters. It means something loosened. It means the constriction lifted enough for gratitude, clarity, and expression to return. Not because they are suddenly healed, and not because they will never struggle again — but because for a moment, they are no longer only reacting. They are witnessing. They are naming what happened to them. They are speaking from something deeper than panic.

The Ohr HaChaim adds a powerful layer to this. He explains that Shira is not just a response to what happened around them — it is the expression of what happened within them. When the sea split, it wasn’t only that they were rescued. It was that they saw Hashem’s presence with a clarity they hadn’t been able to hold before. And when that kind of clarity enters a person, it doesn’t stay silent. It demands voice. In other words, the song didn’t come only because they were safe — it came because something inside them finally became real enough to speak.

Chazal capture this with one of the most striking lines in the Midrash: “ראתה שפחה על הים מה שלא ראה יחזקאל” — even a simple maidservant saw at the sea what the prophet Yechezkel did not see. That line is not meant to glorify spiritual greatness. It’s meant to describe what happens when fear lifts and clarity returns. When the threat is gone and the heart is no longer flooded, a person can finally see what was true all along. Not with sophistication, but with directness. Not with complexity, but with honesty. Sometimes the deepest “vision” is not intellectual. It is the moment you can breathe and recognize that you were carried.

Chassidic teachings, especially the Sfas Emes, develop this idea further. Song is what rises when the soul is no longer trapped inside survival mode. Shira is not perfection. It is breath. It is the inner world reopening after being shut down. It is what emerges when a person is no longer only trying to endure life, but can finally respond to it. In that sense, Shira is not simply an expression of freedom — it is one of the first experiences of freedom.

But the Torah doesn’t leave the people at the height of song, because real growth isn’t measured by what happens in the peak moment — it’s measured by what happens the next day when needs return.

Section V — Complaints: Freedom Doesn’t Remove Need

If Beshalach wanted to end as a story of triumph, it could have ended at the sea. The people crossed. Their enemies drowned. They sang. It would have been a perfect closing scene. But the Torah does something far more honest. It takes us one step further — into the days that follow. Because redemption does not remove need. It reveals it.

Not long after Shira, the people begin to complain. “We should have died in Egypt,” they say, as the fear of hunger rises inside them. The contrast is jarring, and it is meant to be. The Torah is showing that even after a miracle, even after a moment of clarity, a human being can still feel terrified about survival. Fear does not disappear just because reality has changed. The body takes time to trust. And a people that lived for generations without stability cannot become calm overnight.

The Maharal helps us understand why this isn’t a contradiction. He explains that freedom doesn’t mean a person has no dependence — it means their dependence is no longer humiliating and unsafe. In Egypt, every need was used against them. Hunger, exhaustion, even survival itself were controlled by someone else. So when they step into freedom, their first question is not philosophical. It’s physical: Will we be okay? Will we have enough? The complaints are the sound of a people learning how to live with need again — but this time without slavery attached to it. Redemption doesn’t erase vulnerability. It changes the meaning of vulnerability.

And Hashem does not respond with rejection. He responds with provision — and with training. The Mannah is given in a structure that Chazal emphasize: a measured portion each day, no hoarding, and a double portion before Shabbat. It’s not just food. It’s a new way of living. The Mannah teaches them how to receive without grasping — and stop living as if tomorrow is always a threat. It nourishes them physically, but it also begins rewiring something deeper: the expectation of scarcity.

Chassidic teachings, especially the Nesivot Shalom, describe the Mannah as “food of emunah,” but not in a romantic way. It is emunah in the most grounded sense: daily dependence that does not collapse into panic. Not because the people are spiritual heroes, but because they are being slowly rehabilitated into a life where trust is possible. The Mannah is not given to impress them. It is given to steady them.

And then the same pattern repeats with water. In Shemot 17, when they lack water, they begin fighting again. The Torah describes it as testing Hashem — “וַיְנַסּוּ אֶת ה׳” — but what we are witnessing is desperation. It is what happens when the body feels threatened and the mind starts spiraling. Thirst doesn’t stay in the throat. It spreads into the heart. It becomes the fear that nothing is stable, nothing is safe, and nothing will ever be enough.

Chassidic teachings frame this with a crucial sensitivity: when a person is overwhelmed, even faith can feel distant. Not because they don’t believe, but because they can’t access belief while flooded. You don’t judge a person’s deepest self by their most frightened moment. Fear shrinks the world. And safety has to be rebuilt slowly before trust can settle.

And then, just when it seems like the struggle is internal and emotional, the Torah brings one more stage — because weakness doesn’t only create fear; it can also make you vulnerable to attack.

Section VI — Amalek: Attack When You’re Weakened

Just when it seems like the parsha is describing an inner struggle — fear, uncertainty, hunger, thirst — the Torah introduces something else entirely. Amalek arrives and attacks. Not after years in the wilderness. Not after they’ve built themselves up. But right here, in the early days of transition, while the people are still fragile and still learning how to live outside the world that traumatized them.

And the Torah is careful to show how Amalek fights. This is not a battle for territory. It’s an assault on vulnerability. Rashi explains that Amalek targeted “הַנֶּחֱשָׁלִים אַחֲרֶיךָ” — the weak ones, the stragglers, the people falling behind. Amalek doesn’t confront the strongest part of the camp head-on. It goes after the edges — the tired ones, the slower ones, the ones who are least protected, the ones who don’t have strength left to defend themselves.

That detail matters because it reveals something the Torah wants us to understand: danger does not always appear only when people are at their worst. Sometimes it appears when they are trying to get better. When a people is in the early stages of rebuilding, the weak points become more exposed. Progress is hopeful and vulnerable, because moving forward means you’re no longer hiding inside numbness or survival. You’re in motion. And that motion can be targeted.

The Ramban helps frame why this confrontation appears here, in the middle of the journey. He explains that Bnei Yisrael are not only traveling toward a destination — they are becoming a nation. And part of becoming a nation is learning that you cannot build a future on miracles alone. You need resilience. You need protection. You need the ability to stand your ground even when your energy is low and your confidence is fragile. Amalek enters the story not as a random interruption, but as the Torah’s way of showing that redemption includes the work of strengthening — especially at the edges, especially where people are most likely to fall behind.

Rashi adds another layer that deepens the psychological dimension. The Torah describes Amalek as “אֲשֶׁר קָרְךָ בַּדֶּרֶךְ” — which Chazal understand as happened upon you, and also as cooled you off. Amalek’s power is not only in physical force. It is in what it does to the inner temperature of a people. It cools conviction. It weakens momentum. It takes a moment of growth and turns it into doubt. It attacks “בַּדֶּרֶךְ” — on the road, in process — not when everything is already settled.

Chassidic and Mussar teachings, especially in the Nesivot Shalom, describe Amalek as the force that erodes hope from the inside. Not always through dramatic crisis, but through exhaustion. Through cynicism. Through emotional depletion. Sometimes Amalek doesn’t destroy you outright. It simply drains you until you stop walking — until you stop believing that movement matters, and stop expecting that the future can be different than the past.

And that is why Amalek belongs in Beshalach. Because Beshalach is not the parsha of redemption completed. It is the parsha of redemption unfolding. The Torah is warning us that the threat to freedom is not only fear, and not only need — it is also what happens when a person becomes too tired to keep going.

And when you step back, you realize the Torah isn’t describing random events. It’s describing the exact emotional rhythm of what happens when people begin healing — but haven’t fully stabilized yet.

Parenting Reflection — Your Child May Be Moving Forward, But Still Getting Chased

One of the most painful moments in parenting a struggling teen is not the crisis itself. It’s the moment after a little bit of light finally breaks through — and you assume that now things should get easier. A calmer week. A better conversation. A small step of cooperation. A sign of openness. Parents naturally breathe out and think, Maybe we’re turning a corner.

But Beshalach teaches the opposite. Sometimes the moment a person begins moving forward is the moment pressure rises again. Not because the progress was fake, and not because nothing changed — but because change itself can feel threatening to a nervous system that learned to survive through control, shutdown, or fear. Growth requires new trust. And trust takes time.

Your child may be improving, but their inner world may still flood quickly. They may still have “Pharaoh moments,” where the past comes rushing back and their system reacts as if danger is right behind them. They may still have “sea moments,” where the next step feels impossible and all they can access is panic, anger, or shutdown. There are days when their fear speaks louder than their progress, and their reactions don’t match the love around them.

And that is exactly where parents get tested. Because it’s easy to support a child who is clearly moving forward. It’s much harder to stay steady when movement is messy. When one day looks like Shira and the next day looks like complaint. When you gave them space and they still collapsed. When you stayed calm and they still pushed back.

Beshalach offers a different way to understand those moments. Your child may not need more pressure to “prove” they’re better. They may need what the Mannah represents: steady support in small portions, consistently, without panic. Not demands for certainty. Not urgent timelines. Just daily presence that teaches their nervous system: we are safe enough to keep going. Mannah parenting doesn’t try to force tomorrow. It builds today in a way your child can actually hold.

And then there are the “Amalek days” — the days that aren’t dramatic, but are exhausting. The days when everyone is depleted and even small things feel heavy. Those are the days when a parent’s hope is most vulnerable. Because Amalek doesn’t only attack children. It attacks families through discouragement. Through the quiet voice that says, This isn’t working. Nothing is changing. I can’t do this anymore.

That’s why this parsha is so relevant. Because it gives language to what you’re living. It reminds you that regression doesn’t always mean failure. Sometimes it means your child is still being chased inside. Sometimes it means the fear is still loud. Sometimes it means the system is still fragile — and fragility is not the same as refusal.

When your child regresses, don’t only ask, “What did we do wrong?”Ask, “What inside them still doesn’t feel safe yet?”

And that brings us to the deeper message of the parsha: the Torah is not asking us to become people who never struggle — it’s teaching us what it means to keep moving forward even when we do.

Closing — Freedom Is Movement Without Returning

Parshat Beshalach quietly redefines what success actually looks like. Not in theory, but in real life. Because if success meant that once you leave Egypt everything becomes calm, steady, and clear, then the story could have ended much earlier. It could have ended in Parshat Bo. Or it could have ended at the sea. The doors opened, the oppressor fell, the people were free.

But the Torah tells the truth about what comes next. Freedom isn’t a clean, instant transformation. It’s the slow work of learning how to live after survival — building trust where fear once ruled, and discovering that even after redemption, panic can return. Needs can rise. Pressure can surface. Doubt can attack.

And none of that means the redemption was fake. It means the redemption is still unfolding — in real time, in the body, in the nervous system, and in the daily effort to stay on the road.

That is the deeper courage of Beshalach. The people don’t move forward like heroes. They move forward like human beings. They leave Egypt, and then they panic. They get chased, and then they freeze. They are saved, and then they sing. And then they struggle again. And then they are attacked.

And through all of it, they keep going. Not perfectly. Not smoothly. But forward.

And that is not failure. That is what real change looks like when it’s honest. Redemption is not the absence of struggle. It is the ability to keep moving even when struggle returns — and to not interpret the hard moments as proof that nothing changed.

Redemption isn’t a moment. It’s the ability to keep moving forward without returning to what once trapped you.

Have a Wonderful Shabbos!!!

Yaakov Lazar

Healing isn’t the absence of struggle.