This week, when Jews around the world gather in synagogues (virtual or otherwise) to read the week’s verses, they’ll be hearing one of the most well-known stories in the Bible. It’s the story—the miracle that so many people think of when they think of miracles.
This is the part where the Israelites walk through the Red Sea, on dry land, to freedom.
As befits a story of this magnitude, there’s a lot of drama. The Israelites are rushed out of their homes in the dead of night, and they set into the vast wilderness. God appears to them in the form of “a pillar of cloud by day, to guide them along the way, and a pillar of fire by night, to give them light,” (Exodus 13:21) so that they can keep moving, keep moving, keep moving.
They have a lot of ground to cover if they’re going to make it to the shore before the Egyptian warriors in their chariots are upon them.
God takes them the long way, “by way of the wilderness at the Sea of Reeds,” (Exodus 13:18) which is an interesting choice because it creates a natural, impassable barrier. This is not lost on…
