Kommentar zu Schemot 14:21

ברוח קדים עזה BY A POWERFUL EAST WIND — i. e. by the east wind which is the most powerful of the winds. This is the wind by which the Holy One, blessed be He, exacts punishment from the wicked, as it is said, (Jeremiah 18:17) “I will scatter them as with an east wind”; (Hosea 13:15) “An east wind shall come, the wind of the Lord”; (Ezekiel 27:26) “The east wind hath broken thee in the heart of the sea”; (Isaiah 27:8) “He hath removed her with His rough blast in the day of the east wind” (cf. Mekhilta d'Rabbi Yishmael 14:21:2).

AND MOSES STRETCHED OUT HIS HAND OVER THE SEA; AND THE ETERNAL CAUSED THE SEA TO GO BACK BY A STRONG EAST WIND ALL THE NIGHT. It was His will, may He be blessed, to divide the sea by a strong drying wind, making it appear as if the wind dried the sea, something like that which is written, An east wind shall come, the wind of the Eternal coming up from the wilderness, and his spring shall become dry, and his fountain shall be dried up.⁶⁹Hosea 13:15. He thus caused the Egyptians to err and then destroyed them,⁷⁰See Job 12:23. The verse however reads, masgi (He increases) the nations, etc. Ramban interprets it in the sense of mashgi (He causes to err.) A similar usage of this verse appears in Rashi above, Verse 2. The source of this rendition of the verse is in the Mechilta, ibid. for because of this, they thought that perhaps it was the wind which made the sea into dry land, but that it was not the power of G-d that did this for the sake of Israel. Although the wind does not split the sea into sections, they paid no attention even to this and they followed after the Israelites into the sea out of their desire to harm them. This is the intent of the expressions: and I will harden Pharaoh’s heart;⁷¹Above, Verse 4. and they shall go in after them.⁷²Verse 17. He hardened their hearts [so that each one] would say: “I will pursue my enemies and I will overtake them in the sea,⁷³Psalms 18:38. See also further, 15:9. and there is none that can deliver out of my hand.”⁷⁴Deuteronomy 32:39. They did not remember now [what they themselves had said], for the Eternal fighteth for them against the Egyptians.⁷⁵Further, Verse 25.

וישם את הים לחרבה, the east wind had frozen the mud on the bottom of the sea.

ויט משה את ידו, Moses inclined his hand, etc. Although the Torah reports that G'd made a strong east wind blow all night which dried out the sea, this referred only to the deep waters. G'd did not want the Israelites to have to descend to the very depths and to have to get tired by walking too far. This is why He first "froze" the deep parts of the sea by means of the east wind. If not for this consideration, G'd would have dispensed with the east wind altogether.

ברוח קדים, G’d used natural means, i.e. an east wind which always brings dryness and on occasions dries out ponds and rivers.

All the waters of the world. [Rashi knows this] because it already said, “He made the sea into dry land.” Alternatively, because it should have said, “The sea was divided.”

And the Lord drove back the Sea...: It is appropriate that you should know that when God does miracles, He makes efforts to find causes for them such that they will reduce some of [the miracles] divergence from nature - as was [discussed] earlier. And we have already explained this in the sixth [section] of the Wars of the Lord. And for the cause here, God found to put a strong easterly wind in the way of the miracle - which would dry up and displace the water to the western side, in such a way that a [dry] place would newly reveal itself to them. And the waters of the Sea were on its right and on its left, since that [dry] place was higher. And because of that, it became perfectly revealed, while water remained to its right and its left. And this is what was intended about them, when it stated (14:29), "and the waters were a wall for them on their right and on their left" - not that the waters were high to their right and to their left, and that they [no longer] flowed. As if the matter were like that, He would not bring an easterly wind to create this miracle. And nevertheless, the waters were higher on the western side, since the wind displaced them there and would constantly prevent them from flowing. And that is why God brought a strong easterly wind the whole night. And behold, it called the waters, "a wall" - even though they were not high - because they prevented the Egyptians from coming against them from their right or left. And they could only go behind them. And the cloud was [similarly] a wall between them from behind [the Israelites].

V. 21. Der Ostwind peitschte das Wasser bis auf den Grund auseinander, so dass sich das Wasser zu beiden Seiten türmte und der bloßgelegte Grund durch den Wind trocken wurde. Es entstand dadurch ein Durchweg von West nach Ost, und in dieser Richtung hat Israel das Meer durchschritten.

ויבקעו המים, “the waters split vertically right down to the bed of the sea.” In Moses’ song of thanksgiving, one half of a verse speaks of the waters “freezing solid,” קפאו 15,8) ,תהומות) whereas the other half describes this as occurring בלב ים, “in the heart of the sea,” which appears to contradict the interpretation that the waters split vertically right to the bottom of the sea. We must understand that the sea at that point was flowing over its banks. (the sea in question was tonguelike, like a very wide river, say the Amazon river near its delta.) If the sea had not split all the way down to the bottom the Israelites would have literally have had to descend to that bottom on one bank and to climb out of it afterwards again. Therefore the process described occurred in three stages, so that near each bank (shore) the waters froze horizontally to facilitate the Israelites’ descending and subsequent ascending on the opposite side. The waters formed vertical walls for the Israelites from either side. The simile of לב ים, “heart of the sea,” used by Moses illustrated this as the human heart in a certain manner divides the torso from the head and shoulders above and the lower part including the legs below. As a result of this division, the Israelites could cross without having to descend or to ascend at all. The waters after freezing and becoming dry, were level with the two shores. This is illustrated by the author of a liturgical poem recited in most synagogues in the morning prayer of the last day of Passover, (in the repetition of the amidah on the quote: וברוח אפיך נערמו מים, commencing with the words: פנו כאן וכאן שליש רום מימות, “while one side of the highest waters reared themselves on each side the remainder became bound up to form a path for their footsteps.”Verses 19,20,21, each have 72 letters, each word starting a different letter of the Hebrew alphabet, the first and third verse has the first letter of each word in the normal sequence, whereas the second verse has as the first word the last letter of the alphabet proceeding in the reverse order. Rashi has explained in his commentary on the Talmud in tractate Sukkot, folio 45, on אנ׳י וה׳ו, how by reading the three verses when they are written one on top of the other in the order in which they appear in the Torah vertically when reading from the top down we get the 72 names of G-d (in a three lettered version each.) Moses employed these versions of the names of G-d as a means to split the sea. Seeing that at the beginning of this process Moses was mentioned in the Torah as initiating it, when we recite the hoshaanot on the seventh day of Sukkot when according to tradition the world’s water supply is determined in the heavenly regions. The second acronym is taken from the 37th word in the arrangement we discussed. We may learn from this mystical approach that the Torah credited both G-d and Moses with having had a share in this miracle. [Moses’ staff, and G-d’s East wind. Ed.]

ויבקעו המים AND THE WATERS WERE DIVIDED — all the waters in the world (Mekhilta d'Rabbi Yishmael 14:2:2).

ויבקעו המים, when Moses inclined his hand at G’d’s command.

It is of interest to know whether Moses inclined his hand as a signal for the sea to split at the beginning of the night or at the end of the night. From the wording of the verse we may almost prove that it was close to morning. This is difficult, however, because if it was so how could one discern that the splitting of the sea was brought about by Moses' action? We therefore have to understand the verse thus: "Moses inclined his hand after G'd had already made an east wind blow during the whole night which dried out the (deeper) parts of the sea;" as soon as Moses inclined his hand the waters split. This would then be in line with my commentary on verse 15 that all this occurred after Nachshon had waded into the sea in response to G'd's challenge to demonstrate an act of faith. Moses had held off with inclining his hand until after Nachshon was in the sea. The Israelites then followed when the sea split. This also conforms to the way Shemot Rabbah 21 describes what happened. Another way of explaining the sequence of events is this: when the Torah writes "He turned the sea into dry land," all the waters of the sea crystallised in such a way that the Israelites did not need to descend into the bed of the sea, whereas the east wind had dried out all the waters of the sea. I consider the first explanation as more likely to be correct.

כל הלילה, all night long. The wind blew all night and the sea split at the end of the night causing the Israelites to begin marching through it.

That is that He commanded us to burn a fire on the altar every day continuously. And that is His, may He be exalted, saying, "A continual fire shall be kept burning on the altar, not to go out" (Leviticus 6:6). And this is only possible with His having commanded to place fire continually on the wood in the morning and in the afternoon, as it is explained in the second chapter of Yoma and in Tractate Tamid. And in the explanation, they said that even though the fire descends from the heavens, it is a commandment to bring it from the commoners (humans). And the laws of this commandment - meaning the arrangement of the fire which they are to do every day on the altar - have already been explained in Yoma and in Tamid (See Parashat Tzav; Mishneh Torah, Daily Offerings and Additional Offerings 2.)