The beginning of this week’s parsha, Beshallach, places us in the immediate aftermath of the Israelites’ liberation from Mitzrayim. We are told that when they went free, God led them on a roundabout path—because they feared that Pharaoh and his people would change their minds. Already, freedom is tinged with anxiety. So the Torah tells us that God guided them through the wilderness toward the Sea of Reeds, and that the Israelites went up chamushim out of Egypt.
This word, describing their state in that precarious moment, is ambiguous. It might mean they went up "armed," prepared for a fight. But the rabbis of the Midrash offer a different reading, connecting chamushim to its root, חמש—five—suggesting that only a fifth of the Israelites, or perhaps only a fiftieth, actually left Mitzrayim. I had learned this Midrash before and understood it to mean that many Israelites, accustomed to their lives in Mitzrayim, chose to stay behind. But this year, I read it differently. Perhaps it reflects a harsher reality: not all the Israelites were privy to the miracle. Not all of them experienced liberation. Not all of them were granted freedom.
We celebrate the incredible miracle of redemption—it is a miracle worth celebrating—but we must also hold the painful truth that not all crossed to the other side. Some died in Mitzrayim. Some remained enslaved.
These past weeks, as I have watched the hostage releases, I have felt the same bittersweet tension. Each one is a reason for celebration—an individual, a family reunited, a life restored. And each one is a reminder that others are still waiting. That some will never come home.Each release carries a complicated weight: joy and relief, but also anger at how long it has taken. Horror at the cost of securing their freedom. A deep grief for those still in captivity and those lost forever.
And yet, our story as a people does not end in despair. The Exodus story begins with suffering, but it does not leave us there. The final taste is one of song—of walking through the sea on dry land, of lifting our voices in gratitude that anyone, even if only one-fifth, was freed. They all deserve to be saved. They all deserve our celebration.
May this Shabbat bring new beginnings, bring song, bring freedom.
