Dear Readers sh’yichyu,
This week - the week following Yud Shvat - we read Parshas B’Shalach. The highlight of the Parsha is the miraculous splitting of the sea and the singing of “Az Yashir”, hence the nickname for this Shabbos: Shabbos Shira - the Shabbos of song.
Concerning the parting of the sea, let us keep in mind a statement of our Sages, “What a maidservant saw by the sea, Yechezkel Ben Buzi did not see in all his days.” Yechezkel saw an incredible prophetic vision, referred to as “the Works of the Holy Chariot.” Great Rabbis studied this passage, and were never satisfied that they fully understood it… and yet the Midrash tells us that a maidservant saw even more than this!
In the Sicha of Parshas B’Shalach 5748 the Rebbe points out a very interesting connection between the story of the revelation of G-dliness that was revealed by the splitting of the sea and Hakhel: The adults were inspired to G-dliness from the purity of the children!
Regarding the splitting of the sea, Chazal (Sota 11b) say “They - the children - recognized the revelation of G-dliness first!” The Midrash elaborates on the description of the events:
When the Egyptians saw the Israelite women going to the fields to give birth, they would take stones and go to kill the infants. God performed a miracle, and the babies were swallowed by the earth. One tradition attests that the infants were swallowed in the field, to reappear far away, before being swallowed yet again and again, until the Egyptians tired and left. According to another tradition, the Egyptians would bring oxen and plow the ground in order to find the infants, but without success.
After the danger had passed, the children would burst forth from the ground, like the plants of the field, as it is said (Yechezkel 16:7): “I let you grow like the plants of the field; and you continued to grow up.” When they grew up, they returned to their homes in flocks, as the same verse says: “and you continued to grow up ba-adi adayim,” reading the latter phrase (literally, with the choicest adornments; usually translated, in the context of the verse, in the sense of “until you attained to womanhood”) as be-edrei adarim, “in flocks” (Ex. Rabba 1:1; Deut. Rabba, loc. cit.).
How did they know which was their home? God would enter with them. He would show each one his house, and tell him: Your father is named so-and-so, and your mother is named so-and-so. The child would ask her: “Don’t you remember that you gave birth to me in such-and-such a field on such-and-such a day, five months ago?” She would ask him: “And who raised you?” And the child would reply: “A young man with curly hair; none is as fair as he. Here, he is outside and he brought me here.” His mother would request: “Show him to me.” They would go out and search in all the lanes and alleys, but they could not find him (Deut. Rabba, loc. cit.).
This is why when God was revealed to the Israelites at the parting of the Red Sea, the children were the first to recognize Him, since He had raised them and cared for them in their infancy. Consequently, they were the first to sing “This is my God and I will glorify him” (Ex. 15:2), for they had already met Him and knew Him at first hand. When they saw Him at the sea, they would tell their parents, pointing with their fingers, “This is my God”—this is the fine young man who raised me (Sota 11b; Deut. Rabba, loc. cit.).
The same - that the parents connection to Hashem is enhanced by their children - is seen by Hakhel: The Gemara (Chagiga 3A) describes an interesting discussion about Hakhel: Our Rabbis have taught, “It happened to R. Yochanan ben Beruka and R. Elazar ben Chisma, that they went to visit R. Yehoshua in Pekiin. He said to them, ‘What innovation was there in the house of study today?’ They said to him, ‘We are your students, and of your waters do we drink.’
“He said to them, ‘Even so, it is impossible for the house of study to be without something new. Whose week was it?’ ‘It was R. Elazar ben Azariah’s.’ ‘And what was the discussion on today?’ They said to him, ‘On the section of Hakhel.’
“‘And what was his exposition?’ ‘“Assemble the people, the men and the women and the little ones.” If the men come to learn, and if the women come to hear, why do the little ones come? In order to give reward for those that bring them.’” He said to them, ‘There was a beautiful pearl in your hand, and you sought to deprive me of it!’”
We see from the above that when parents invest in their children’s education and go beyond their comfort zone to bring them to the Beis HaMikdash, not only will it not take away from the parents’ service of Hashem, on the contrary, they will receive the ultimate reward: true Yiddishe and Chassidishe Nachas.
[This is a good place to remind everyone to register as many children in Tzivos Hashem (www.tzivoshashem.org and the Children’s Seifer Torah www.kidstorah.org]
Children are also very much connected to bringing Moshiach. In the words of the Rebbe (Simchas Torah 5752): According to our sages, the verse, “Do not touch My anointed ones (Meshichoi),” refers to the children who study Torah.
One of the explanations of this statement (in addition to those provided by the commentators) is that the education of school children has to be in a manner that the children are completely permeated and absorbed with the ideal of Moshiach. Just by looking at a Jewish child, what should one see? - Moshiach! His entire being is “Moshiach” - i.e., the realization of “You have been shown… there is none beside Him.”
The idea is even more pronounced with respect to the schoolchildren of our generation who are called (and endorsed by Jewish leaders as) “Tzivos Hashem-the Army of G-d.” The name Tzivos Hashem signifies that the children are totally devoted and subordinated to G-d, as (and even more than) the devotion of “soldiers” to their “general.” It follows that Jewish children of our generation - boys and girls - possess in an even more revealed measure the status of Meshichoi, i.e., G-d’s own anointed ones.
This provides for the preparation and introduction that leads to the impending revelation of the general Moshiach of all Jews, with the true and complete Redemption. And “As in the days that you left Egypt I shall you wonders,” all the “Tzivos Hashem departed from the Land of Egypt,’ so, too, the “Tzivos Hashem” of our generation will depart from the present exile to the true and complete Redemption.
Rabbi Avtzon is the Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshivas Lubavitch Cincinnati and a well sought after speaker and lecturer. Recordings of his in-depth shiurim on Inyanei Geula u’Moshiach can be accessed at http://www.ylcrecording.com.