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to an eternal reality that we ourselves face on a regular
basis. Whenever we leave Egypt, Mitzrayim, which literally
A Message from our Rabbinic Intern translates as ‘limitations,’ we cross that sea and leave our
taskmasters and slavery behind. But the way we do so is
Rabbi Yehoshua Lefkowitz not uniform.

Why not? Because when we put our two questions to-
gether, something fascinating emerges. If each tribe had
its own tunnel, AND the tunnels bent back on themselves
to the same sides that they started from, then the paths
we took would have looked like a rainbow. And just like a
rainbow, that means that some of the paths were longer
and others shorter! For some tribes it was easier, and for
others it took a lot more effort - and each had its own
experience of facing the towering waters.

And so we emerge with the following message: We all go
through life and face challenges. We all are pursued, con-
fronted and surrounded with situations and decisions we
wish we could avoid. And when we do our best, that looks
different for each person. We should never judge ourselves
or others by making unfair comparisons or uninformed
The 12 Lane Highway appraisals, and we should focus on the main point - that
no matter our path, we all have the same destination:
Two wrongs don’t make a right - redemption.
but two questions make an answer.
This coming year in Yerushalayim!
The first question is truly mindboggling. At some point in our
history we underwent a transition - from a small family of holy Rabbi Yehoshua Lefkowitz
shepherds into a full-blown nation with kings and priests and
traditions - and although there are several candidates for the
role of “moment when that happened,” the FIRST option is when
we walked as a unified group across the bottom of an ocean.
Hashem decided to split the sea, bring us across, and keep US
alive but chose to drown the Egyptians pursuing us. We had
been identified as a distinct unit.

Except that we WEREN’T a unit. Rambam records an oral tradi-
tion that Hashem actually split the sea into many parts so that
each tribe would have its own tunnel - 12 tribes, 12 tunnels. But
this is so strange: here we are, a nation in the making, about
to experience an event that would demonstrate our unity as
a people, and Hashem decides to split us into 12 groups? Sure,
knowing your tribe was important, but why now of all times?

The second question is no easier. As a kid, I always pictured that
crossing the sea meant exactly that - crossing to the other side.
The same piece of Rambam, however, records the tradition that
we in fact exited the sea on the SAME side, meaning that we
executed the world’s first U-turn. We effectively ended up where
we started, only a little further down the shoreline. And this too
is so strange: why would Hashem engineer this course? There
must have been a reason, and that reason must teach me some-
thing - or else why would this fact appear in the Torah? As a kid, I always pictured that crossing
the sea meant exactly that -
To answer, we must understand the gravity of crossing the sea. crossing to the other side.
This was no one-off event - this was a paradigm, an introduction

SCOPE Magazine Passover 2022 8