לפני בעל צפון, “before Baal Tzefon.” According to Rashi, this was the only idol that had remained intact of all the Egyptian deities. G–d had arranged this in order to mislead the Egyptians into believing that this deity was more powerful that He. Pharaoh thought that the deity had deliberately tricked the Israelites in order to enable him to destroy them by means of water. [as a previous Pharaoh had attempted when he drowned the male Jewish infants. Ed.] This is why the Torah wrote in verse 10 that ופרעה הקריב, instead of ופרעה קרב, “Pharaoh had presented an offering,” instead of “Pharaoh approached,” as this phrase is usually translated (Compare Mechilta B’shalach 2,2). An alternate interpretation: the use of the transitive form of the word קרב is meant to tell the reader that the Israelites were inspired to engage in penitence when they saw that they were being pursued.

נכחו תחנו, “and encamp facing it (the deity)!” Rabbi Yehudah found it difficult to understand why the Israelites had been instructed to encamp at that location facing the sea., He quoted the Talmud in tractate Sanhedrin, folio 13, where it is stated that it is forbidden to ask a friend to wait for him a few minutes so that he could take a closer look [or photograph] a certain idolatrous statue. Why would G–d have asked the Jewish people to face this statue while encamping nearby? I suppose the prohibition applies only to human beings, not to G–d Himself. After all, we are told that G–d judges the gentile nations every Sabbath and every Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur (Compare Rashi on the Talmud in tractate Rosha Hashanah folio 30.) In addition, seeing that the Torah had not been given as yet there is not really a problem.

ויבואו בני ישראל, “the Children of Israel came;” this verse describes what happened on the seventh night of Passover. The problem with this interpretation is that Rashi states on Numbers15,41 that the eight strands of the tzitzit are to act as a reminder of the eight days the Israelites had to wait until they were able to break out in their famous song of redemption composed by Moses when they saw the dead bodies of the Egyptians being tossed back by the sea that had swallowed them. We would have to say that the day on which they prepared for the Exodus and offered the Paschal lamb is included in the days that Rashi referred to, seeing that they had been given notice of their impending departure. At any rate they had not prepared themselves with adequate provisions as the Torah tells us specifically in Exodus 12,39.

לא נשאר בהם עד אחד, “not a single one of them remained.” The word עד is sometimes used as inclusive statement whereas other times it is used as exclusion, i.e. in this instance the meaning is that only a single Egyptian survived this drowning. The survivor was Pharaoh himself. We read in Psalms 106,11: אחד מהם לא נותר, “not one of them was left.” How do we reconcile this? The Torah refers to all of Pharaoh’s soldiers having perished. He himself was forced to survive and bear the disgrace of his defeat.

והמים להם חומה, “and the waters were like a wall for them.” The word חמה, wall, is usually spelled with the letterו after the first letter. Here this letter is missing. The reason is that at first the same waters had been a terrible threat חימה, for them until the angel Gavriel came and made the waters pile up as if frozen solid, forming a wall of ice. The angel informed the waters on their right that the Israelites would shortly accept the Torah. Seeing that the Torah had always been on the right side of the Almighty, as we know from Deuteronomy 33,2: אש דת למו, “the fire of the law at His right hand,” this served as a warning to the waters. The angel then turned to the waters on the left side of the Israelites, warning the waters that the Israelites were going to wear phylacteries on their left arms. He also warned the waters behind the Israelites that these would be draped in garments equipped with fringes. When the waters heard all this they turned into solid walls. They divided themselves into 12 lanes. There were walls of frozen water between the 12 tribes so that one tribe could see members of any other tribe through windows in those walls. This enabled members of one tribe to keep in touch with members of the adjoining tribe. This is based on the line: “the waters became a wall for them.” (Yalkut Shimoni section one 247 and 234) According to this Midrash, it would appear that when putting on one’s Tallit, prayer shawl one should throw the tzitzit, fringes, backwards over one’s shoulder. Our author feels that there is no need to do this. He feels that when enveloping oneself in the tallit, the fringes will be thrown backwards as part of that process. How else could the process be called “enveloping oneself?”