Shabbat Parashat Beshallach - 5784

Shabbat Parashat Beshallach - 5784

Rabbi Hal Miller

  They arrived at Elim where there were twelve springs of water and seventy date-palms,

  they encamped there by the water. [Shemot 15:27]

Why does the Torah tell us the things listed in this verse? We do not normally get a review

of details of a rest stop. The next verse [16:1] tells us they moved on from there, so they

did not apparently do anything other than camp. The two previous verses [15:25-26] tell

that Moshe 'treated' the bitter water at Marah and told the people to observe God's word.

Our verse seems unrelated to the story line.

Ibn Ezra derives that the people spent twenty days in Eilim after only one in Marah. The

Chafetz Chaim finds that the distance between them was less than a day's march, which

shows the short-sightedness of people in general, that they complained at Marah rather

than look behind or ahead for good water elsewhere.

Rashi explains the twelve springs as corresponding to the twelve tribes and the seventy

date palms as corresponding to the seventy elders, but he does not tell us why the Torah

would mention this here. The Samaritan Targum wonders why such a wonderful place

would only have seventy date palms, so it adds a word and calls it "seventy sorts of date

palms". R'Shimon bar Yochai instead calls it a cursed place because it only had seventy.

The Gemora [Yevamot 13b] says that the word here, eilimah, comes to teach that adding

a hey at the end of the word is the same as adding a lamed to the beginning, so it means

"to Eilim", but again, it does not explain why the Torah teaches this here with this verse.

Ramban notes that finding a few springs was not out of the ordinary and asks why this is

related here. He says that the twelve springs were created at Creation for the twelve tribes

and the seventy date palms for the elders, and our verse comes to exalt God for having

prepared for them in advance.

Ba'al HaTurim looks at the words al ha'mayim, by the water, and gives us an answer to our

question. This phrase appears in three other places, Shemot [7:17] related to the plague of

blood on the Nile, Vayikra [14:6] about the purification of a metzora, and II Kings 3:22 that

the Moabites saw the water red as blood. He says that in the merit of the blood purifying

waters, the Israelites merited at this point to come to Eilim and sweet water set up by God.