In the blessings that we say after Krias Shema in the morning liturgy, we include a puzzling statement. “V’Yam Suf bakata, v’zeidim tibata, vy’didim he’evarta, vay’chasu mayim tzoreihem – Hashem split the Red Sea, drowned the sinners, His beloved he brought across safely, and then caused the waters of the Red Sea to cover over the heads of our adversaries.” The obvious question is in the sequence of these events. We say that Hashem drowned the Egyptians and then crossed us over while we know that the opposite happened. We crossed first and then the Egyptians were drowned!
The simple answer is that the Egyptians entered into the Red Sea while we were still in the waters. We actually were the bait to lure them inside. And, as they began to drown, it was only then that we safely exited the Red Sea. Afterwards, the waters completely covered over them.
Rav Yaakov Ben Yakar offers another explanation. He clarifies this stanza by posing another question. What was the real purpose of the miracle of the Red Sea? To save the Jews or to drown the Egyptians? He answers that it was certainly the latter, to punish the Egyptians middah k’neged middah, measure for measure, for drowning our children in the Nile, burying our babies in the walls of Pitom and Ramses, and, as the Maharil Diskin explains, for attempting to drive us into the Red Sea. After all, the purpose could not be for the benefit of the Jews, for Chazal teach us that we exited from the Red Sea on the same side we entered. We only went into the Red Sea to serve as enticement for the Egyptians to follow us and then go to their watery graves. Thus, Rav Yaakov Ben Yakar concludes, we say in our prayer v’zeidim tibata and only then vy’didim he’evarta, since the primary purpose of the entire Red Sea episode was to drown the willful sinners.
Others explain that as soon as we entered the Red Sea, a ferocious stream of water miraculously shot out from the Red Sea as a projectile, and made its way into mainland Egypt to execute many who remained at home in Mitzrayim. As the verse says, “Hashem yilocheim lachem b’Mitzrayim – Hashem will do battle for you in Egypt.” Thus, the verse says v’zeidim tibata, that the wicked ones drowned in Egypt, only then vy’didim he’evarta, we crossed the Red Sea and afterwards vay’chasu mayim tzoreihem, the waters covered our adversaries, the Egyptians, in the Red Sea.
The Yalkut Chadash offers a fourth explanation. We are taught that when Hashem does battle with a nation, He attacks its guardian angel first. Thus, the Yalkut states that first Hashem plunged the Sar shel Mitzraiyim, the angel of Egypt, into the Red Sea, and only then did the nine million Egyptians drown. Thus, v’zeidim tibata refers to the Sar shel Mitzraiyim, and then vy’didim he’evarta, He crossed over His beloved Bnei Yisrael, and only then vay’chasu mayim tzoreihem, did the waters cover the Egyptians themselves and they went to their well-deserved deaths.
It is interesting to note that while everyone assumes that the drowning of the Egyptians in the Red Sea was punishment middah k’neged middah for drowning our children in the Nile, this is really not such a simple explanation. The last baby that was put in the Nile was Moshe Rabbeinu. After that, the Egyptians stopped drowning the Jewish babies because the astrologers informed Pharaoh that the savior of Yisroel had already been put into the sea. Since Moshe Rabbeinu was eighty years old when we exited Egypt, that means that any Egyptian who was actually guilty of throwing a Jewish baby into the Nile had to be a hundred years old at the time of the miracles at the Red Sea and we can safely assume that the nine-million-person militia sent out from Egypt did not contain centenarians. So then, how do we understand the middah k’neged middah of the drowning at the Red Sea?
The Maharil Diskin offers one novel explanation: The nine million Egyptians were gilgulim of those who had drowned our babies. He offers a second explanation that the punishment was middah k’neged middah for the Egyptians trying to drive us into the Red Sea as they pursued us when we didn’t return back to Egypt.
The Medrash relates that when the Egyptians were about to drown, the guardian angel of Egypt petitioned Hashem for mercy on behalf of the Egyptians. The angel Gavriel responded by taking a crushed Jewish baby out from the walls of Pitom and Ramses and brought it as evidence against the Egyptians. This is what sealed their fate. Thus, we see that the Medrash explains the middah k’neged middah of the Red Sea was that the Egyptians sunk into the clay and boiling river bed of the Yam Suf for bringing our babies in the clay and mortar of Pitom and Ramses.
May it be the will of Hashem that we successfully understand all of our prayers and in that merit may Hashem answer all of our tefillos for long life, good health, and everything wonderful.
Transcribed and edited by Shelley Zeitlin.
