Beshalach

In the synagogue the Torah is read aloud in a fixed annual cycle of fifty-four weekly portions (parashiyot), one each Shabbat morning, with certain adjacent portions doubled in ordinary years so the sequence fits the calendar. Each portion is named for a distinctive word near its opening and is paired with a haftarah, a reading from the Prophets. The cycle closes and restarts on Simchat Torah. Beshalach ('When he let go', Exodus 13:17-17:16) recounts the crossing of the Sea of Reeds and the drowning of Pharaoh's army, followed by the Song of the Sea (Shirat HaYam), the giving of the manna and the quail, water drawn from the rock, and the battle with Amalek. Its Shabbat is called Shabbat Shirah, the Sabbath of Song.

The splitting of the Sea of Reeds, with the waters described as forming 'a wall to them on their right hand and on their left' (Exodus 14:22), is read by rabbinic commentary alongside a tradition, preserved in the midrash, that the sea did not part until Nahshon, a leader of the tribe of Judah, walked forward into the water up to his neck, a reading later Jewish ethical teaching cites as an example of decisive faith preceding, rather than following, divine intervention. The Song of the Sea (Exodus 15), sung by Moses and the Israelites and echoed by Miriam and the women with timbrels, is written in the Torah scroll itself in a distinctive brick-like layout of separated half-lines, one of the few passages accorded special scribal formatting, and its recitation forms part of the daily morning liturgy in addition to its annual reading on Shabbat Shirah.

The Shabbat on which Beshalach is read is called Shabbat Shirah for the Song of the Sea, chanted to a special melody; the song is also embedded in the daily morning liturgy. The crossing of the sea became the archetype of divine deliverance at the last moment, and the manna, the water from the rock and the war with Amalek supplied later tradition with enduring images of dependence on God and of implacable enmity.

The battle with Amalek (Exodus 17:8-16), in which Israel prevails only so long as Moses' hands remain raised, supported by Aaron and Hur when he tires, is read by rabbinic commentary, including a statement in the Mishnah, as teaching that Moses' hands held no independent power but functioned to direct the people's hearts toward heaven, victory following not from the gesture itself but from the faith it prompted. God's oath of enduring hostility toward Amalek 'from generation to generation' (Exodus 17:16) established a distinct category in later Jewish law and memory, Amalek read not merely as a historical enemy but as a recurring symbol of gratuitous cruelty. Water struck from the rock at Massah and Meribah (Exodus 17:1-7), given in response to the people's complaint against Moses, closes the portion on a note commentators read as anticipating a strikingly similar but consequential episode decades later in the book of Numbers, when a comparable complaint and a comparable striking of a rock instead costs Moses entry into the land.