The Horse and Its Rider
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Was it a Necessary Miracle?
The seventh day of Passover—Shevi’i shel Pesach—marks the day the Jewish nation miraculously crossed the Yam Suf, the Reed Sea. The Torah reading for this day is the Shirah, the Song that Moses and the Israelites sang upon their miraculous deliverance from the onslaught of the pursuing Egyptian army.
Among the varied expressions of praise to G- d, indeed, the very first one to appear is the description of the drowning of the Egyptians:
“The horse and his rider He has thrown into the sea.”
Rashi comments that the miracle here was that the rider was attached to his horse as they were cast into the sea.
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At first glance, this miracle appears to be superfluous. What difference would it make if the rider would have been thrown off his horse as he was thrown into the sea? Why did G-d have to bind them together?
A Lame Excuse
One approach to this matter can be to look at the Egyptians not just as a nation of antiquity that enslaved and persecuted the Jewish people. In addition, Egypt as the symbol of those forces that continually try to undermine the integrity of the Jewish people. Their drowning in the Reed Sea was G-d’s way of frustrating the threat to the Jewish people. In order to maximize the defeat of these forces of evil, G-d bound the horse with its rider.
How does binding the rider to the horse maximize the defeat of evil?
Panim Yafot, cites the famous Talmudic parable of the king who hired both a blind person and a lame person to guard his orchard. This way, he thought, he would be PASSOVER guaranteed that the guards themselves would not steal his luscious fruit. What did they do? The lame person, who saw the fruit and was tempted by it, asked the blind person to carry him on his shoulders. In concert, they managed to reach the orchard and steal its fruit. The Talmud concludes that when the king discovered the theft, he made the blind man carry the lame man, and administered lashes to both of them as they were in that tandem position.
Symbiotic Relationship
This metaphor is used by our Sages to describe the symbiotic relationship between the soul and the body. Without the soul the body cannot function and without the body the soul cannot get what it wants.
The horse and rider also represents the combined efforts of the body and the soul in all of our negative and positive pursuits. One cannot separate the two.
When G-d wants to remove the threat of the pursuing Egyptian army, He made sure to PASSOVER eliminate both the body and soul of Egypt symbolized by the horse and his rider. The body of evil represents its mode of behavior, while its soul alludes to its ideology. It does not suffice to destroy an ideology and it also does not suffice to simply desist from evil behavior if one still has the ideology intact.
Alternatively, the soul of evil represents the enthusiasm one invests in the performance of the body of evil. One must destroy both the actions and the enthusiasm that goes along with those actions.
Conversely, and an additional lesson we can derive from the above, is that when G-d wants to fortify the world with positive energy, He directs His energy to the body and soul combined.
In order for us to be the beneficiaries of G- d’s energy, we must make both our body and soul receptive to that energy.
By focusing on prayer and Torah study we nurture our soul and make it shine more brightly. The soul can then absorb the spiritual light that G-d always generates.
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When we perform physical Mitzvot; we refine our bodies thereby making them receptive to the G-dly light directed towards our bodies.
Primary and Secondary Forces
In addition to the application of the horse and the rider to the combined efforts of the soul and the body, one can also understand the significance of the “horse and the rider” in yet another way.
In our world of good and evil we will come across the aspects of good and evil that are primary and those that are of secondary and tertiary levels.
It is human nature to focus most if not all of our attention on the primary threats to our existence and neglect the secondary. Likewise in the realm of goodness, we often forget about the small gestures that pale in their comparison to the primary areas of good.
Lest we minimize the threat from the secondary causes to evil, the Torah informs us that G-d had to punish the rider and the PASSOVER horse, the primary and secondary threats respectively.
To deal with only the direct causes of evil— “the rider”—and to neglect the accessories to evil—“the horse”—could eventually lead to future problems. Once evil gets a foothold within the individual, its insidious nature enables it to fester until it poses a serious threat to one’s moral and spiritual well-being.
Likewise in the realm of positive efforts, one should never minimize the secondary influences in the performance of a Mitzvah. Not only could it eventually lead the individual down a “slippery slope” to indifference even as it involves primary matters, but moreover, every small gesture of good has inestimable value in G-d’s eyes. Every Mitzvah has the capacity to permanently alter the state of the world for the good and bring about its Redemption.
Handles of Sin
This thought has already been alluded to by our Sages in Ethics of the Fathers: “Reflect on PASSOVER three things so that You will not come to the handles of sin.”
What did our Sages mean when they said “handles of sin?” Shouldn’t they have written: “Reflect on three things so that You will not come to sin.” What are the “handles” of sin?
A person must strive not only to avoid the actual transgression, but even to avoid the things that can lead to sin.
An example of this is to live in a spiritually healthy environment. One must eliminate not only the “rider,” (the actual threat to our well being), but also the “horse” (the accessories and facilitators of the forces that can cause us harm).
The Song of the Future
The Shirah in its use of the future tense, “Then Moses shall sing,” the Midrash states, alludes to the future song of the Jewish nation in the Messianic Age. This implies that the song the Jews sang in the past is not complete.
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One way of understanding the way the song will be complete in the future is in light of the foregoing distinction between the horse and its rider. In the present day and age— from the time the Jews left Egypt through the present—we cannot confidently sing and declare that the “rider” and the “horse” have been eliminated, in the realm of evil. Neither can we say wholeheartedly that even the secondary aspects of our being have been submerged in the sea of G-dly knowledge. In an exile state and mindset we cannot always get a handle on the secondary and tertiary influences.
Likewise, exile conditions make it impossible for us to say that we have fully integrated our soul with our body in the repudiation of evil and the doing of good.
Only in the future Messianic Age, will we have eliminated not only the actual causes of evil, but even the means to the end will be purified and sanctified. There will not be any “handles” of sin, let alone sin. Similarly, there will not be a part of our being—soul or PASSOVER body—left out of the spiritual experience of Moshiach and Redemption.
In the Messianic Age, G-d will remove all impurity from the land and even the “handles of sin” will be removed. And furthermore, both the soul and body will enjoy a close relationship, wherein both are harnessed for service to G-d, as the prophet declares that “all flesh shall see the word of G-d has spoken.”
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From the book Light from the Future: Last Days of Passover by Rabbi Heschel Greenberg, published by the Jewish Discovery Center.
