B'Shallach

As the Exodus from Egypt commences Jewish families scurried trying to put everything in order. Having moved homes, you know the enormous responsibilities of packing everything securely, trying to remember to pick up all things necessary and discard those things that have no value.
In addition to all this hubbub the Jews had to gather from their Egyptian neighbors their earnings, what they were owed, on the eve of their departure, lest it be lost forever.
Everyone was busy with these “things’ except Moshe Rabbenu.  He remembered a promise that Joseph made his children swear; when they were finally freed from slavery they were to take his bones and inter them in the Land of Israel.   Moshe did not forget.
The sarcophagus of Joseph was submerged at the bottom of the Nile River.  Moshe went to the river, retrieved the coffin, and personally carried them into the new world of freedom.
In much the same way when we have moved from one home to another we take our precious mezzuzot with us. And when we, as a community, moved, we wrapped our most precious possession – the Torah -- with us and carried them on our backs to our new home.
The Torah is our life.   Wherever we are, it is.

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