PARSHA-PIX Parshat B'shalach
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Parsha Pix
Upper-left are the Pillar of Cloud by day and the Pillar of Fire by night.
Below them is the Davka Judaica Clipart scene of the splitting of the sea.
The tambourine in the middle is TOF MIRIAM.
The tire with a blow out represents the wheels of the Egyptian chariots
that fell off and caused the chariots to become bogged down in the sea
bed. Part of the destruction of Egypt took place when their supreme
arrogance turned to shock and panic when the wheels came off the chariots.
Soon thereafter, the waters of the Sea drowned them, but the demoralizing
effect of the wheel-losing was part of their punishment.
Upper-right is the water coming from a rock that Moshe struck with the
Staff.
The bird under the stream of water is a quail, as in quail - S’LAV, that
preceded the MN (i.e. manna).
The two challot to the left of the quail is LECHEM MISHNEH, which
commemorates the double portion of MN that fell on Friday in order to
provide for Shabbat. We not only use double challot on Shabbat to remember
the MN, but we cover them top and bottom to remind us of the two layers of
dew that protected the MN. The MN was our introduction to Shabbat. See the
candle sticks top-center.
The worm ate the left over MN - there should not have been any.
Three facets of the battle against Amalek (bottom-left & center): Moshe's
upraised hands, Yehoshua's sword, and the pen with which the account of
the battle was written down.
Lower right is the representations of the Haftara. The singing bee is
Dvora. Thunderbolt = BARAK, Devorah's associate. Milk that Yael gave to
Sisra, and the tent peg with which she killed him when he fell asleep.
The piece of a brick wall represents the brick pattern of words in the
Torah for AZ YASHIR.
The upside-down heart refers to the phrase VAYEIHAFEICH L'VAV... Par'o had
a change of heart... again.
TTRIDDLES...
are Torah Tidbits-style riddles on Parshat HaShavua (sometimes on the
calendar). They are found in the hard-copy of TT scattered throughout,
usually at the bottom of different columns. In the electronic versions of
TT, they are found all together at the end of the ParshaPix-TTriddles
section. Some TTriddles are also presented for call-in
solutiononTorahTidbitsAudio(Arutz-7, Thursday night). The best solution
set submitted each week (there isn't always a best) wins a double prize a
CD from Noam Productions and/or a gift (game, puzzle, book, etc.) from Big
Deal
Last issue’s (BO) TTriddles:
[1] No less appropriate for its, than the next
[2] Cuore par'o and whom?
[3] negative for women & Egypt; positive for Avraham & Yishmael
[4] Avraham, Yosef, Par'o, Moshe, David, Sha'ul, and...? Quick - what's
the answer?
[5] This week, it's too early, but next week, it's exactly what G-d said
to do.
[6] Twice this Shabbat morning; 22 times after Shabbat
[7] plus three elements from the Parsha Pix
And the envelope, please
[1] One extra word would have made this TTriddle a lot easier: ...for its
plague, than the next. The answer is the description of the locust as
darkening the earth. VATECHSHACH HAARETZ. To be sure, that phrase would
fit with the next plague - DARKNESS. But know well that the phrase is no
less appropriate for LOCUST. A major swarm can cover an area of many
square kilometers, and can turn day into night as well as the rotation of
the Earth does every day.
[2] Here’s another example of a mean TTriddle. It could have been Par’o’s
heart and whom? It just seemed like more fun to use a translation of heart
in another language. Why Italian? No special reason. Cuore is heart in
Italian. And G-d strengthened Par’o’s heart. VAYCHAZEIK HASHEM ET LEIV
PAR’O occurs five times, four of which are in Bo, once in B’shalach.
Besides Par’o’s heart, the phrase VAYCHAZEIK HASHEM ET appears only one
other time. In Sho-f’tim (the Book,not the sedra) 3:12, after 40 years of
tranquility under the Judge Otni’elben K’naz, the people of Israel sinned
against G-d and G-d strengthened EGLON, king of Mo’av.
[3] This was a fun TTriddle because it involves a play-on-words. The
answer is ARBEH, which occurs seven times in the Torah (without prefixes,
counting HA-ARBEH, BA-ARBEH, etc. the number goes up). The three times it
is mentioned in Bo, it refers to the locust, which was negative for Egypt.
Besides locust, the word ARBEH means “I will increase”. The first time the
word is used with that meaning, it is in the context of G-d’s statement to
Chava, after she and Adam ate from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil,
and refers to an increase in pain in pregnancy and childbirth. Negative
for women. Then the word is used by the angel who spoke to Hagar and
promised that Yishmael’s descendants with increase to great uncountable
numbers. So too is the promise to Avraham Avinu. Hence, positive for
Avraham and Yishmael.
[4] On the other hand, this TTriddle was a give-away. Because of the word
QUICK. The answer is VAYMAHEIR. The TTriddle is restricted to the word
followed by the name of a person. And Avraham hastened to the tent to
Sara... Yosef went quickly out of the room because he was overwhelmed with
feelings of mercy for his brothers... Par’o quickly called Moshe and
Aharon (after the plague of Locust)... Moshe quickly bowed to G-d after
G-d revealed to Him the Thirteen Divine Attributes. David sped towards
Golyat, took a stone from his pouch (and you know the rest). Sha’ul
quickly prostrated himself because he was terribly afraid of what Shmuel
had just told him. And who else? Shim’i ben Geira (Shmuel bet 19:17).
[5] All right. This one was definitely too vague. Didn’t seem so on the
TTriddle-making side. So watch how it developed. BEIN HAARBAYIM. That was
the starting point. The time frame for bringing the Korban Pesach. The
afternoon of the 14th of Nissan. What we call Erev Pesach. Time to bring
theKorban Pesach, but too early to eat its meat. That’s in “this week’s
sedra” (Bo). But in next week’s (which is this week’s when you are reading
this, B’shalach), BEIN HAARBAYIM is when G-d said the people will eat meat
(referring to the quail). In the morning, it will be the Manna...
[6] Several solvers got this one. Twice in the haftara of Parshat Bo, the
phrase AL TIRA AVDI YAAKOV, fear not My servant, Yaakov. (The phrase also
occurs in Yeshayahu and earlier in Yirmiyahu.) The phrase is the refrain
of one of the Motza’ei Shabbat Z’mirot. It is made up of 22 lines,
following the Alef-Bet.
[7] And then we have three “unexplained” elements from the ParshaPix,
which become visual TTriddles, a.k.a. ParshaPixPuzzles.
There is a calf with a ribbon, obviously won at the county fair, for the
most beautiful calf. Or, in the words of the haftara, EGLA Y’FEI-FIYA.
[8] And there is a computer monitor with a U on the screen, making the
word U-TZAG, as in Sh’mot 10:24. Nothing deep here, just a pictograph (or
pictogram) for a word in the sedra.
[9] What this thing that looks like a strange key is really a symbol from
a weather map. Specifically, it is a symbol that describes wind direction
and strength, and cloud cover. The direction is indicated by a wind barb,
in this case it is pointing to the east, meaning an easterly wind, meaning
that the wind is coming from the east. As in RU’ACH KADIM. The penant and
the lines on the barb indicate wind speed, in the pix it is 65 knots
(nautical miles per hour). That’s a fairly strong wind. In this TTriddle,
it is the wind that brought the ARBEH, the locust. The filled in circle
indicates that the sky is fully covered. Usually, it means with clouds. In
this visual TTriddle, of course, it refers to the swarm of locust which
covered the sky (darkened the earth).
This week's TTriddles:
[1] Buttermilk & Dale
[2] What does it come before in B'shalach and in Avot?
[3] ALEF & HEI for them; VAV for her
[4] Avraham (2), Lavan, Moshe, and whom?
[5] Dov's Zeta & 80
[6] Population promise & Egyptian morgue
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