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.
The stop sign with the word Shabbat is found at the limit of one's
T'chum Shabbat, Shabbat boundary.
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. 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] Lavan, Aharon, and Par'o many times
[2] Connection between this week's sedra and King Achav
[3] #Point of Departure and Bruto Duration
[4] The 114 connection
[5] Savana, Banana... among others
[6] Par'o said it thrice; David HaMelech twice; and someone else
said it once. Who?
[7] plus 2 elements from the ParshaPix
And the envelope, please...
[1] LEV (heart). The word is used in the sense of "the heart of
so-and-so" for only three people in the Torah. Lavan, Aharon, and
Par'o. Lavan's heart was "stolen" by Yaakov when Yaakov left without
telling Lavan. The breastplate of the Kohein Gadol (CHOSHEN) was to
be worn on "Aharon's heart". From Sh'mot 7:3 to 14:8, the phrase LEV
PAR'O appears 13 times.
[2] This was a trickier than usual TTriddle - now I'm sorry I put in
the word "king" as a red herring. Some- one might have solved it
without that word. King refers to Par'o, so that the word
technically fits. Focus though on ACHAV. Not ACH-AV the king, but
ACHAV spelled ALEF-CHET-BET with a " between the CHET and the BET.As
in the end of Rabbi Yehuda's acronym for the 10 Plagues. D'TZACH,
ADASH, BA- ACHAV. The connection is that ARBEH, CHOSHECH, and
B'CHOROT are the three plagues found in Parshat Bo, the first 7
being in Va'eira. As expected, a couple of solvers found real
connections between the infamous king and the sedra.
[3] This one was solved by a few people, even to the point of being
on the easy side, especially with the # sign to lead a solver to
G'matriya. The numeric value of the name of the city from which the
people of Israel left Egypt - namely, RA-M'SEIS, is 430, which is
the "gross" number of years of the duration of our
Egyptian"experience". Actual time in Egypt was less; period of real
slavery even shorter. But the Torah counts the time from the
prophecy to Avraham Avinu through the Exodus as 430 years.
[4] This one should have been a piece of cake for our veteran
solvers. T'hilim 114 is B'TZEIT YISRAEL MIMITZRAYIM... That's it.
[5] This was a fun TTriddle. Got by some of the expert TTriddlers,
but not past YYW (but he's still working on two others). The answer
is in Targum Onkeles. In Sh'mot 10:9, Moshe gives Par'o the famous
answer to the question of who will be going out to serve G-d. Moshe
said (in Aramaic translation) - with ULEMANA (our youngsters)and
with our SAVANA (senior citizens)... with BANANA (our sons) and
B'NATANA (our daughters)... etc. SAVANA and BANANA jump out and
said, "make us into a TTriddle" - so we did.
[6] IVDU ET HASHEM - Serve G-d. Par'o said it three times - first,
right before ARBEH (locust), the threat of which almost had Par'o
capitulating. Then again, after the plague of Darkness. And a third
time right after MAKAT B'CHOROT. David HaMelech in T'hilim said it
twice. Once, that we should serve G-d with fear and reverence. The
other time, to serve Him with joy. The only other time the phrase
appears in Tanach is in Divrei HaYamim, when Yoshiyahu said it
during the celebration of the bringing of the Korban Pesach in
Yerushalayim. Interesting how that connects with the times that
Par'o said it. That's it - 6 times in Tanach.
[7] The unexplained plant in the ParshaPix is the hyssop, EIZOV,
used to apply the blood of the Korban Pesach to the doorposts and
lintels of the Jewish homes in Mitzrayim.
[8] The other unexplained element of the PP was a variation on a
ParshaPixPuzzle of several years ago. Coke with the OKE in the font
used by CocaCola and the C made from a snake, becomes a play on the
words in the haftara of Parshat Bo - Yirmiyahu 46:22, KOLAH
K'NACHASH... its sound like a snake... (or in TTriddle-talk, Cola
like a snake).
Honors this week to YYW, RHM, and BYS (the new kid on the block).
This week's TTriddles:
[1] A dozen ballpoint pens have them - 5 Iyar thru 15 Tammuz
[2] Dalfon the Fuller Brush man
[3] All of Torah and two portions
[4] A question, good food, bad
[5] Lavan, Nevayot, Nachshon, Aharon - What and who else?
[6] Three did this in the Torah: Avraham, Lavan,
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