Rabbi Elazar Hamodai looked at the twelve springs and seventy palm trees at Eilim and saw something far older than a desert oasis. He saw the blueprint of creation itself. When God made the world, Rabbi Elazar taught, He created those twelve springs to correspond to the twelve tribes of Jacob. The seventy date-palms corresponded to the seventy elders who would one day lead Israel.
This means the oasis at Eilim was not an accident of geography. It was designed from the very beginning of the world with Israel's arrival in mind. Before Jacob was born, before the tribes existed, before the elders were appointed, God planted their symbols in the desert and waited. Creation anticipated the Exodus.
But Rabbi Elazar noticed something else in the verse. (Exodus 15:27) says "they encamped there by the waters," and he asked what the Torah intended by emphasizing their encampment by the water. His answer transformed the scene entirely. The Israelites did not merely rest and drink at Eilim. They sat by the springs and occupied themselves with Torah study, reviewing the commandments and laws that had been given to them at Marah, their previous stop.
The image is striking. Six hundred thousand people gathered around twelve ancient springs in the desert, and instead of simply refreshing their bodies, they refreshed their souls. The water of Eilim sustained their flesh. The Torah of Marah sustained their spirit. Rabbi Elazar saw both kinds of nourishment as part of God's original design, built into the world at the moment of creation.