You'd think after all that, they'd want to get there as quickly as possible. But the Torah tells us something curious: "God led the people around, via the wilderness by the Red Sea, and the children of Israel ascended armed [ḥamushim] from the land of Egypt" (Exodus 13:18).

That little phrase, "God led the people around [vayasev]," is what catches the eye of the Rabbis in Shemot Rabbah. Why "around"? Why not straight?

The Midrash, in its beautiful way, offers a compelling analogy. Imagine a merchant who buys a cow, not for slaughter, but for work. But the merchant's house is right next to a slaughterhouse. He thinks to himself, "If I lead this cow past the slaughterhouse, it will see the blood, it will smell the fear, and it will bolt! I need to take it another way."

That's precisely what God did with the Israelites.

According to this Midrash, the direct route would have led them straight through the land of the Philistines, specifically Gaza and Ashkelon. A confrontation was almost guaranteed. But the Holy One, Blessed be He, knew that the Israelites, so recently freed from bondage, weren't ready for war. They were still vulnerable, still fragile in their newfound freedom. As the text says, "Lest the people reconsider when they see war, and return to Egypt" (Exodus 13:17).

Can you imagine? After all that hardship, all those miracles, to turn back at the first sign of trouble?

So, what did God do? He took them on an "alternative route," as Shemot Rabbah puts it. He led them "around."

It's a powerful image, isn't it? God, not as a distant, uninvolved deity, but as a caring guide, carefully considering the needs and limitations of His people. It's a reminder that sometimes, the most direct path isn't always the best path. Sometimes, we need to be protected from what we're not yet ready to face. Sometimes, the detour is the destination.

This story from Shemot Rabbah invites us to consider the detours in our own lives. The times when we didn't get what we wanted, or when things didn't go according to plan. Could it be that, like the Israelites in the wilderness, we were being led "around" for our own good? Perhaps to avoid a battle we weren't ready to fight, or to prepare us for something greater down the road?