As the Jews leave Egypt we hear about the cloud that accompanied them. To quote the Pasuk, ויקוק הולך לפניהם יומם בעמוד ענן לנחותם הדרך … לא ימיש עמוד הענן יומם. Hashem walked before them in a cloud to lead the way, and this cloud never moved from in front of the people. We also hear later in ספר במדבר that this cloud dictated when they would travel and when they would rest.
On a seemingly unrelated note, there were 3 times the “Jews” left Egypt. What am I talking about you say? The Jews only left once! Well, right after Hashem introduces Himself to Avraham, there was a famine in כנען where Avraham lived, and Avraham needed to go down to Mitzrayim to get food for his family. That was when Pharaoh tried to take Sarah as a wife and he was punished until he let them go. Then, Yosef and his brothers, along with a large entourage left Mitzrayim to bury Yaakov in Chevron. And finally, the יציאת מצרים we all know and love, when our entire nation exited from there. The ילקוט שמעוני sees this comparison and tells us that Avraham “conquered the road” for us when we left, and the מדרש goes on to show dozens of language parallels between Avraham’s journey to and exit from Egypt and our nations, one of them being this parallel of כבד.
What is interesting is that in all 3 of these instances the Torah says that when they left, they were “כבד” literally heavy. By Avraham it says ואברם כבד מאד במקנה בכסף ובזהב. By Yaakov it says ויהי המחנה כבד מאד. And lastly, in פרשת בא it says וגם ערב רב עלו אתם וצאן ובקר מקנה כבד מאד. It appears there is a connection between leaving Egypt and being “heavy”. To make matters more intertwined, the פירוש (I don’t remember exactly which one and I don’t have the ספר in front of me) on the מדרש that we quoted above says that it was considered a heavy camp since the cloud of Hashem was there.
What does that mean? Why would that consider us a “heavy” camp? What is a heavy camp? And there’s a much bigger problem, clouds are there exact opposite of heavy! If you think about it, air is the lightest thing in our world, and when you look up you see that clouds are floating above the air. This would make clouds even lighter than air. So why would the explanation to the מדרש say that the Torah called us a heavy camp since we had the clouds of Hashem with us? Clouds are ultra-light!
I think the Torah is addressing a concern that the Jews might have felt a certain way when they left Egypt and I think that it is a possible trap for us today as well. If you put yourself in the shoes of the Jews who left Mitzrayim, sure they were scared, they jumped into the sea and the desert with faith, but they were also the chosen people. Hashem had brought the most powerful civilization of the world to its knees just to vindicate their suffering. Egypt had been destroyed so they could survive. The nations of כנען were trembling in fear from them. And even internally, 4/5 of their people had been killed, and as sad as that was for them, it also gives them the sense that they are crème de la crème, the most choicest people that Hashem could find in the world. this could easily lead to arrogance, and arrogance is associated with weightiness and importance (think of the CEO “weighing in” on a decision).
So I think that Hashem is giving us the following message: I created the world. I control the world. I could be considered the “heaviest” thing in the world. My decisions are reality. But you want to see how I manifest in this world? As a cloud. As the lightest thing there is. Because sometimes, to be the heaviest you need to be able to be the lightest.
And when you are light, then you can spread the light to the entire world 😊