Shavuot תרמ"ה 5

כתיב בהוציאך את העם ממצרים תעבדון כו'.

It is written: "When you bring the people out of Mitzrayim, you shall serve [Elokim upon this mountain]" (Shemos 3:12).

Hashem tells Moshe that the goal of the exodus from Mitzrayim is the avodah at Har Sinai — the giving of the Torah. The Sefas Emes will show that the Exodus was only truly completed at Sinai.

א"כ נראה שעתה בהר סיני נשלם יציאת מצרים כדאיתא בזוה"ק בפסוק וחמשים עלו בני ישראל מארץ מצרים.

If so, it appears that now, at Har Sinai, the exodus from Mitzrayim was completed, as is brought in the Zohar on the verse "And the Bnei Yisrael went up chamushim (armed/fifty) from the land of Mitzrayim" (Shemos 13:18).

Since the purpose of leaving Mitzrayim was to serve Hashem at Sinai, the redemption was not finished at the splitting of the sea but only at Matan Torah. The Zohar reads "chamushim" as related to "fifty," hinting at the fifty days counted to Shavuos.

חמשין זמנין אידכר יצ"מ כו'.

"Fifty times is yetzias Mitzrayim (the Exodus) mentioned [in the Torah]…"

The Zohar notes that the Exodus is recalled fifty times, corresponding to the fifty days of Sefiras HaOmer and the fifty levels of holiness — each day lifting Bnei Yisrael further out of Egyptian impurity.

והיינו שבנ' ימים אלו יצאו בפרטות מכל המ"ט שערי טומאה.

That is, in these fifty days they emerged, level by level, from all forty-nine gates of impurity (sha'arei tum'ah).

The fifty days between Pesach and Shavuos were a gradual ascent: each day Bnei Yisrael climbed out of another of the forty-nine gates of impurity into which they had sunk in Mitzrayim, until they reached the fiftieth gate of holiness at Sinai.

ועתה שחתם הקב"ה שמו אנכי ה' אלקיך אשר הוצאתיך אז נגמר החירות לגמרי והתורה הוא השטר שחרור.

And now, when Hakadosh Baruch Hu sealed His Name — "I am Hashem your Elokim who took you out" (Shemos 20:2) — then the freedom was completed entirely, and the Torah is the shtar shichrur (writ of emancipation).

The first of the Aseres HaDibros opens by declaring Hashem as the One who took Bnei Yisrael out of Mitzrayim. With this, their liberation became total: the Torah itself serves as their writ of freedom, the document that formally releases a slave and binds him instead to Hashem.

לכן איתא אין לך בן חורין אלא מי שעוסק בתורה.

Therefore it is brought: "There is no free man except one who occupies himself with Torah" (Avos 6:2).

Since the Torah is the very document of emancipation, true freedom is found only in toiling in Torah — for that is what completes and sustains the redemption from Mitzrayim.

וכמ"ש רש"י בפסוק עבדי הם שטרי קודם:

And as Rashi writes on the verse "they are My servants" (Vayikra 25:55): "My writ comes first."

Rashi explains that Bnei Yisrael cannot become slaves to others because Hashem's "writ" — His claim upon them as His servants, established at Sinai — takes precedence over any later bond. Being avadim of Hashem through the Torah is precisely what makes a Jew a truly free man, never subject to any other master.

Summary: The exodus from Mitzrayim was not completed at the sea but at Har Sinai. Through the fifty days of counting, Bnei Yisrael ascended out of the forty-nine gates of impurity, and when Hashem sealed His Name in the first commandment, the freedom became total. The Torah is the writ of emancipation — so only one who toils in Torah, becoming a servant of Hashem, is truly free.