Timeless Torah

The defining moment of Jewish faith took place on the shores of the Sea, as the fleeing, fledgling nation was cornered. Trapped between raging waters and a raging Egyptian army, the people had few options. Some gave up hope. Others wanted to appeal for mercy from their former tormentors. Another faction petitioned for war against the Egyptians, while a last group advocated praying to G-d.

The Almighty however rejected all four approaches. What then was the Jew to do when caught between a hostile enemy and an unyielding sea? Replace fear with faith and as G-d demanded, “Go forward.” So Nachshon the son of Aminadav plunged in, and as they say, the rest is history. That act of faith is recorded in the Torah with these words, “Israel saw the great hand that Hashem inflicted upon Egypt and the [Jewish] people…had faith in Hashem.”

A common “modern” complaint: How come G-d doesn’t split the sea for us? I don’t mean the everyday sort of miracle like childbirth or the sunrise. I am talking about splitting seas, dead people coming alive, voices-from-heaven and hand-writing-on-the-wall type of miracles. The really supernatural stuff! Simply put, why did the people of the Bible get all the special effects and we don’t? Has G-d retired?

The assumption being that if we received, let’s say, manna from heaven, we too would have deep faith, commitment, and spontaneous eruptions into ecstatic song. But in fact, is that true? The Talmud notes that for Hashem to provide a person his livelihood is as “difficult” to do as the splitting of the sea. One has to ask, what is the common denominator between these two?

Let’s imagine the following scenario. You go to bed all worried, wondering how you will find some money to buy your children breakfast tomorrow morning. After many anxious and wakeful hours you finally manage to fall asleep. At 6:00 AM there’s a loud knock at your home and an envelope is slipped underneath the front door. In the envelope is a hundred dollars cash. You quickly run outside in order to discover your benefactor and offer your thanks, but there is no one to be found. “Who could that have been?” you wonder, “I wanted to thank him!” The next morning, at the exact time, the same thing happens, and continues for all six days of the week (on Friday, there is two hundred).

The weeks turn into months but the envelopes continue like clockwork. After a while you stop running outside. The months turn into years and your good fortune is taken for granted. Hence you put a sign on the front door asking the mysterious giver not to knock so early in the morning. You become annoyed when your order is ignored. You begin to wonder why you don’t just get a lump sum. One day, imagine the nerve, the envelope only has fifty dollars and you’re ready to sue. Sounds absurd! I don’t think so.
Faith is not the result of miracles. Though the verse reads, ,“Israel saw the great hand that Hashem inflicted upon Egypt and the [Jewish] people…had faith in Hashem. ” in actuality, the chronology was exactly the opposite. First they had faith, enough to dive headfirst into the waters. Only afterwards, indeed only as a consequence, did Hashem split the sea.

Faith then is not the result of experience. On the contrary, faith is an act that comes from within and creates the experience. In other words, things happen because you trust they will. This answers both questions. In Judaism, there is no difference between the natural and the miraculous. When something happens once we call it a miracle. When it happens daily we call it nature. If a baby would be born at the end of a tree limb his picture would fill all the papers. But if it started happening on trees all over the world, people would be spraying and pruning the trees to prevent crowding. Similarly, if the sea would split every day and twice on Sundays, many of us would postpone going to see the event until it would be too late. Certain events that happen once in history send out great waves of inspiration. But in fact, the splitting of the sea is no more amazing than receiving a bowl of granola for breakfast. This is why our ancestors’ faith prompted both, the once-in-a-lifetime sea split and the daily manna for forty years. Their faith - that both are the Hand of G-d at work - did not wane from the very first day until the end of the forty years. It was this unwavering conviction that created both experiences.

During the 1991 Gulf War, as Scud missiles were fired against Israel, we witnessed open miracles. During the first two days, though over 20 missiles landed, no one died. The next time the missiles flew, American patriot missiles were launched to destroy them. The Chovos Halevavos (authored by Rabbeunu Bachya in 1040) warns the person who “places his trust in something other than G-d, G-d hands him over into the hands of that thing that he trusts.”

The news reports later claimed that a patriot did hit one of the incoming scuds that night. Unfortunately, it hit the back section, knocking the warhead off course. Consequently, it hit a building near Tel Aviv, killing one person - the only warhead that caused a direct fatality in the entire series of attacks. The first two times, there was nothing to trust except G-d…and we did better! Once again we saw this truism at work. Faith, or lack of it, creates our experience.

Many people claim that faith is a sign of weakness, something to resort to when all else fails. In earlier times, this thinking goes, faith was a necessity because man didn’t have science to help explain the laws of nature; but in the face of all of man’s brilliant accomplishments, we have outgrown its use.

In truth, we are all born with faith. It is neither acquired nor taught; it is our most natural state. A young child, for instance, has faith naturally. But as one grows older, one’s belief becomes obscured by man’s hypocrisy. The result is he learns to distrust himself and his own inner beliefs. Yes, we may harbor doubts and feel saddened by the suffering in the world. But abandoning your trust in G-d means that you are compromising yourself. Thus, when we witness a society run amok, direct your anger where it belongs - at man. If anything, curb your reliance in man, but never your faith in G-d. Your life will be a better experience for it.