The Mystery in the Sea

Are you in a meaningful relationship of any sort? It could be a marriage, a significant other, a parent or a child. It could be a mentor or teacher.

If a relationship is built on an expectation that the other will do the hard work of developing the relationship and your contribution is to sit by and respond, that relationship will have a short shelf life. This is true even when the hierarchy of the given relationship puts you at the top, like
an employer or a parent.

The same is true in our relationship with G-d. A relationship with Hashem requires our investment. If we approach the relationship with an openness to learn, to experience to connect then we will find like any other relationship a response.

“If you speak to G-d you are pious, if G-d speaks to you are crazy”… author unknown.

This doesn’t mean that G-d is not speaking to you, He just speaks in ways we have to navigate through non audible sensorial means.

In this light, this week’s Torah portion tells us something about how G-d sees us – the Jewish People.

The miracle of the splitting of the sea was not simply a miraculous event that was enacted to save the Jews from the Egyptian pursuit. Rather, it was an event that was a testimony to a People that are a miraculous People. It was G-d’s way of saying – in His relationship with us – you, Jewish People are beautiful, you’re amazing and you are a miraculous People.

You are not subject to the same rules of nature that others around you are subject to. The Exodus from Egypt was the beginning of this reality of a People who are miraculous (it actually started earlier with Abraham, but as a People it started at the Exodus). It continued throughout
our history and until this very day.

See Mark Twain.

On the other side of the relationship Hashem embracing our miraculous nature gives us a miraculous job to do. That is, to bring His presence into this world through doing Mitvos and living a physical and material life permeated with the knowledge of its G-dliness.

That is our relationship in all of its profound glory. G-d to us – you are a miracle. Us to G-d – we will make the miracle evident in our day to day lives.

It is any wonder then that G-d could and did split the sea on behalf of His miracle of a People?