Forward!

By Moshe Feiglin

And the Children of Israel walked on the dry land in the sea and the water was a wall for them on their right and on their left. (From this week's Torah portion, B'shalach, Exodus 14:29)

The splitting of the Red Sea, with walls of water standing upright and not drowning the Children of Israel is certainly a great miracle. But a major part of the miracle was the fact that the Children of Israel recognized the event as a miracle in real time.

The existence of the Nation of Israel is not natural. Frederick the Great of Prussia asked a Lutheran minister for proof of G-d. "The Jews," replied the minister, "the Jews." This non-Jew wisely saw the walls of water to the right and to the left of the Nation of Israel throughout the millennia and came to the conclusion that most people arrive at only when seeing a miracle with their own eyes.

Today, the walls of water still stand to our right and to our left. As in the time of the Exodus, the only path open to us remains the same: "And G-d said to Moses, 'Speak to the Children of Israel and let them go forward'."

Shabbat Shalom