The Secret of the Sea – Shvi’i shel Pesach
On the 21st day of Nisan, the (7th) last day of Pesach, the miracle of the Splitting of the Red Sea took place. Every year we remember this by reading from parshat Beshalach which details the miracle and also Shirat HaYam that Am Yisrael sang afterward.
The question is – Why did this miracle have to occur in the first place?
Was it necessary to perform this miracle? Were the Ten Plagues in Egypt not enough testimony to HKB”H’s greatness and supreme power over everything in our world (and beyond)? To understand this, we need to return to the origin of water.
When HKB”H created the world, He first created Heaven and earth. But it wasn’t just sky and sand, it was more like a kind of a “sandwich” - between Heaven and earth there were two additional layers - water and the “spirit” of HKB”H “floating” on top of the water. So at the bottom you have earth, above that and totally covering it - water, above that the “spirit” of HKB”H and above that Heaven. It sounds so organized, so orderly, but no! The passuk says that the earth was chaos and in total darkness.
On the first day HKB”H created light, the pure light of Creation, the אור הגנוז. On the second day HKB”H took the water layer from our “sandwich” above and split it into two distinct sub-layers – the upper waters and the lower waters, separated by the רָקִיעַ. HKB”H then called this new רָקִיעַ layer a different name, שָׁמָיִם (Heaven). You may read more about the upper and lower waters in the shiur on Vayikra).
By the end of the 2nd day, the entire earth was covered by water – salt water. On the 3rd day HKB”H consolidated this salt water in specific areas, allowing the earth to be exposed. HKB”H called these consolidated areas of water – sea. We do not read about it until the 6th day, but on earth there were two types of water – the sea (salt) water and terrestrial (sweet) water – rivers and lakes. In fact the two types of water have the same origin – the sea. The terrestrial water is simply “processed” sea water. There is a special mechanism to “process” (desalinate) sea water and transport it to the earth, called - clouds.
So, to summarize, we have upper waters in Heaven and lower waters down here on earth, separated on the 2nd day. Just as there is a separation of the salt and sweet waters down here on earth, there is a similar separation of the “salt” and “sweet” waters in Heaven. Obviously the water down here and the water up there are not the same - the upper waters reflect spiritual concepts.
Although the passuk says HKB”H created plants on the 3rd day, the meaning is that the plants were created in potential. They did not emerge from the ground until the 6th day, the day Adam Harishon was created.
On the 6th day the passuk says –
וְאֵד יַעֲלֶה מִן הָאָרֶץ וְהִשְׁקָה אֶת כָּל פְּנֵי הָאֲדָמָה (בראשית ב, ו).
A cloud arose from the earth and irrigated the entire face of the land. This refers to the process whereby sea water evaporates, forms clouds (which are sweet water – without the salt). The wind blows these clouds over the landmass and they release this sweet water in the form of rain/snow. This rain seeps into the ground causing the plants to grow and also accumulates in the form of rivers, lakes and subterranean reservoirs.
עד כאן the 3rd grade geography lesson. It is a real pity though, that we never learn it again after the 3rd grade, because in this “simplistic” mechanism lies one of the greatest secrets of the Torah and life. Some of the most important things in life are learnt in grade school, when we do not truly understand their importance. For example, in 3rd grade we also learn about the “food pyramid”, proteins, carbs, minerals etc. Those in charge of our education system think it is sufficient to stop there. If we would continue to study these “basic” principles repeatedly throughout our life, achieving greater understanding of them, we would be of a much higher spiritual מדרגה and also lead healthier lives. There is a treasure trove of wisdom in the “kid’s stuff”.
Water is the basis of life, it is essential to life itself – plants, animals, humans. The plants (trees, grasses etc.) only sprang forth from the ground on the 6th day because that was the day Adam was created and their purpose was intricately connected to man. They were waiting patiently in the ground until the cloud, the ְאֵד irrigated them.
We are made from water (approximately 55% of our body mass is water). HKB”H took a handful (kemitza) of sand from the earth mixed with water and created Adam. This is why Adam is called חלתו של עולם because by taking a handful of the moist earth, HKB”H was in effect doing Hafrashat Challah from the adama to create Adam. Trees are made from water (approximately 50% of their mass).
Until now everything was hunky dory. But then the problems began. The tree sinned – it disobeyed HKB”H’s directive to have the wood of the tree taste like the fruit. Adam Harishon sinned. According to Meir Panim it was by eating from this sinful tree (the עץ הדעת). The forbidden food itself was “dust” (flour from grinding wheat) mixed together with water into a chametz bread.
By sinning, both the tree and Adam implicated water in the sin. The water, like Adam and the עץ הדעת, now also required tikkun.
This tikkun took place after יציאת מצרים. The Exodus was a rebirth of the world, a reset of the world to the situation before the sin - a reset of all parts of the world that participated in the sin. The tikkun for water’s part in the sin took place at קריעת ים סוף. The rashei teivot of the passuk וְאֵד יַעֲלֶה מִן הָאָרֶץ וְהִשְׁקָה אֶת כָּל פְּנֵי הָאֲדָמָה are “וים הוא כפה” (Meir Panim). We all remember the words of Chazal that HK”BH made a תנאי with the sea during the 6 days of Creation, that it would split when Am Yisrael left Egypt. This is the תנאי – it is embedded within that very passuk from Breishit.
The sea was not split unevenly, like 70% of the water on one side and 30% on the other. It was split 50-50, וְהַמַּיִם לָהֶם חוֹמָה מִימִינָם וּמִשְּׂמֹאלָם, because that is the predominant ratio of water in living matter.
The miracle of קריעת ים סוף was a duplicate of the situation in Gan Eden before the sin. All the water was present there. There was salt water, in two equal, towering walls on either side (of each tribe). Anyone who was thirsty just reached into the wall of sea water and the water turned to sweet drinking water in their hands. In the walls of water were trees with every imaginable fruit, just like in Gan Eden.
The miracle of קריעת ים סוף was not just an additional spectacle of the many miraculous spectacles of the Exodus. It was an essential, final component of the tikkun of the sin that landed us in Egypt in the first place. It was preceded by preliminary stages of the tikkun by the Avot and the Imahot. The gematriya of the passuk וְאֵד יַעֲלֶה מִן הָאָרֶץ וְהִשְׁקָה אֶת כָּל פְּנֵי הָאֲדָמָה is “אדם וחוה אברהם ושרה יצחק ורבקה יעקב ולאה” (Meir Panim).
The tikkun for the sin of the אֵד, the cloud, also took place in another kind of cloud, the ענני הכבוד. The gematriya of the passuk וְאֵד יַעֲלֶה מִן הָאָרֶץ וְהִשְׁקָה אֶת כָּל פְּנֵי הָאֲדָמָה is “לֹא יָמִישׁ עַמּוּד הֶעָנָן יוֹמָם וְעַמּוּד הָאֵשׁ לָיְלָה לִפְנֵי הָעָם” (Meir Panim).
HKB”H wanted the source of life to come from a cloud davka. If HKB”H wanted, He could have designed the mechanism differently. The sea water could have been filtered by the sea sand on the beach, to trickle into a subterranean reservoir, from which it would bubble up with pressure into springs above ground. That also works. In fact it works very well – that is the way modern desalination systems are designed. But no! HKB”H specifically wanted the entire system to revolve around a cloud. Why?
The reason is simple. HKB”H appears in this world in a cloud. That is how the world began וְרוּחַ אֱ-לֹקִים מְרַחֶפֶת עַל פְּנֵי הַמָּיִם. When HKB”H descended on Har Sinai, it was in a cloud. When He appeared to Moshe in the Ohel Mo’ed, it was in a cloud. When Hashem appears to us – on a daily basis (we are just so numbed by “normalcy”, that we miss it) – He appears in a rain cloud.
This is why I said we should study 3rd grade stuff more often. When you want to know how to dress in the morning you listen to the weather report. Is it going to be clear, cloudy, rain, snow? When most people hear “rain” by the forecaster, it is a טרחה for them – they have to dress in boots, carry an umbrella, etc., unless they are a farmer. Only a farmer really knows the essence of rain. Rain to a farmer is life. We suburbanites think that rain is a bother, but without it there would be no food to eat. We only experience it further down the chain – the farmer sees it directly in front of his eyes.
We have no clue what rain clouds really are. They are HKB”H revealing Himself in this world. If we are worthy they are clouds of bracha, if not they are clouds of punishment (flood, monsoon, tsunami).
HKB”H designed the mechanism using clouds, because He wants to be a constant, active part of it. When HKB”H punished the נחש, He gave him sand to eat. Sand is all around, you don’t need to look very hard to find it - you don’t have to pray to HKB”H to give you sand. HKB”H didn’t want any connection with the נחש, so he gave him a food system that resembles modern desalination systems for water – G-d is not involved in it at all. That is not the relationship HKB”H wants with us. He wants a constant, close relationship, a relationship where we speak with Him every day, many times a day, where we ask Him to give us life, to sustain our lives.
The reason we have resorted to desalinating water is because we misunderstand how things work in the world. Yes, Israel is making lots of bucks selling the technology to 3rd world countries, but the rest of the world could be getting water, LOADS more water and for free, in a much easier way. If Am Yisrael would have a loving Father/son relationship with HKB”H, the way it should be, both we and also the entire world would be deluged with abundance – rain, food, prosperity, without having to come up will all kinds of “kunsim”, desalination, genetic engineering of crops, pesticides, chemical fertilizers, etc. All we need to do is to let HKB”H do what He does best and …… simply ask Him nicely for it!
But no, mankind has to be “independent”, not reliant on G-d, because they want to sin and still enjoy prosperity. That was Migdal Bavel. It is a war with G-d, it is all כוחי ועוצם ידי and we know how that always ends.
The Splitting of the Red Sea was part of the reset, back to the way things should be. However, Am Yisrael in the Midbar failed to accomplish this reset the way it was intended. By sinning with the עגל and the מרגלים, they put us back a few thousand years - they delayed the reset for a few thousand years. Just like the Avot and in Egypt, Am Yisrael were performing the tikkun to do the reset. So too have we been, for the last 1953 years, doing the same tikkun, through suffering, expulsion, pogrom and Holocaust.
But now we are so very close to that final reset. At most - 217 years off and if we really want, it could be sooner. The gematriya of the passuk וְאֵד יַעֲלֶה מִן הָאָרֶץ וְהִשְׁקָה אֶת כָּל פְּנֵי הָאֲדָמָה is “וְהַצָּעִיר לְגוֹי עָצוּם אֲנִי ה' בְּעִתָּהּ אֲחִישֶׁנָּה” (Meir Panim).
What prevents it all from happening sooner is only one thing - sin.
On Shvi’i shel Pesach we have a unique opportunity to remedy that. On every other day of the year we are preoccupied with life and do not have the wherewithal to make a special effort, but on the last day of Chag we do.
Chazal say that if we recite Shirat Hayam בציבור, out loud – not just reading it, but singing it (בטעמי מקרא), with the same joy and gratitude as if we were actually present on the shores of the Red Sea, witnessing Am Yisrael’s salvation – then HKB”H will forgive ALL our sins and we get a clean slate!
Do you understand what that means? It means that every day of our lives we have a chance to clean the slate, like the Korban Tamid in the Beit Hamikdash. If we made a special effort every day during Shacharit to spend a minute or two more on Shirat Hayam the way it is meant to be recited, we could transform our lives and the world. But the clock on the wall seems to us to be more important, making that bus, clocking in at work – it all takes precedence, and slowly אֲחִישֶׁנָּה begins to slip away and we doom our children to have to live another generation without the Geulah.
On Shvi’i shel Pesach we have no excuses, let us grab hold of this magical opportunity with both hands and resolve to continue it throughout the rest of the year and then not only will we be privileged to experience our own קריעת ים סוף every day of our lives, we will merit witnessing the reset that the world and mankind so desperately need. בבי"א.
Chag sameach
