Pesach - Believe
Our presence at the Seder is the greatest miracle—even more than those in Egypt.
On the last day of Pesach, we commemorate a seminal moment from Yetziat Mitzrayim—the splitting of the Red Sea. When we read this section in Parshat Beshalach a few months ago, I half-jokingly remarked, quoting Professor Ferziger, that it seemed to predict the Eagles’ triumph in this year’s Super Bowl—and, incredibly, it did!
But in the arena of world events (which, even for Eagles fans, could be slightly more significant), the Shirat HaYam—the Song of the Sea—anticipates the entire course of Jewish history.
The first word of the song, Az, then, raises a question: When? What point in time is it referring to?
The simplest reading (peshat) is that the Jewish people sang immediately after crossing the Red Sea, once the Egyptians had been completely vanquished.
But the Mechilta notices that the Torah uses the word yashir—“will sing”—rather than shar in the past or present tense.
This points to something deeper: a vision of the future, a hint that we will sing again at the time of the final geulah, the ultimate redemption.
If we read the passage closely, we find that this vision is embedded in the narrative details. Initially, the Torah states that the people went “b’toch hayam bayabasha v’hamayim lahem choma miminam umismalam”—"they went into the sea on dry land—and the water formed walls to their right and left.” But just a few verses later, we are told they walked “bayabasha b’toch hayam,” “on dry land within the sea,” and again “v’hamayim lahem choma miminam u’mismolam” the water was a wall to their right and left.
The Vilna Gaon examines these discrepancies and poses three questions. First, why the repetition? If both verses mean essentially the same thing, what’s the purpose of stating it twice?
Second, why does the sequence of events differ? In one version, they go btoch hayam bayabasha, into the sea on dry land, and in the other, baybasha b’toch hayam, they walk on dry land within the sea. Why change the order in which they went into the sea?
Third, he notes a change in spelling: the first verse spells the word choma (wall) with a vav—chet, vav, mem, hei—while the second spells it without the vav.
According to one midrash, this missing letter is significant. Without the vav, the word can become cheima—anger—suggesting God’s fury. God was angry because the angels challenged God with a truth. They asked, why save the Jews and destroy the Egyptians, when “hallalu ovdei avoda zara, v’hallalu ovdei avoda zara”—both were idol worshippers? In other words, the midrash suggests that the Jews were still engaged in idol worship (perhaps even as they crossed the sea!)
God responds that, unlike the Egyptians, the Jews demonstrated emunah—belief and trust in Hashem. Just before the Song of the Sea, the Torah states, “vaya’aminu baShem u’veMoshe avdo”—they believed in God and Moshe, His servant. The midrash explains that this refers to the group who initially stepped forward into the water: Nachshon ben Aminadav, Aharon’s brother-in-law, led the way, walking in until the water reached his nose. He was followed by the tribe of Yehudah (or, according to another midrash, the tribe of Binyamin). Because they applied a high level of emunah, God split the sea in their merit.
In contrast, those who hesitated, those who clung to their idols, and waited until they could see dry land before entering provoked God’s anger. The verse referring to them omits the vav from choma, allowing it to also read cheima/anger, reflecting God’s disappointment in their lack of emunah.
We see, then, that krait yam suf, the splitting of the Red Sea, is much more than a historical event. It is a profound spiritual message about the necessity of Emunah - believing and trusting in God. When the word az points to the future, it is speaking to our generation, reminding us that the path to redemption depends on emunah.
At my Seder this year, I opened with an inspiring 18th-century quote from the Ya’avetz, Rav Yaakov Emden: the survival of the Jewish people through all our exiles is a greater miracle than the Exodus from Egypt. In other words, our very presence at the Seder table—our continued existence—is the greatest miracle of all. He said that 300 years ago—imagine what he would say today! We must cling to our Torah, draw strength from our tenacity, and above all, hold fiercely to our emunah—our unwavering belief and trust in God—never losing sight of the profound truth that our very existence is the living fulfillment of a prophecy etched into the words of the Torah.
Shabbat Shalom and Chag Sameach!