פרשת בשלח ושבת שירה
This week’s Parsha describes the fantastic miracles which Hashem performed for us at the Reed Sea. There is a verse in the Parsha which says that after Hashem split the sea, it returned to its normal state. Through a play on words in the Hebrew, the Midrash learns out that there was a condition built into the sea during the six days of creation in which God made a deal with the sea that if the sea would be willing to split when the Jews got to that particular place at that particular time, then God would continue creating it, but if it would not have been willing to divide itself, God would not have created the seas.
There is a famous Ohr Hachaim on the Parsha which raises two interesting difficulties with this above quoted Midrash. Firstly, he points out that there is another Midrash which says that when Moshe raised his staff to split the sea, the sea did not respond to his request at all. The sea reasoned to Moshe that it did not have to listen to him because it was created on the third day of creation, and therefore did not have to take orders from a mere man who was only created on the sixth day of creation. Hashem then descended Himself, so to speak, and stood by Moshe’s side. When the sea saw this, it immediately split. The Ohr Hachim concludes his first difficulty by saying that if it were true that the sea agreed to split at the outset of creation, how could it hesitate when this fateful time had finally arrived?
Secondly, he points out that when one peruses through the history of our people, one finds that there were numerous occasions in which nature was changed at the behest of one Tzadik or another. For example, we find that Yehoshua split the Jordan river upon the entrance into Israel. R’ Pinchas Ben Yair decreed upon the river of Genoa to part for him and it did. So if it were true that the parting of the Reed sea was an integral condition in its creation, and even with that, it gave Moshe so much trouble before it finally agreed to split, why would it then go and agree to gingerly split for these other holy men?
In order to deal with these two difficulties, the Ohr Hachaim generates a foundation. He explains that the terms that the sea agreed to before it was created, and the rest of nature for that matter, were not necessarily to bend their rules for Moshe Rabenu, but rather to bend their rules for the Torah, which was created before the world, and was in fact the blueprint for the world and its natural components, and to be subservient to anyone who had mastered the Torah. Since the Jews reached the shores of the Reed Sea before the Torah had been given, the sea didn’t feel that it was obligated by its agreement to split at that time because Moshe didn’t possess the Torah. It therefore held out until it saw that God Himself appeared at Moshe’s right hand side, symbolizing that Moshe was going to be given the Torah (which is on the right), at which point the sea realized that it needed to be subservient to Moshe in order to fulfill its original agreement, and immediately split. We see from this Ohr Hachaim a fascinating principle – that those who master the Torah are empowered with a complete mastery of the natural forces!
One might try to point out a small flaw in the Ohr Hachaim’s reasoning. There is a Yalkut Shimoni which says that the reason why the sea agreed to split is because it saw the coffin of Yosef which the Jews had brought with them out of Egypt, and in respect to Yosef Hatzadik, the sea split. If this is true, then we see that the factor which causes the natural elements to bend their rules is not a mastery of the Torah, but rather a mastery over one’s personal inclinations and passions which was embodied by Yosef! How would the Ohr Hachaim justify his explanation in light of this Yalkut Shimoni?
Truthfully, this point is not difficult at all. When the Ohr Hachaim said that one needs to have a mastery of the Torah, he wasn’t talking about a mere intellectual understanding of the Torah, he was referring to a person who imbues the Torah in his very being! The only way to do this is to conquer one’s passions completely and subjugate his desires. This is evidenced clearly from the 48 ways that one needs to possess in order to acquire the Torah. Many of them demand a person’s complete control of his faculties. Only for a Talmid Chochom of this magnitude will the forces of Nature be willing to bow.
I would just like to conclude with a true story that happened to my ancestor, the Ohr Sameach, which demonstrated this principle unequivocally. The Ohr Sameach was the Rabbi of Dvinsk or Daugavpils which is located approximately 230 km south-east of the Latvian capital, on the banks of the Daugava River which is over 1000 km in length and which flows from its source in Russia. It happened one time that this mighty river which surrounded the city was behaving ferociously and threatened to flood the entire city and kill all of its inhabitants. The mayor of the city approached the Jews and told them that since it was known that the Jews are the holy people which God listens to, they were responsible to pray to avoid this disaster and if they were not successful, they would all be expelled from the city forever. The Jews immediately instated a day of fasting and praying, but to no avail. The situation with the furious river only worsened. In desperation, the Jews attempted to declare another day of fasting and prayer, but again with no success. When the Ohr Sameach realized that he had no choice, he calmly donned his had and jacket and went out to the banks of the river with his personal sextant at his side. He raised his voice and said, “I, Meir Simcha, the representative and master of the Holy Torah on this earth, hereby decree on the waters of this river to calm yourselves”. Shortly afterward, complete tranquility returned to the Daugava River and all the inhabitants of Dvinsk were spared. Parenthetically, the grave of the Ohr Sameach is one of the most revered sites in all of Dvinsk, even by the non-Jews there because of the wide-spread knowledge of this story.
May we all merit to master the Torah with all of our strength and all of our hearts!