Shevi’i Shel Pesach 5780
With the near arrival of Shevi’i shel Pesach, we prepare to commemorate what is perhaps the greatest single miracle in all of history. Yet to read the Torah’s description is to be reminded of an oddly natural dimension of the story:
וַיֵּ֨ט מֹשֶׁ֣ה אֶת־יָדוֹ֮ עַל־הַיָּם֒ וַיּ֣וֹלֶךְ ה׳ אֶת־הַ֠יָּם בְּר֨וּחַ קָדִ֤ים עַזָּה֙ כָּל־הַלַּ֔יְלָה וַיָּ֥שֶׂם אֶת־הַיָּ֖ם לֶחָרָבָ֑ה וַיִּבָּקְע֖וּ הַמָּֽיִם׃
שמות יד:כא
Then Moshe held out his arm over the sea and Hashem drove back the sea with a strong east wind all that night and turned the sea into dry ground, and the waters were split.
Shemos 14:21
Why the description of the eastern wind that blew all night long? If this was, indeed, a miraculous event, wouldn’t a more apt description be that Hashem had simply parted the waters? Doesn’t the inclusion of the eastern wind in the narrative only detract from the miraculous nature of the act? If the Torah itself describes Krias Yam Suf in this fashion, could the Egyptians really be blamed for seeing this as a natural—if somewhat unusual—occurence?
The Midrash records an interesting conversation that Rabbi Yosi bar Chalafta once had with a Roman noblewoman:
אָמְרָה לוֹ מַה הוּא עוֹשֶׂה מֵאוֹתָהּ שָׁעָה וְעַד עַכְשָׁו, אָמַר לָהּ, הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא יוֹשֵׁב וּמְזַוֵּג זִוּוּגִים, בִּתּוֹ שֶׁל פְּלוֹנִי לִפְלוֹנִי. אִשְׁתּוֹ שֶׁל פְּלוֹנִי לִפְלוֹנִי, מָמוֹנוֹ שֶׁל פְּלוֹנִי לִפְלוֹנִי. אָמְרָה לֵיהּ, וְדָא הוּא אֻמָּנוּתֵיהּ, אַף אֲנִי יְכוֹלָה לַעֲשׂוֹת כֵּן, כַּמָּה עֲבָדִים כַּמָּה שְׁפָחוֹת יֵשׁ לִי, לְשָׁעָה קַלָּה אֲנִי יְכוֹלָה לְזַוְּגָן. אָמַר לָהּ, אִם קַלָּה הִיא בְּעֵינַיִךְ, קָשָׁה הִיא לִפְנֵי הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא כִּקְרִיעַת יַם סוּף
(בראשית רבה סח:ד)
She said to him, “What has [G-d] been doing from [Creation] until now? He said to her, “Hashem sits and makes matches”… “She said to him, “Is that His craft? Even I can do so!”…He said to her, “If it is light in your eyes, it is as difficult to Hashem as the Splitting of the Sea!”
(Bereishis Rabbah 68:4)
The Midrash continues by describing the disastrous attempt made by the noblewoman, as she attempts to pair her female servants with her male ones over the course of one evening, resulting in a night of anger and fighting amongst the couples. As compared to the process she haphazardly undertakes in just one evening, Rabbi Yosi describes Hashem’s process of matchmaking as taking place since the beginning of time. What is necessary in properly pairing two people together—or, indeed, any other sort of matchmaking necessary for human functioning—is not only Divine might, but Divine choreography. This sort of miracle occurs not through a complete overturning of natural law, but in the coalescence of a thousand details that have been manipulated over the course of a thousand days, or even a thousand years.
I’ll submit my own story as an example. My wife and I were set up by one of my best friends, with whom I’d been close since we’d learned in yeshiva together in Israel. That particular yeshiva wasn’t actually my first choice. I was really set on attending another yeshiva altogether until I had my interview. I was sitting right outside the office, the door to which was open, as a good friend of mine had his interview. The visiting rebbe was—I felt—unnecessarily harsh on my friend as he read the Gemara, and I was completely turned off, deciding then and there that I wouldn’t attend (perhaps an unfair assessment; I was a teenager, remember).
Connecting all the dots, it emerges that if I hadn’t been able to hear my friend’s interview—and one critical comment in particular—I wouldn’t have met my wife. If the school had provided the visiting rebbe with a slightly more private area, or if he had decided to close the door, or if I’d gotten up to go to the bathroom, I may well have found myself in that yeshiva the following year, as opposed to the one I ultimately chose. Which would mean I’d never become friends with the guy who ultimately set me up with my wife. A chair positioned just a few feet too close to an open door was what resulted in the shidduch between me and my wife.
Perhaps this is precisely what’s being described by the Torah in the moment before Krias Yam Suf. It was the eastern wind that blew and split the sea. Is it possible that this was a “natural” phenomenon, however impressive and bizarre? That tornado type winds hit the sea at just the right angle, causing the waters to part and uncovering dry land beneath? Perhaps. But what are the odds that the Jewish People would be there at the time? That it would provide the perfect escape precisely when it was needed? That it would occur at the exact moment that the Egyptians arrived at the shore and threatened to mow down the Jews?
Every match made is the result of nearly limitless sub-matches that have been made at just the right time in just the right place in order to yield the right results. The comparison of matchmaking to Krias Yam Suf is precise; both require Hashem’s pulling of near infinite strings, choreographing thousands if not millions of opportunities and experiences, in order to create the final result.
If we fail to see miracles in our daily lives it is because we are waiting to see Hashem intervene by use of a supernatural vehicle, by miraculous means. But that is a mistake. It is not with the sudden wave of the hands that the magician performs his craft, but the careful setting of the stage and the painstaking choreography that delivers true magic.
The eastern wind may well be the most important character in the entire story of the Splitting of the Sea. It is the element that reminds us how Hashem tends to involve Himself in history, how He chooses to make His magic. Miracles do indeed surround us; we need only remember what to look for.