Imagine the end of everything, everything that you had fought for, dreamed for, worked for. Imagine yourself hungry, beaten, starved, at your lowest point facing a sea seemingly full of despair. "This is it," you think. "here is where I lose it all." Your only hope would be to fall onto the last resort of the many that had come before you: pray for deliverance. Now imagine this scenario, yet this time, you know that this is not the end, it can't be the end because someone promised you sometime long ago in a near-forgotten past that it wouldn't be. Not only would it not be the end, but you would get to where you were traveling to; you'd reach the place where everything you lived for, a holistic truth woven into every fiber of your soul, would be realized. Why would you need to pray for your deliverance? You'd know that this unbreakable promise would override your situation; an objective truth overcoming a subjective doubt. Would you pray at all? This story, though it may sound familiar to us all, is one of timeless nature, applying to every person's life at east once in their time here on Earth. For the Jews at the Reed Sea, that was such a time.
B'nei Yisrael had found itself at the very brink of collapse: After a civilization-shattering series of ten plagues, Moshe, the messenger of Hashem, had led them out of Egypt towards the promised land. The seemingly impossible was coming to fruition before their very eyes; the thing spoken of in fables, nighttime stories passed onto a child trembling with fear of death, legends passed down from father to son, yet never really thought of that seriously- unfolding before them in a plain undeniable truth. Now, though, they were face-to-face with the final obstacle before redemption: the Reed Sea, the one thing separating them from death and life, an expanse of water menacingly staring them down with the freezing shock of realization. Yet Hashem had promised that they would find redemption and ultimately realize their potential, so how could this be the end? It says that they prayed, yet here is where the question is posed: why? It certainly seems that if they were promised redemption, then they wouldn't be praying for that. If that had lost faith and trust in Hashem, thinking that he had abandoned His promise to them, then why would they pray at all?
Rashi brings a very fascinating commentary on that: he says that in calling out to Hashem, they were grabbing onto the trade of their fathers, the prayers of Avraham, Yitzchok, and Ya'akov. To give examples of their trade, Rashi brings three verses: for Avraham "to place where he stood", standing meaning prayer; for Yitzchok "he went to go speak in the field", and for Ya'akov "he reached the place", meaning that he prayed. Yet these three examples don't seem all that obvious in the language that they were praying, the word prayer doesn't even show up! What makes this even stranger is that there are other verses that explicitly speak of the fathers praying to Hashem: for Avraham "he built an alter and called out (prayed) to Hashem", for Yitzchok it says that he prayed to Hashem when his wife, Rebecca, was barren, and for Ya'akov he prayed that Hashem would deliver him from his brother Eisav (please save me from my brother, Eisav), so why not bring those verses as proof? Does this not seem a more obvious set of examples? The Lubavitcher Rebbe brings an amazing answer to this question. In the three obvious verses, the fathers were praying for something, yet in regards to the three verses actually given by Rashi, they were just praying to praise Hashem, they were praying just for the sake of praying. Now we can see why B'nei Yisrael, when faced down by the Egyptians at the Reed Sea, prayed: they prayed because that's who they were. It didn't matter if things were going well for them; in fact, they were facing annihilation. They prayed because it naturally came from the depths of their soul.
This is an amazing idea that we can use in our life and in our service to Hashem. G-d, contrary to popular belief, is not a giant ATM machine in the sky; praying to Him will not always ensure that you'll win the lotto (sorry). We don't serve Hashem because it feels good or because we're looking to get something out of it; we find, in fact, that dedicating one's life to Hashem is one of the most conflicted, difficult, and seemingly irrational things to do in this world. The reason why we're serving Hashem is because it's the only thing that we can do, it's what we were created for, because He is the only real and true thing in this world. It's easy for us to get lost in the world within which we live. We're constantly using our subjective interpretation of life as an "objective" reality. A person's ego can block them from what is objectively true. Often times, the most important thing will be my thoughts, my feelings, my beliefs, my best interest, Me, Myself, & I. If we can work on transcending ourselves and see the truth that's right in front of our eyes, if we can clear out the subjective emotional baggage and make room for Hashem, if we can learn to truly care for another person without any self-seeking or self-interested motivations involved, if we can experience a selfless love, then we will be redeemed. When B'nei Yisrael was stuck between the Egyptians threatening to kill them and the Reed Sea, they had nothing left except for their eternal promise and an unbreakable connection to Hashem; it was because of this that they prayed. True, they complained to Moshe, yet they didn't shake their fists at the sky, spite the name of G-d, and cast of His existence as a mere fantasy. Their belief and trust in Hashem wasn't based on situation, on limited human reasoning, on subjective emotions such as joy or suffering, it was based on a deep undeniable bond that they as Jews could not deny.
The Kotsker Rebbe once said that G-d is where ever you let Him in; perhaps if we could accomplish this avodah, this spiritual service of serving Hashem selflessly, of engaging in a relationship with G-d on His terms as opposed to ours, of making room for Him in our lives, then perhaps the Reed Sea in our lives that we all face will make room for us, allowing us to walk through towards our redemption. May we all experience the ultimate redemption of us all with the coming of Moshiach, may it happen speedily in our days.
With all my love,
Zach
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