Are We All Wet ?

בס"ד

Why would Hashem punish the Egyptians by splitting the sea ? He has already shown them His mastery over water in the first makka when He turned their Nile god into blood. What greater demonstration of Hashem's power was to be seen ?

Water is that with which Hashem gives life. For that reason Torah is compared to water. Dry land, on the other hand, is, well … dry. We can thusly compare the sea as being the receptacle for Hashem's midda of chessed while on land his midda of din or strict justice prevails.

When Pharaoh catches up to the fleeing Jews at Pi HaChiroth, he is convinced that now he will destroy them. How could Pharaoh be convinced of this ? Has he forgotten the past year, when ten plagues decimated his country and shattered his defenses ? Pharaoh remembered these things all too well. He was just erroneously convinced that this was the manifestation of Hashem's will on land. With the attribute of justice, Hashem dealt harshly with the Egyptians and trounced them in a nightmarish year. But, on the sea, with the attribute of loving kindness playing center stage, Pharaoh was sure that he could beat Hashem and His Jews, too.

Pharaoh was a fool.

And to emphasize that Hashem's plan is unfathomable by the human mind, Hashem saves the Jews by bringing them into the heart of the sea, and saves them by opening it and having dry land in middle! It is thusly not kindness (water) which saves the Jews, but rather justice (land). And the Egyptians aren't punished by justice, as we would expect, but rather by a flooding of kindness!

How does this shape our focus for the end of Pesach ? By offering Hashem our praise. When the Jews sang the shira at the edge of the Sea of Reeds, they reached new and lofty levels of Emunah. Perhaps this was their new recognition. They had seen Hashem's mighty hand all throughout the year as the makkos unfolded. But only by seeing Hashem reverse His hands, so to speak, did they really begin to get a glimpse of Hashem's awesome power. When the Jews understood that there is no objective kindness-mode or justice-mode but rather a unified, all encompassing, dominion over all, that's when they offered the greatest praise to Hashem.

May we, at the conclusion of our Pesach, merit seeing this Divine dominion, unhampered and unconstrained by any regulations of the mundane. And let our praise of this incredible glory reflect this majestic fact.

Hatzlacha !