I was in Toronto this week for my brother-in-law’s wedding.  The day before the wedding there was a terrible storm.  Over 60 centimetres of snow fell for the largest snowfall of a Toronto storm in recorded history.  Flights were cancelled.  Cars skidded off highways in white out conditions.  Plows simply could not keep up.  

I wondered why it had to be this week, of all weeks for this to happen.  Just when my family was having a simcha and needed to travel.

In this week’s Torah portion, the Israelites have just left Egypt and Pharaoh is chasing after them with an elite army of horse drawn chariots.  The Israelites escape is blocked off, as they come upon a huge body of water in their path.  With nowhere to run and a murderous army not far behind, they fall on their knees and cry.  

They consider how hopeless it would be to attempt to fight against a force with such superior weapons.  They think how horrible it would be to press forward with their children and elderly, considering they were slaves and many, if not most of them, never learned how to swim.  Finally, they call out to G-d for help.

There is a medrash that says that this prayer was the entire point of this whole scenario.  G-d wanted dearly to have a relationship with the people.¹  Wanted them to call out to Him sincerely with all their heart.  So He waited until this moment to finally split the sea and let them pass through, on dry land, to safety.  Walls of water held at bay on either side, now guarding their flanks as a beautiful marvel instead of barring  their way.

G-d is right there beside us in every difficulty we face in life.  Some travails are not meant to be solved for reasons we can’t understand.  But sometimes, G-d is eagerly waiting to provide a solution, and is just waiting for our heartfelt prayer to give it to us.

As for my family, I can tell you that many a heartfelt prayer went into this wedding.  It snowed in waves the day before the wedding, and even a bit the day after, but the day of had miraculously few flakes of snow.  The snow plows had time to clear the roads.  And family and friends were able to travel easily on dry land to the wedding venue, with huge banks of snow held at bay on either side of the road, guarding our flanks like shimmering sentinels.  

Good Shabbos,

Rabbi A and the JET Team

1. Although interestingly, based on the verse, G-d seems uninterested in Moses’ prayer. Perhaps because He already had a solid relationship with Moses and they regularly communicated, whereas the people did not yet. ↩︎