Dear Friends,
In our Torah portion on this Sabbath, we read about the miracle at the Sea of Reeds. Standing at the shores of the sea, the Israelites are terrified. They recognize that their journey into the wilderness is a journey into the unknown, and the sea before them is impassable.
As Pharaoh’s army is on their tail, the Israelites feel trapped, hopeless, and defeated. They have nowhere to go. Nothing short of a miracle can save them – and a miracle is what they receive.
Yet, as powerful as the miracle of the splitting of the sea may have been, the truth is that Judaism is not (nor has it ever been) a faith where we passively hope for miracles to happen. We are not a passive faith. We are not a people that stands around waiting for miracles to happen.
Indeed, the real miracle in every generation is to live in ways which maximize the God given gifts that each of us has been afforded. We are blessed with the capacity to think and feel and see and most of all to act.
When we act in response to the needs of others – to feed the hungry, heal the sick and clothe the naked, to root out hatred and prejudice in society, to use our talents to make this world a better place– then we can begin to fully bear witness to the greatest miracles of our day.
We may not be able to split the Sea, but we can certainly pave the way for all people to walk from the tyranny of injustice, poverty, hunger, and despair to a much brighter place in the future. So let us continue to pray for miracles, but as we do, we should never stop allowing those prayers to motivate us to do the work that leads to the day when all shall be one and at peace.
L’Shalom,
Steve