The Power of Ruach. In September 2010, BBC, Reuters and other news agencies reported on a sensational scientific discovery.

Researchers at the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research and the University of Colorado

have shown through computer simulation how the division of the

Red Sea may have taken place. Using sophisticated modeling, they demonstrated how a strong

east wind blowing overnight could have pushed water back at a bend where an ancient river

is believed to have merged with a coastal

lagoon. The water would have been guided into the two waterways, and a land bridge would have

opened up at the bend, allowing people to walk across the exposed mud flats. As soon as the wind

died down, the waters would have rushed back in. As the leader of

the project said, when the report was published, the simulations match fairly closely with the

account in Exodus. So we now have scientific evidence to support the biblical account, though

to be fair, a very similar case was

made some years ago by Colin Humphreys, Professor of Material Science at Cambridge University,

and Professor of Experimental Physics of the Royal Institution in London in his book, The Miracles of

Exodus.

To me, though, the real issue is what the biblical count actually is,

because it's just here that we have one of the most fascinating features of the way the Torah tells its stories. Here is the key passage.

Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea and all that night the

Lord drove the sea back with a strong east wind and turned it into dry land. The waters were

divided and the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground with a wall of water on their right

and on their left.

Now, that passage can be read two ways.

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