The Divided Sea: Natural or Supernatural (Rabbi Sacks on Beshallach)

The Office of Rabbi Sacks

Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

Religion & Spirituality

4.8 • 601 Ratings

🗓️ 4 February 2025

⏱️ 10 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Welcome to Covenant & Conversation essays, Rabbi Sacks’ commentary on the weekly Torah portion, explores new ideas and sharing inspiration from the Torah readings of the week. Listen to this audio recording from Rabbi Sacks in 2017. For the written essay and translations, click here: www.rabbisacks.org/covenant-conversation/beshallach/the-divided-sea/ You can find our written article on Parshat Beshallach from 2013, available to read, print, and share, by visiting: https://rabbisacks.org/covenant-conversation/beshallach/music-language-of-the-soul/ Multiple translations of the essay are also available here. For intergenerational discussion on the weekly Parsha and Haftara, a new FAMILY EDITION is now also available: https://rabbisacks.org/covenant-conversation-family-edition/beshallach/music-language-of-the-soul/ For more articles, videos, and other material from Rabbi Sacks, please visit www.RabbiSacks.org and follow @RabbiSacks. The Rabbi Sacks Legacy continues to share weekly inspiration from Rabbi Sacks. With thanks to the Schimmel Family for their generous sponsorship of Covenant & Conversation, dedicated in loving memory of Harry (Chaim) Schimmel.

Transcript

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0:00.0	The divided sea natural or supernatural.
0:05.0	The splitting of the Red Sea or the Reed Sea, Yamsuf, is engraved in Jewish memory.
0:11.0	We recited daily during the morning service, and we speak of it again after the Shemar just before the Amida.
0:18.0	It was the supreme miracle of the Exodus, but in what sense? If we listen
0:22.9	carefully to the narratives, we can distinguish two perspectives. Here's the first. The waters were divided
0:29.1	and the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground with a wall of water on their right and on their left.
0:34.7	The water flowed back and covered the chariots and horsemen,
0:38.6	the entire army of Pharaoh that had followed the Israelites into the sea. Not one of them survived,
0:43.7	but the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground with a wall of water on their right and on their left.
0:50.5	That same note is struck in Shiratayam, the song at the sea.
0:55.0	With a blast of your nostrils, the waters piled up.
0:58.0	The surging waters stood firm like a wall.
1:02.0	The deep waters congealed in the heart of the sea.
1:05.0	The emphasis here is on the supernatural dimension of what happened.
1:10.0	Water, which normally flows, stood upright. is on the supernatural dimension of what happened.
1:14.0	Water, which normally flows, stood upright.
1:17.0	The sea parted to expose dry land.
1:19.6	The laws of nature were suspended.
1:24.4	Something happened for which there can be no scientific explanation.
1:30.4	However, if we listen carefully, we can also hear a different note. Here's what Exodus 14 says, there Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and all that night the Lord
1:35.5	drove the sea back with a strong east wind and turned it into dry land. Here there isn't a sudden
1:41.3	change in the behavior of water with no apparent cause.
	...

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