Self-Sacrifice Below Draws Miracles Above

1“Hashem said to Moshe, ‘Why do you cry out to Me? Speak to Bnei Yisrael and let them journey forth.’”¹ Rashi explains: “We learn that Moshe was standing and praying. The Holy One, blessed be He, said to him, ‘This is not the time to pray at length, when Israel is in distress.’” The holy sefarim, the Ohr HaChaim, the Pri HaAretz and the Tiferes Shlomo, ask: surely there is a mitzvah to pray to Hashem in a time of distress, as the Rambam writes!² This is all the more true according to the Ramban, in his glosses on the Rambam's Sefer HaMitzvos.³ The Ramban writes that although prayer in general is not a Torah obligation, prayer in a time of distress is a mitzvah from the Torah. In times of trouble we are to pray to Hashem with our eyes and hearts turned to Him alone, “like the eyes of servants to the hand of their masters.”⁴ This is the sense of the verse “When you go to war in your land against the enemy who oppresses you, you shall sound an alarm with the trumpets, and you shall be remembered before Hashem your God.”⁵ Whenever any trouble comes upon the community, it is a mitzvah to cry out before Him in prayer. That is the gist of the Ramban's words.

2The Midrash says: “‘The sea saw and fled’: it saw the coffin of Yosef going down into the sea.”⁶ This is hard to understand. What does Yosef's coffin have to do with the splitting of the sea?

3aIt seems that we can explain this as follows. The Holy One, blessed be He, runs the world in two ways. One is the way of nature: He does not change the order of creation, but runs the world in a fixed order, as we say in the morning prayers, “Who in His goodness renews the work of creation every day.” The other is the way of miracles, when Hashem changes the order of creation, as He did at the splitting of the sea. When Bnei Yisrael need Hashem to deal with them by way of miracle, beyond nature, they too must act in a way that is above nature. They must show mesirus nefesh, the readiness to give one's life, for the honor of His Name. Then, measure for measure, He will deal with them by way of miracle.

3bAs Chazal say: Why were the earlier generations answered when they prayed? Because they gave up their lives to sanctify Hashem's Name.⁷ By giving up their lives, in other words, they drew down the conduct that is above nature. This rests on a teaching quoted in the name of the Baal Shem Tov on the verse “Hashem is your shadow.”⁸ Hashem deals with a person the way a shadow does. Just as a shadow does whatever the person does, so the Creator, blessed be He, treats a person just as that person acts, measure for measure.

4When Israel stood in distress on the shore of the sea, Moshe Rabbeinu wanted to bring about a miracle through prayer. The Holy One, blessed be He, told him that this time prayer alone was not enough. A deed of mesirus nefesh was needed, to awaken its counterpart above: miracles. That is the meaning of “Speak to Bnei Yisrael and let them journey forth.” They themselves were to do such a deed, and through it the miracle would come. And indeed, Nachshon ben Aminadav, the prince of the tribe of Yehudah, leapt into the sea,⁹ and by the power of his mesirus nefesh he brought about the miracle of the splitting of the Red Sea. The Be'er Mayim Chaim writes something similar; see also Rabbeinu Bachya.

5That is what Chazal meant by “What did the sea see? It saw the coffin of Yosef.” In the episode with Potiphar's wife, Yosef showed mesirus nefesh. Chazal tell how that wicked woman did everything she could to make him stumble into sin, Heaven forbid, and he stood firm against her, ready to give his life.¹⁰ Through this he was privileged to reach the level of “he was the ruler over the land”: he ruled over the attribute of Yesod,¹¹ which takes great mesirus nefesh. So, because Yosef HaTzaddik had withstood his test with mesirus nefesh, the sea split in his merit. At the sea, too, there was an act of mesirus nefesh, and its power came from that tzaddik, Yosef, for “the deeds of the fathers are a sign for the children.” That is why Chazal said that the sea split in Yosef's merit.

6In these days we very much need Hashem to deal with us by way of miracle. We must draw this down from above, and that requires an awakening from below, from our side. So it is our duty to act with mesirus nefesh, at least in some small measure. We can, for example, learn for three hours without interruption, that is, not talk in the middle of learning during the first hour of each of the yeshivah's [three daily] study sessions. We can avoid idle talk during prayer, and avoid bad speech and lashon hara, Heaven forbid. Through this we will be privileged to repair the blemish we have caused.

7May the Holy One, blessed be He, help us to have mesirus nefesh for the sake of His Name, and may we bring the redemption near. Amen, may it be His will.