This
is a special Shevi’i ( Seventh Day) shel
Pesach Edition, dedicated for the Refuah Shelemah of Yaakov Ben Chava Adina,
Mordechai Ben Sara, and all other Holei Am Yisrael.
Today
we will discuss Az Yashir and Keriyat Yam Suf/ the splitting of
the sea. Although we especially focus on the splitting of the sea on the 7th
day of Pesach, because that’s when Hashem made this miracle for us, it is
really for every day of our lives. We
say Az Yashir every day. The Zohar says that someone who says Az
Yashir with happiness, on any day of the year, gets the same forgiveness of sins that the
Jewish people received at the sea.
Furthermore,
every day in our Arbit and Shaharit prayers, we mention the
Geula, (in Ga’al Yisrael), which is the
introduction to our Amidah.
Our
power to pray every day comes from the fact that we remember that we got out of
Mitzrayim.
Additionally,
as we have mentioned in the past, from the Yerushalmi, reading the lessons of
Yetziat Mitzrayim daily is like knocking on G-d’s door, so to say, to open it
up in prayer.
It’s
important to stress the daily aspect of this, because although we will be
discussing this tefilla as it relates to Shevi’i shel Pesach, that is just the day that we charge our battery. We need to do this
every day.
In
our daily Arbit, we discuss how Hashem was מעביר בניו בין גזרי ים סוף
He
took us through the split sea. He caused our enemies to drown. We
saw His power and praised Him.
משה ובני ישראל
לך ענו שירה
Moshe
and the Jewish people sang the song with simcha rabah- great happiness
and said
מי כמוך באלים ה׳
Who
is like You G-d? Who is so powerful?
Bnei
Yisrael saw Your kingdom at the sea
They
said together, ה׳ ימלך לעולם ועד
G-d
should be King forever.
They
realized then, that G-d was king. That was the climax of all the ten plagues.
They had such clarity at the sea, that the maid- servants that were present
were able to see this clarity better than the prophets of later generations
did. We say this all, every single day;
we say Ga’al Yisrael- this means that the clarity of Az Yashir that we
are supposed to strengthen on Shevi’i shel Pesach, is actually there every day.
In
Shaharit we say, ממצרים גאלתנו
You
took us out of Egypt
We
go through the splitting of the sea and again, we say with great joy, Mi
Kamocha- Who is like You G-d?
We
can’t start our daily Shaharit or Arbit
prayers unless we have Az Yashir and the splitting of the sea on our minds.
So
what is the lesson that we are supposed to learn from this?
There
are many, many lessons. B’Ezrat Hashem, I’ll give a full class on this later
today.
For
now, though, one main takeaway for us is to imagine the Jewish people at the
edge of the sea. They were being chased
and had no way out. They all threw out different ideas. Should they fight?
Should they scream? Should they surrender? No one knew what to do.
In
the end, of course, G-d split the sea, we walked through, and the enemy chased
us in. The sea came crashing down on
them and they died.
No
one thought of that idea.
No
one said, “Why don’t we jump into the sea?! It’ll split for us, we will go
through and the enemies will chase us in, but the sea will come crashing down
on them!”
No
one said that! Why? Because we don’t need to give G-d ideas.
This
is the principle to learn:
G-d
has his ways. Even when we have no idea
how it’s going to happen, G-d has a
better plan. Furthermore, when it seems
that there is no way out, and it looks like we’re at the bottom, when it looks
like we’re about to be destroyed, we are actually at the cusp of the
redemption.
They
had no idea. They thought it was all over.
The people were ready to give up. And that’s when G-d brought the
redemption.
The
Rishonim say that this should be a lesson for us, both on a global level (when
the Jewish people are very close to the redemption, and it looks very bleak) and also on an individual’s level of
redemption.
The
Gemarah tells us, in Masechet Sotah,
that the splitting of the sea is
compared, both to marriage, and to
Parnassa, because just like at the Yam Suf, these are
two areas that we can’t imagine the solutions to. People wonder how
their shidduch is going to happen. Where will it going to come from? But G-d
has ways that we would never dream of.
Rabbi Ashear once told a beautiful story
of parents in Israel with an
older daughter. They had no idea where the
shidduch for her could be. Then their dayworker mentioned that at a home
that she cleaned, they have a nice son,
and in the end, that’s how the
shidduch came about! Would anybody ever think
of a dayworker making a Shidduch?
The
same goes for parnassa. People wonder where their parnasa will come from.
We’ve
told the story of Popinsanity, early on in this series. A man had a failing business
and was left with only a popcorn machine. One night he made some popcorn for
his daughter’s birthday party. The kids loved it, word got out, and then
somehow at a food show, one of Oprah’s workers noticed it. It went on her show,
and overnight his business began to boom. Would anyone ever dream of turning his
business around by taking out an old popcorn machine and turning that into a
product that would be discovered by Oprah?
We
can’t plan these things. G-d has ways that are beyond our imagination, and
beyond our planning.
And
that is the lesson of Keriat Yam Suf.
When
all looks bleak, and we think we have no way out, and we can’t figure out how
to turn it around, don’t worry about it! G-d
has bigger and better ideas. We have to believe in that.
That’s
the lesson.
We
have to imagine that we were at the sea.
We were standing there with the Egyptians behind us, with their powerful
Egyptian army! We were a bunch of weak
slaves, with no ability to take on that army. We were really in trouble,
and we cried out to G-d, and the Midrash
says that G-d said,
השמיעני את קולך
I
hear your voice,
G-d
wants to hear our voice. He is going to
save us. That has to be our attitude.
There
is a very important segula, that the Kaf HaChaim brings down from the Arizal:
On
the seventh day of Pesach, it’s a segula to be up at dawn, the time that the sea split, according to the Arizal.
This
year it is at 4:56am.
As I
child, I remember my father doing this, and my father remembers his father
getting up early as well. Getting up early that morning to read this tikkun is an ancient Sephardi
custom. They do it in many shuls in
Brooklyn, and Deal. People get up at the crack of dawn and read this tikkun,
which we will beH attach to this lesson.
(Thank
you to the Magen Abraham series for making these available for us).
There
are two options:
1-reading
the full tikkun, which takes about two to three hours,
2-
another option, Magen Avraham put
together some excerpts, which take about 40-50 minutes to read, for people who
can’t read the whole thing.
This
means getting up at about 4am, reading through the tikkun and imagining you’re
going through the split sea. Then, at
the opportune moment of 4:56 am, you sing Az Yashir, imagine you are there, and
with that, you get all the powers that were there there at the splitting of the
sea.
You
put your bitachon in like they did,
דבר אל בני
ישראל ויסעו
Just
travel, forge ahead and the sea will split. That’s what Nachshon showed them.
Again,
thank you to the Magen Abraham series for sharing and posting their materials, which
took them a lot of time to put together, and that would normally need to be
purchased in a store.
It’s
like the company in Israel that is sharing their ventilator blueprints with the
world, so that other manufacturers can produce them more easily.
In
times of crisis, people stand up and do things L’Shem Shamayim.
Finally,
Rav Yehuda Moalem says a beautiful thought: the sea split for different people
at different times. For some people, the sea split when the water rose up to
their noses, and they could no longer breath. For others, the sea split
faster. It was the arrogant ones, with their noses up, that had to wait
for the water to rise up to their noses to split. For the humble, the sea split
faster. If we humble ourselves, and realize that G-d is in control, we will all see the splitting of the sea; we
will see wonders and Yeshuot/ salvation, for klal yisrael.
And
B’Ezrat Hashem, we will see Mashiah
Tzidkenu, B’mHerah B’Yamenu Amen.
Thank you to Magen Abraham
https://www.dropbox.com/s/6s3xjyxoef55i7s/Tikkun%207%20Pesah%20-%20Excerpts.pdf?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/w1338578y52w45h/Tikkun%207%20Pesah%20-%20Full.pdf?dl=0
