Exodus 14:13-14
But Moshe said to the People, “Have no fear.
A cornerstone of Orthodox Judaism is that the entire Torah was written by and is the absolute Divine word of the Almighty. Yet in this week’s Sedra we have an entire section that is anything but; the Shirah – Song of the Sea, is undeniably the word of humans! It was composed by Miriam and Moshe and then sung by the Israelites. Nonetheless it is still incorporated in the Torah and accorded the same honour as an integral part of ‘Torah Min Ha’Shamayim’.
This song though, together with a number of other such passages (such as Yaackov’s deathbed blessings for example) bring to light a beautiful idea; we are in partnership with the Almighty. This idea is in fact merely highlighting what Hashem said to Moshe after he complained that he was unable to speak to Pharaoh due to a speech impediment: “Who gives a man a mouth? Is it not I, G-d?” (Ex 4:11)
Our lives are in truth the script of the Torah, both then and now. Which causes us to question why the immediate aftermath of the splitting of the sea and our song in praise was the lack of water to drink in Marah and our subsequent complaints to Hashem. How do we go from co-authoring the Torah to complaining bitterly (Marah = bitter) in a matter of days?
Anton Chekov in his short story ‘The Bet’ writes of a man who after spending 15 years in solitary confinement expressed bewilderment at mankind: “You would marvel if, owing to strange events of some sorts, frogs and lizards suddenly grew on apple and orange trees instead of fruit, or if roses began to smell like a sweating horse; so I marvel at you who exchange heaven for earth. I don’t want to understand you.” {Read the full story here}
Our problem was that we praised Hashem for the miraculous splitting of the sea, whilst ignoring the equally miraculous flowing of the sea both prior to and after its ‘miraculous’ split! We become so inured to ‘nature’ that we fail to see the Hand of Hashem in its daily occurrence.
To counter this Hashem took away a basic necessity; water to drink, forcing us to recognise that providing drinking water is as much a Divine act as was the splitting of the sea.
Our human lives are the very letters of the divine Torah and nothing is left out. The divine is to be found in our daily activities just as much as it is in our prayers and Torah studies. We don’t need miracles to partner with Hashem, all we need to do is live a life and remember that together we write the Divine and Eternal Scroll.