This was how Amalek reported the miracle of Krias Yam Suf.
How does one react to such headlines? This headline and others like it are the reason the Torah commanded us to eradicate the name of Amalek and of his descendants.
Was their interpretation inaccurate? Many great people assumed this and even proved it from the words of Midrash Rabbah: Hashem said, “This is the condition I made when I created the ocean, that [one day] I would split it.”
Rambam (Shemoneh Perakim LaRambam, ch. 8) wrote that all the miracles that happened to our forefathers were set into nature during the six days of creation. It was preset into nature that on the twenty-first of Nissan in the year 2448, the sea would split.
Amalek claimed before the entire world that it was all natural.
Our war with Amalek is all about this main point: Who created nature?
We know and believe that Hashem created the world and that all of nature is only the Hand of Hashem. Thus, the miracle of the Yam Suf is even greater. As the Baal Shem Tov taught, “The miracle is even greater because from the beginning of the creation of the world, Hashem created this aspect of nature for the sake of Am Yisrael.” (Beshalach, letter #7) Not only did the miracle surprise the nation at the last second, but it was planned in advance. The entire creation was planned in advance in order for Am Yisrael to experience miracles!
The Toldos Yaakov Yosef (Parshas Mishpatim) explains this further. Why did Hashem program these miracles into nature at the beginning of time? Hashem could have created the miracle in real-time, immediately before the splitting of the sea.
He did not do this, because a miracle that is outside the bounds of nature could occur only to a person whose own behavior is outside the bounds of nature, who overcomes his natural urges. Hashem yisbarach loves His children in ev- ery situation and at all times, and he wanted the miracles to be wrought for them in any case, even if not all of them had personally risen above nature. That is why Hashem programmed the miracles into the nature of the world, so that these nissim would happen to all Jews, whatever their personal situation.
What Amalek saw with the eye of apostasy, we see as the Hand of Hashem and His love for Am Yisrael.
Amalek saw that there was something natural that occurred here, something completely unconnected to the Jewish nation. In their foolishness, they failed to realize how the purpose of creation was being actualized before their very eyes, how the world was created for Am Yisrael! What is more “natural” than the fact that the world, which was created for Yisrael, would act in accordance with the miracles that needed to occur to them?
Over the past few weeks we have seen wondrous miracles; only a blind man or a fool could fail to see them.
There are those who listen to all sorts of natural explanations for these phenom- ena. But a believing Jew doesn’t get confused. A Yid knows that teva is also created by Hakadosh Baruch Hu. Moreover, when Hashem hides His miracles in the guise of nature, He does so because he wants to perform these miracles for us no matter what our personal status, because He loves His children with boundless love at all times.
Let us give thanks and praise to His great Name, for the miracles that He did, that He does, and that He will do for us!
Gut Shabbat
Pinchas Shefer
