Our avodah is to walk in the midst of the sea on dry land—that is, to see the exaltedness of Hashem and His greatness even on dry land! For HaKadosh Baruch Hu fills all worlds, and surrounds all worlds, and constantly supervises the worlds with great Hashgachah Pratis, and renews the Creation every single day, and with every single step that a person takes, he can learn fear of Heaven—by lifting the lids of his eyes and seeing HaKadosh Baruch Hu in every single thing.
The Yismach Yisrael brings in the name of Rav Menachem Mendel of Vorka that “even from the ground beneath our feet, we can learn yiras Shamayim!” He cites the words קניניך, הארץ מלאה the earth is filled with Your possessions, as he explains it this way: Even the earth is a vehicle for acquiring the Ribbono shel Olam!
This is the avodah of a person: to battle the darkness that makes it seem as though everything is simple and self-understood, and to remember that everything that takes place is really a miracle. The very fact that the world is suspended on nothingness...is an incomparable miracle! The world is filled with miracles of Kriyas Yam Suf at every single moment. The real chiddush is that we aren’t positively astounded by the miracles that surround us at every moment!
“There Are No Miracles”
The Chasam Sofer writes in several places regarding this theme. “Klal Yisrael became accustomed to receiving bread from Heaven for forty years, and then they came to Eretz Yisrael, and behold, they plant a kernel in the ground and grain grows forth! From one kernel grows an entire bushel of wheat! Try to imagine what that must have felt like for them...what kind of wonder it must have been for them. Surely, they attributed this to the bounty of Eretz Yisrael—that it is a wondrous land and that the bread doesn’t rain down from the Heavens in the “natural way,” but rather it comes forth from the ground in the most miraculous way.”
It is all a matter of acclimation. When we’re accustomed to having miracles every day, we don’t pay attention to them in the same way. And so, the avodah of the person is to “walk in the midst of the sea on dry land”; that is, to see the miracles of Kriyas Yam Suf in everyday life.
Thus wrote the Chasam Sofer in his derashos: The inyan is that there are no miracles. What is the big deal that three-thousand years ago the sea was split, and it dried up, and bread rained down from the Heavens? Every moment, we experience miracles such as this! Which fool will not become awakened when he plants seeds in the ground, and it sprouts forth a green blossom, and then a red or white flower, and then a fruit... how does this all happen?! Isn’t this a miracle just like Kriyas Yam Suf?!
