Emunah as an Eternal Moment

“Hold on, so let me get this straight,” I demanded in a voice choked by disbelief, “you’re saying that there is absolutely no way that I can start at York University this coming semester?”
“No, I’m sorry,” responded the bored voice on the other end of the phone, as if my future wasn’t hinged on the outcome of this conversation. “Your application has been forwarded on to the following semester. Have a great day.” Click.

And that was it. I hung up the phone and heard a nervous chuckle escape from my tightened chest, a chuckle that soon developed into full-blown laughter. I had accidentally sent in my transcripts three weeks late, and as a result of this minor oversight, “the Faculty of Arts at York University was full”. My ‘plan’ had been to start at York in January 2008 - until this happened. Well, that’s not really true. My ‘plan’ had actually been to start at McGill in September 2007 - until Shanah Bet happened. Well, that’s not exactly true either. My ‘plan’ had originally been to start at Western in September 2007, until ‘my year in Israel’ happened. And that’s not completely true either, but for Sanity’s sake, I’ll stop here and allow your imaginations to wander.

In this pivotal moment, instead of berating myself for my stupidity or panicking in the face of the Unknown, I threw my head back, stared heavenward and laughed. In this timeless moment, I saw past, present and future bound together as one. I suddenly understood that all of the confusion, challenges and choices of the last few years of my life had lead me to this fateful moment – so I called my mom and told her I was making aliyah. I’m not joking.


On top of this story being simply great, it is also completely relevant to this week’s parshah. Parshat Beshalach contains one of the most miraculous events in Jewish History. More amazing to me than the splitting of the sea, is the moment directly following it: “…And the nation feared Hashem, and they had faith in Hashem and in Moshe, His servant.” The Jewish people have a long and well-documented history, yet proclamations of national faith as pure and definitive as this are few and far between, thus begging further investigation.

There is a midrash claiming that from the time of creation until the splitting of the sea, no man had never before sang a song in praise of God - not Adam, nor any of our avot. What is it about this event that brought Am Yisrael to an unprecedented level of Emunah and immediately inspired in us song that has since than been immortalized in our prayers every morning? The Slonimer Rebbe suggests that, at this moment, Am Yisrael understood on a deep and profound level that all of the suffering, pain, and tears of the last 210 years of slavery were ultimately for the good. God’s love of Am Yisrael was so clear that the drowning of babies and the backbreaking labor were immediately forgiven, and B’nai Yisrael burst into a song; a song about the past, the future and the present all rolled into one.

“The Song at the Sea” contains within in traces of the cyclical nature of Jewish history and our relationship with Hashem. It hints to the future geulah and reminds us of a time where, despite national tragedy and a seemingly upside down world, we had a pure and perfect faith that it was all for the good. So too, there will come a time when the challenges and horrors of the last three thousand years of Jewish History make sense and reveal themselves to be Hashem’s disguised mercy. Just as I have no idea how my own life plans will turn out, I would never be so arrogant to claim that I have any inkling of how God’s Plan will turn out. I cannot begin to speculate on how our knotted past will untangle itself and emerge as a beautiful bow on our present (and future), yet all that we can (and must!) do is strengthen our emunah that even if we don’t understand it right now, one day we will.