Immediately preceding the Song of the Sea, we read: “And Israel saw the great hand that the Lord had performed against Egypt, and the people feared the Lord and they trusted in the Lord and in Moses His servant” (Exodus 14:31). Clearly, we are not meant to understand that the Israelites literally saw God’s hand, but rather – as we find in the Targumim (the Aramaic translations of the Bible) and in most English translations – the intention is that in the miracles performed at the Reed Sea they perceived God’s greatness and wondrous power. God’s presence at the parting of the Sea was so palpable that the people said: “This is my God” (15:2). Rashi explains this use of the word “this” as indicating that “He was revealed to them in His glory, and they pointed at Him with a finger. A handmaiden saw at the Sea what even the prophets could not see.” The use of the word “this” says that unlike the prophet’s mystical experience of the Divine, God’s presence at the Sea was so obvious and so real that one could point at it.

These descriptions only contribute to the difficulty in understanding the rest of the parasha. Immediately following the Song of the Sea, we read: “Then Moses caused Israel to set out from the Sea of Reeds. They went on into the wilderness of Shur; they traveled three days in the wilderness and found no water…And the people grumbled against Moses, saying, ‘What shall we drink?’”(22-24). After but three days following God’s great miracles at the Sea, Israel loses faith when faced with a lack of water. A new miracle is required.

And then “on the fifteenth day of the second month after their departure from the land of Egypt. In the wilderness, the whole Israelite community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The Israelites said to them, ‘If only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots, when we ate our fill of bread! For you have brought us out into this wilderness to starve this whole congregation to death.’” (16:1-3). Yet another miracle is required.

In his Guide for the Perplexed, Maimonides makes this observation about faith and about how we perceive miracles: “For miracles are only convincing to those who witnessed them; whilst coming generations, who know them only from the account given by others, may consider them as untrue. But miracles cannot continue and last for all generations; it is even inconceivable” (III:50). In other words, a miracle is only a reality for those who actually see it. For anyone else, the miracle is only hearsay, and we tend to doubt such reports.

Similarly, Dr Pnina Galpaz-Feller explains: “The Torah emphasizes that faith is not acquired through climactic moments in the physical world. The supernatural event opens merely a narrow passage, like the eye of a needle, but it is not sufficient for generations. Faith must be put to practical tests through struggle, through overcoming obstacles and contenting with contemporary problems” (A Drasha for Every Portion (TALI Education Fund, 2007), 82).

1. Does the parasha teach us that the Israelites lacked faith?

2. Maimonides explains why it is difficult to transmit faith that is based entirely upon miracles to future generations. Does this also explain the lack of faith of the Israelites who witnessed the miracles with their own eyes?

3. Why doe Maimonides believe that, by their nature, miracles must be temporary, fleeting phenomena?

4. As opposed to the negative view of the Israelites that may be inferred from the text, Dr Feller explains: “The tests faced by those liberated from Egypt, like the appearance of the Egyptians, thirst and hunger, were intended to mold free individuals. The Israelites are slaves born of slaves, and changing their consciousness from that of slaves to that of free people is a long and painful process…Slaves have no ‘tomorrow’. A sense of certainty regarding the future is acquired only after immediate physical needs are met. And so the people complain, and God, the devoted father, sees to their needs, and gradually the slave nation acquires basic confidence in its existence” (id.). Does this explanation, that compares the Israelites to newborn children, explain the need for frequent miracles? Did Israel’s lack of faith derive from an inability to believe?