Miller's Musings Last Days of Pesach: All Part of the Process

 

True global events don't come around too often.   But when a sea miraculously splits to allow the salvation of one nation, whilst almost simultaneously bringing about the annihilation of another, this is something that must have had wide reaching impact.  When added to this we are told by the Medrash that every gathering of water in the entire world was also split in this miraculous manner at the same time, we can understand that this was an incident that must have shaken the world.  Curiously when referencing this fact the Torah chooses to allude to it by referring specifically to the Jordan River, the one that the Jewish people will traverse in the same miraculous fashion in which they passed through the Yam Suf. The question is of course why?  Why this river when all waters were effected?

When the Jewish people were at long last freed from their enslavement, one could be forgiven for assuming that this was an end in and of itself.  But, says the Alei Be'er, in fact their emancipation from the Egyptians was only the preliminary step of a transformative process for the Jewish people, including their acceptance and receiving of the Torah, and culminating in their entrance into the Promised Land.  It is for this reason that the Jordan River is connected in this way to the splitting of the Yam Suf.  To teach us this lesson, that the exodus was only one stage of their development which was finally brought to something of a conclusion as they crossed the Jordan River into Eretz Yisroel. 

 

Life is full of moments that trigger something within us that inspire us towards growth. It may be a momentous occasion that makes us rethink our priorities or a transcendent experience that reconnects us to our spiritual goals.  The danger is to think that those moments are to be viewed as end points with no relationship to what is to come, when in truth every step of our lives should be viewed as being one necessary movement closer to our life purpose.  Viewed this way the times that make us feel most elevated should be immediately followed by an evaluation of what to do with this new found inspiration and how we can utilise it in the best way possible. We can not afford to let one such leap forward pass without examining what role it can, and must have in our progression. We must be constantly striving to proceed further through the journey we call life and in doing so the next question must always be "where to next?". 

May this Pesach carry us forward with inspiration throughout the rest of the year. 

L'ilui nishmas Leah based Avrohom