Purim and the Splitting of the Sea in the Skies Above Dubai
Mordechai Hager
«“There is none like the Gd of Jeshurun, Who rides the heavens to your aid, and in His majesty upon the skies.”
(Deuteronomy 33:26)»
There are verses we read for years, and then an event occurs that suddenly brings them to life.
It is difficult not to think of this verse when reflecting on the flight from Dubai to Israel:
“Who rides the heavens to your aid.”
Tens of thousands of feet above the earth, where a human being is almost completely helpless, the Torah reminds us: even there, we are not alone.
What happened on that flight seems to contain two different kinds of miracles: Purim and the Splitting of the Sea.
The Purim Miracle
Purim is the miracle of concealment.
No sea split. No fire descended from Heaven. Nothing openly supernatural occurred.
Esther became queen. Mordechai overheard Bigthan and Teresh. The incident was recorded. Years later, on exactly the right night, Achashverosh could not sleep. He asked for the royal chronicles, and they opened to Mordechai’s story just as Haman arrived.
Each event could be called natural. Together, they form an extraordinary chain of Divine Providence.
On this flight, something similar happened—but within minutes.
The right people had to be in the right places. Someone had to recognize what was happening. Others had to act instead of freezing. Information had to pass quickly. Decisions had to be made. The pilots had to regain control.
One link followed another. Had one failed, the outcome could have been entirely different.
That is Purim compressed into minutes.
And Then Came the Sea
But even after everyone did what they could, another question remained:
Would the aircraft itself survive?
The plane entered an extreme dive and lost thousands of feet within seconds. It suffered damage, yet it remained airborne. Control was regained, and eventually it landed.
Here human ability reaches its limit.
A person can act. A pilot can fight for control. But no human being can guarantee that an aircraft under extreme forces will remain intact.
This is where Purim begins to resemble the Splitting of the Sea.
At the Red Sea, Israel reached a point where nature seemed to say: there is nowhere to go. Egypt was behind them and the sea was ahead.
And then the sea split.
The Ramban’s Lesson
At the end of Parashat Bo, the Ramban explains why Hashem performed the great revealed miracles of the Exodus.
The purpose of the revealed miracle is to teach us to recognize the hidden miracle.
The great miracles teach us that what we casually call “nature” is also under Hashem’s control.
The Splitting of the Sea is the great public sign.
Purim is the same message hidden inside ordinary events.
The Author of both is the same.
Perhaps that is the lesson of this flight.
We often say:
It was luck.
It was excellent timing.
The pilot was skilled.
The right person happened to be there.
The aircraft was well built.
All of that may be true.
But we should not stop there.
Who placed that person there at precisely that moment? How did so many separate events come together within a few critical minutes?
We cannot claim to know Hashem’s calculations or why particular events happen. But we can ask ourselves whether we are paying attention.
Perhaps we have witnessed so many hidden miracles that we have become accustomed to them.
Perhaps we keep calling them coincidence.
And perhaps an event like this reminds us to look again.
First came something resembling Purim: the right people, the right decisions, the right timing.
Then came something resembling the Splitting of the Sea: after human effort reached its limit, the aircraft still had to survive.
The message of both is ultimately one:
EIN OD MILVADO — THERE IS NOTHING BESIDES HIM
The lesson of the Splitting of the Sea is not that we should spend our lives waiting for another sea to split.
It is that the great revealed miracles should teach us how to recognize Hashem in the hidden ones—in ordinary life, in timing, in what we call coincidence, and even in the skies above us.
Purim teaches us that Hashem can remain hidden within nature.
The Splitting of the Sea teaches us that nature itself is in His hands.
They are not two different stories.
They are one.
EIN OD MILVADO.
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