The question is: who really needs a miracle like Kriyas Yam Suf — קריעת ים סוף, the Splitting of the Sea?
Would someone already on an extraordinarily high level of kedushah — קדושה, deeply connected to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, need such a grand and overwhelming miracle in order to recognize Him?
Would Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov need the sea to split before them in order to understand that HaKadosh Baruch Hu controls everything?
Probably not.
Kriyas Yam Suf was an unbelievable revelation. But Klal Yisrael had just emerged from Mitzrayim after descending terribly low, traditionally described as approaching the forty-ninth level of tumah — מ״ט שערי טומאה.
They needed an enormous spiritual boost—almost an injection of spiritual adrenaline or glucose—to lift them from where they were and bring them toward Har Sinai — הר סיני.
They needed to see with their own eyes that nature has no independent existence from its Creator. The sea itself could open because the sea, like everything else in creation, exists only through the will of HaKadosh Baruch Hu.
But someone already deeply connected to Hashem does not necessarily need such dramatic demonstrations.
THE SEED OF EMUNAH
The basic seed of emunah — אמונה may appear small, but when properly cultivated, it grows into a great tree that produces fruit, food, and shade.
A person begins to understand that everything comes from Hashem.
HaKadosh Baruch Hu did not create the world and then withdraw from it. His presence is concealed. Through tzimtzum — צמצום, the physical world can appear to operate independently, while in reality Hashem remains completely involved in His creation.
Hashem is not somewhere outside the world.
Hashem is here.
Once a person understands this deeply, he does not require a spectacular event every day to remind him that Hashem exists.
And this principle extends far beyond miracles.
It applies to our entire physical life.
WHEN COMFORT BECOMES A NECESSITY
There is an enormous difference between having wealth and enjoying it and needing wealth and comfort in order to function.
A person can be wealthy and still remain internally independent of his wealth. He can enjoy what HaKadosh Baruch Hu has given him while understanding that his identity and ability to function do not depend upon it.
Another person can become so accustomed to comfort, luxury, convenience, and being pampered that these things are no longer luxuries.
They become necessities.
He needs a certain house.
He needs a certain hotel.
He needs certain foods.
He needs certain surroundings.
He needs everything arranged properly before he can function.
At that point, wealth is no longer merely something he possesses.
His possessions have begun to possess him.
And this can eventually interfere even with Torah and mitzvos.
If a person has trained himself that he can function only when his physical surroundings satisfy him, what happens when those conditions disappear?
Can he still learn Torah?
Can he still daven properly?
Can he still perform mitzvos with enthusiasm?
Can he still be happy?
A person who has less may sometimes possess an advantage precisely because he has learned to live without everything being perfect. He searches, adapts, improvises, and appreciates what he has.
Something small can give him genuine pleasure because he has never trained himself to require something enormous before feeling satisfied.
This does not mean that poverty itself is desirable or that wealth is undesirable.
The question is what the wealth has done to the person.
Does he control his comforts, or do his comforts control him?
THE TEST OF WEALTH
This leads to an even deeper purpose of wealth.
Wealth is not given merely so that a person can accumulate more and continuously increase his personal comfort.
Wealth gives a person the ability to give.
It gives him the ability to support Torah and mitzvos, help families, strengthen his community, and respond when difficult circumstances arise.
That itself is part of the nisayon — נסיון, the test, of wealth.
Hashem may place money into a person’s hands, and later create a situation in which that money suddenly has a purpose.
A family is struggling.
Someone cannot meet basic expenses.
A person needs medical assistance.
A Torah institution is in difficulty.
A community faces an urgent need.
Now the test begins.
If a person has spent years becoming dependent upon his wealth—his house, vacations, luxuries, conveniences, status, and lifestyle—then giving away a meaningful portion of that wealth becomes extremely difficult.
The more he has convinced himself that he needs, the less he feels that he has available to give.
The money may technically belong to him, but psychologically he cannot separate himself from it.
This is why wealth can be such a difficult test.
The question is not merely whether a person earned his money honestly.
The deeper question is:
What happens when HaKadosh Baruch Hu presents him with an opportunity to use that money for the purpose for which wealth may have been placed into his hands?
A person filled with Torah and mitzvos understands that wealth is a tool. He can enjoy what Hashem gives him without making it the foundation of his existence.
Then, when the proper moment arrives to part with some of it for another Jew, for Torah, for tzedakah, or for the needs of the community, he is capable of letting it go.
But when wealth becomes primarily a means of satisfying oneself, giving becomes painful because every dollar given away feels like something being removed from one’s own life.
The test is not only whether Hashem gives us something.
The test is whether, when the proper moment arrives, we are capable of giving some of it back.
WHY DO WE NEED A BALL OF FIRE?
The same principle applies spiritually.
If a person needs a sea to split, a ball of fire to descend from Heaven, or some enormous supernatural event before he can feel the presence of HaKadosh Baruch Hu, perhaps he is overlooking the miracle taking place every second.
Consider the human body.
We eat food. The body breaks it down, extracts what it needs, distributes nutrients throughout an enormously complicated system, and removes what it cannot use.
Waste returns to the earth.
Organisms, insects, worms, plants, animals, soil, and water participate in an interconnected cycle. What one living thing discards becomes nourishment for another. Vegetation grows from the earth, produces food, sustains living creatures, decomposes, and eventually becomes part of the earth from which new life emerges.
And this continues every second, everywhere on Earth.
The cycle is incredible.
Why should this be considered less miraculous than the sea splitting?
Perhaps only because we see it every day.
That is one of the great dangers of familiarity.
When something astonishing happens once, we call it a miracle.
When something astonishing happens every second, we call it nature.
But nature itself is the miracle.
THE CHILD WHO NEEDS CANDY
A child needs incentives.
He may need something sweet to encourage him to learn because his natural attraction is first toward immediate physical pleasure. The reward draws him toward something whose true value he does not yet fully appreciate.
But eventually the child is supposed to mature.
An adult who genuinely understands the value of Torah should not require candy in order to learn Torah.
The Torah itself becomes valuable.
The same principle applies to physical comforts.
And perhaps the same principle applies to miracles.
Someone spiritually undeveloped may need an enormous external demonstration to awaken him.
But someone deeply connected to HaKadosh Baruch Hu can recognize Him through what appears completely ordinary.
He can look at his hand.
He can breathe.
He can eat.
He can watch a tree grow.
He can observe the birth of a child.
He can contemplate the enormous cycle through which life continuously sustains other life.
He does not need the sea to split every morning.
He understands that the sea remaining exactly where it is supposed to be is also the will of Hashem.
FROM KRIYAS YAM SUF TO HAR SINAI
Perhaps this helps us understand the enormous revelation of Kriyas Yam Suf.
Klal Yisrael was being lifted from the depths of Mitzrayim toward Har Sinai.
At that stage, they required an overwhelming revelation.
The sea opened.
Nature visibly surrendered before its Creator.
But that could not remain the permanent basis of their relationship with Hashem.
The goal was not for Klal Yisrael to spend the rest of history waiting for another sea to split.
The goal was to reach the point where a Jew recognizes HaKadosh Baruch Hu even when the sea does not split—when everything appears completely ordinary.
And that brings all these ideas together.
The person who needs luxury in order to be happy becomes dependent upon luxury.
The person who needs wealth entirely for himself will struggle when Hashem gives him the opportunity to give it away.
The person who needs spectacular miracles in order to believe becomes dependent upon spectacular revelation.
In each case, something that could have been a tool becomes something the person cannot function without.
A child may need candy.
A person accustomed to physical pleasure may need comfort.
A nation emerging from forty-nine levels of tumah may need Kriyas Yam Suf.
But the higher goal is different.
To enjoy wealth without being owned by wealth.
To enjoy comfort without becoming dependent upon comfort.
To give when Hashem gives us the opportunity to give.
And to recognize HaKadosh Baruch Hu without demanding that He split the sea for us.
The highest recognition may be when the ordinary itself becomes extraordinary.
Because then a person understands that what we casually call nature is simply the continuous miracle of HaKadosh Baruch Hu sustaining His world every second.
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