This week’s Torah portion describes one of the greatest miracles ever recorded: The Splitting of the Red Sea. It is said that even the simplest handmaid who saw this event experienced the highest level of prophecy. The Lubavitcher Rebbe has said that the we are currently in the era of the messiah and the Ultimate Redemption. This redemption will resemble the redemption from Egypt, which we read about in the Book of Shemot, or Exodus. Since the coming Redemption will be even greater than the exodus from Egypt, we can expect to see miracles even more astounding than the splitting of the Red Sea.
Not everyone reacted in the same way to the approach of the Egyptians before Moses raised his rod and G-d split the sea in half. When the Egyptians were pursuing the Jews, a group wanted to jump into the sea rather than to be killed or captured by their former masters. Others wanted to fight against the Egyptians, while another group wanted to surrender. Some immediately began to pray. None of these approaches turned out to be the correct course of action. Ultimately, the right thing to do was to stand and wait for Hashem to split the sea and then to go forward.
The Rebbe compares the situation at the Red Sea with what we face in exile. All of our daily worries and suffering are part of the exile from which we seek deliverance. The answer is not to retreat, surrender, try to fight or seek prayer only as a means to ignore the problem. The answer is to heed the call and to go forward.
When faced with an apparently insurmountable problem, a good tactic may be to visualize the Red Sea and remember that all problems are illusory. Just as the laws of nature were suspended to allow the Jewish People to walk to the other side in order to receive the Torah on Mount Sinai, so too Hashem will remove our obstacles if we are guided by a holy purpose.
See also: Leaving Egypt Every Day