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trained troops with horses and chariots. The children of Israel had “It is true that without attaining the goal that I am working on, my acknowledge Your good kindness. I will return to You in
the terrifying feeling that they were hanging over an abyss. The life is not a life. But I am doing what I am obligated to in the realm truth and with a whole heart….”
midrash gives the image of a dove in the cleft of a rock. Inside is of prayer. And if that means that for years more I will continue to
a snake and outside is an eagle, and the dove cannot do anything sin and lust, to be a degraded person even if I do not technically And when he recognizes and understands clearly on
but cry out with all its might. The midrash tells that the children of violate the Torah, and I will be addicted to all sorts of nonsense and his own that he can do teshuvah only by the power
Israel “made use of the skill of their forefathers” and cried out foolishness, and I will transgress the will of Hashem, until Hashem of Hashem, the Father of compassion, only by
to Hashem with all their might. finally saves me—what alternative do I have?” Thus, we do not feel His power alone and in His vast compassion and
that our spiritual danger is, in the most basic sense, life-threatening.
Rabbi Yerucham Leibovitz (Divrei Torah: Shemot) comments on this kindness, he cries out from the depths of his heart, and
midrash. What is the meaning of “the skill of their forefathers”? He Our primary and most significant factor in doing the work of he attains salvation.
explains that every time the holy forefathers prayed for spiritual the will is that we do not see how transgressing Hashem’s will,
salvation, they felt exactly like the children of Israel who were how being filled with cravings and addictions, constitutes an actual Then Hashem, may He be blessed, will have compassion
trapped between the Egyptians and the sea, and who had no staff danger to our lives. Therefore, we do not cry out, “I need You to on him. In His vast compassion, He will have compassion
and support but prayer and outcry to Hashem. The forefathers felt save me right now!” If we felt this threat to our lives, we would cry on him and illuminate him in His vast light, from the
that if they are not saved spiritually this very moment, they will out to Hashem and ask Him to save us here and now: “Without infinite light whose greatness is beyond investigation.
literally experience death. They felt as though they were standing this, I am not alive! I cannot bear it any more. I cannot continue to And with the help of Hashem, may His name be
between the sea and Egypt. That means that they experienced a sin for another moment! This is a question of life and death, and I blessed, this person can in one moment emerge
sense of tremendous danger here and now, a sense that that they need to be saved here and now, this very second. A second later from the dark and come to great light—literally
had not a moment to lose, and so they pleaded for spiritual salvation will be too late—there won’t be anyone left to save.” from one extreme to the other.
at this very moment, here and now. As a result, their prayers were
always effective. Thus, they attained what they attained and became The intermediate conclusion is thus: only a person who feels that This principle that strong prayer regarding spiritual matters is
the fathers of the world. We see here how they laid the foundation sinning endangers his life is able to cry out to Hashem and tell effective in a single moment, despite all of the spiritual rules, is
of the people of Israel, who are called “believers, the children of Hashem that he must be saved immediately, at this very moment. expressed as well in the writings of Rabbi Eliezer Dessler (from Kovetz
believers,” because they inherited the skill to always feel themselves Shem Ushe’eirit, p. 175, 176):
between the Egyptians and the sea—the skill of our forefathers, Learning from Our Forefathers
who knew to live and experience their danger in every prayer. …The second way [of battling against the evil
It does not suffice to have a general feeling that the spiritual inclination] is the way of prayer, the way of “a person
Rabbi Yerucham states that this is “the great secret of prayer”! danger is life-threatening. We must feel and visualize in the
He writes: greatest detail that our spiritual danger—i.e., our sin, craving who acquires his world in one hour.” That is the direct
way for a person to come close to Hashem, may He
or addiction—is a tangible and immediate threat to our lives. We
We have a tremendous piece of information: we know that even be blessed, even though he has still not rectified the
when the holy forefathers were well-off, they always prayed out of should think about the examples that Rabbi Nachman described. obtuseness of his heart. This is explained in the Gemara
a sense of ultimate urgency, no less than the urgent prayers of all We should try to enter into the heart of a person who is hanging by in the story of R. Eliezer ben Durdiya, who did teshuvah
his hands from a wall, and then cry out to Hashem.
of the children of Israel in their great distress at the sea. The secret and clung to Hashem until his soul left his body as he
of the matter is that the children of Israel are always on the level of In the Torah reading of Beshalach, the midrash describes how wept….
‘from the straits….’ They never have anyone but Hashem on whom the children of Israel stood before the Sea of Reeds in terrible
to rely and turn to. They cry out only to Hashem. distress, with the sea before them, the snake and scorpion-infested Rabbi Dessler tells the entire story and emphasizes that R. Durdiya
wilderness on each side, and behind them the host of Egypt, which attained everything that he did because he “requested compassion.”
This illustrates a wondrous passage that I saw in Michtav
was three times their size, consisting of bloodthirsty and vengeful, And Rabbi Dessler concludes: