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The Jewish Home | APRIL 14, 2022
From the Fire Pesach
The Winning Ticket by rav Moshe Weinberger Adapted for publication by Binyomin Wolf
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OctOber 29, 2015 | the Jewish Home
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fter the Jewish people experienced the salvation of the Splitting of the Sea, the pasuk (Shmos 14:31-15:1) says, “And the Jewish people saw the great hand which Hashem used against Egypt and the nation feared Hashem and they believed in Hashem and in Moshe His servant. Then Moshe will sing...” The Gemara (Sanhedrin 91b) comments on these verses, “[Because it] does not say ‘Then Moshe sang,’ but rather ‘will sing,’ this is a hint to the resurrection of the dead in the Torah.” We must understand the connection between the resurrection of the dead and the Song at the Sea. Why would the Torah hint at the ultimate resurrection here? In addition, why does the Torah emphasize that the Jewish people believed in Hashem and Moshe at the Song of the Sea? We see that they believed in Hashem much earlier, as the pasuk (Shmos 4:31) says, “And the nation believed.” The Gemara (Shabbos 97a) derives from this pasuk that “it is revealed before Hashem that the Jewish people are believers.” If this is the case, why does the Torah seem
to imply that the Jewish people only acquired emunah later on by the Splitting of the Sea? Every Jew has emunah in Hashem on some level, whether revealed or hidden deep inside. As explained by the Tanya, this gives every Jew the power and potential to give up his life in order to stay true to his faith in Hashem. But there are infinite levels of emunah. A Jew must strive to attain the level of (Shmos 17:12) “And his hands were faith.” On that level, a person’s emunah is so tangible, that he feels like he can touch it with his hands. The Shela Hakadosh offers a remarkable explanation of the following statement by Chazal (Shmos Raba 23), “In the future, the Jewish people will sing a song for the World to Come.” This statement seems redundant. Chazal did not need to say that we will sing “in the future” “for the World to Come.” The Shela therefore explains that this statement by Chazal does not mean that in the World to Come we will sing about the miracles which will have occurred to help us reach that time. Rather, it means that at some
time in the future, before we reach the ultimate redemption, we will have such powerful emunah that we will sing songs of gratitude to Hashem for the ultimate redemption because of our certainty in its coming. For tzaddikim, there is no difference between a salvation which occurred in the past and an anticipated salvation. They are both equally real for the tzaddik who feels his emunah tangibly, as if with his hands. As the Torah said, the Jewish people had emunah in Hashem even in Egypt. But they never sang based only on the promises of (Shmos 6:6-7) the four phrases of geulah, “And I will take out,” “And I will save,” “And I will redeem,” and “And I will take.” Their faith was not yet on that level. However, they did attain that higher level of faith after the Splitting of the Sea, when the Torah says, “And the Jewish people saw the great hand which Hashem used against Egypt and the nation feared Hashem and they believed in Hashem and in Moshe His servant. Then Moshe will sing...” Then, they sang not only in gratitude for their immediate salvation
but in gratitude for the resurrection of the dead as well. The Chofetz Chaim told a parable of an extremely poor couple who lived in abject poverty in a tiny hovel. One day, however, the husband bought a lottery ticket. Later on, they learned that their ticket had the winning number. They had won the lottery! With great joy, he and his wife went outside of their little house to dance and celebrate their winnings. The neighbors saw them dancing and heard them singing, “We’re rich! We’re rich!” Bewildered, they asked the couple, “How can you sing and dance that you’re rich? Look where you are!” But the husband answered them, “We may not be rich yet, but we’re holding the winning lottery ticket. That’s why we are singing and dancing!” Emunah means being able to sing and dance about Hashem’s promise of the redemption in the future. It means realizing that we already hold the winning ticket. That was how Rabi Akiva was able to comfort his friends over the destruction of the Beis Hamikdash (Makos 24a-b). Because he was no less confident in the
