What was unique about these miracles that stimulated Bnei Yisrael’s faith in Hashem more strongly than did the miracles wrought in Egypt? What provoked Bnei Yisrael to finally express gratitude to Hashem through the vehicle of “shirah,” song of praise? Horav Nissan Alpert, z.l., offers a profound homiletic response to this question. Historical events are all part of a great portrait created by Hashem as the master artist. These seemingly isolated incidents all fit in to make up a beautifully crafted and brilliantly designed mosaic. In order to appreciate the total project, man must be able to stand back and gaze upon this magnificent design from the distance of historical perspective. Exercised by an intelligent person, this form of intellectual hindsight creates an awareness of the profound purpose of each of the specific events. It also sheds light upon the individual and collective role each plays in the great panorama of history.
One cannot contemplate an historical event and comprehend it through the limited scope of the finite. It must be viewed as a link in the chain of a historical continuum. Rabeinu Yaakov M’Lisa, the “Maase Nissim,” uses this idea to explain the apparent redundancy in the famous poem of “Chad Gadya,” which we recite annually at the end of the Pesach Seder. He states that each link in the chain of events which is initiated by this “gadya,” goat, is actually symbolic of an event in Am Yisrael’s history. The first occurrence was the Exodus from Egypt, looking forward toward “Tikun Ha’olam,” the perfection of the world, and toward the ultimate “slaughtering of the Angel of Death.” The preceding stanza is repeated in each new verse in order to emphasize that every historical occurrence is interrelated with the next.
In Egypt, Bnei Yisrael saw the Finger of Hashem in various events. They did not integrate the divergent events into one framework. At the splitting of the Red Sea, however, they saw the complete Hand of Hashem. In other words, they saw the entire picture, the past, present, and future, all at once. Perceiving a global reality enabled Bnei Yisrael to appreciate and acknowledge all of Hashem’s miracles. The profound insight represented by Hashem’s Hand effected the ‘vc ubhnthuw total belief in Hashem.
