This morning as I dashed through my building’s lobby to drop the kids off at school, I witnessed something sensational. A mother was leading her son, maybe six or seven years old, to her car. Only she couldn’t hold his hands as they were both occupied with his video game, as was the rest of his tiny body. I stared unabashed at this entranced child, oblivious to his surroundings, with only the sound of his mother’s voice connecting him to the outside world. When he knocked into a pillar I was certain he’d snap out of it, but he simply continued walking as if nothing had happened. I mean, I know video games are fantastic, but I think on anyone’s scale this case rates somewhat extreme.
Upon witnessing a Jew sinning, Reb Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev once exclaimed, “Almighty G-d! Surely you understand why Your children sin all day. All temptations, physical desires, movies, video games, You plaster all around them, whereas spirituality and Torah You assign solely to the books. Perhaps if You’d reverse the order and put the temptations in books and Torah out in the open, they would cease to sin entirely!”
For one moment in history this is precisely what occurred. The Torah records the historic event in this week’s Parsha under the title, “Splitting of the Red Sea.” Chassidic thought teaches that dry land symbolizes the revealed aspects of our lives, or the physical, whereas the sea represents the hidden areas, the spiritual. In order to uncover the secrets of the sea, one must dive beneath the surface and reach to its depths. Thus the splitting of the sea reversed the normal order: that which is regularly concealed suddenly became revealed as an entire nation experienced G-d in His entirety. Even the simplest of Jews was overwhelmed by the electric spiritual atmosphere, not so different to the video game-obsessed kid.
Today, 4000 years after that fateful moment, we are charged with a mission to recreate our personal Splitting of the Sea. By attributing more importance to spirituality and tuning in with the Divine, we transcend our regular selves and touch a higher plane. So, give G-d the front row seat in your life and expose yourself to the most sublime of underwater experiences.