[Yom HaShoah 2025] NEVER AGAIN. #Day566 #Broadcast1289 #BringThemHomeNow #UntilTheLastHostage 💙

My beloved friend, Ben Stern z"l, a Survivor, a hero, a father, a grandfather, a great-grandfather, was my rebbe.

My beloved friend, Ben Stern z"l, a Survivor, a hero, a father, a grandfather, a great-grandfather, was my rebbe. I was blessed to march arm in arm with him, and pledge to follow his model. This was a 2021 screening of the documentary his precious daughter, my beloved friend Charlene Y Stern, created of his life's journey, Near Normal Man. Please watch it. Learn from this great man. I think of him often, and remember him with deep emotion today. Learn more about Ben z"l here: https://www.timesofisrael.com/ben-stern-holocaust-survivor-who-stood-up-to-neo-nazis-dies-at-102/

Shemini: The Grace of Shared Vulnerability - #Day565 #Broadcast1288 #Shemini #BringThemHomeNow #UntilTheLastHostage #AmYisraelChai💙

Shemini: A Fire Worthy of Our People's Sacrifices - #Day564 #Broadcast1287 #Shemini #BringThemHomeNow #UntilTheLastHostage #AmYisraelChai💙

Shemini: The Careless Use of Power - #Day563 #Broadcast1286 #Shemini #BringThemHomeNow #UntilTheLastHostage #AmYisraelChai💙

How to Split the Sea: A Reflection for the Seventh Day of Pesach

How to Split the Sea: A Reflection for the Seventh Day of Pesach

Rabbi Menachem Creditor

Friends, as we prepare to enter the final sacred days of Pesach—tonight marking Shevi’i shel Pesach, the Seventh Day of the Festival—we find ourselves standing at the edge of memory and hope, with our hearts turned toward the Sea.

Tradition teaches that on this very night, in the middle of our ancestors' journey to freedom, the Sea of Reeds split. It’s easy to summon the image—perhaps Charlton Heston in “The Ten Commandments,” or Val Kilmer’s Moses in “The Prince of Egypt”—staff raised, sea parted, miracle revealed. A cinematic flash, a divine snap of the fingers.

But the Torah tells a deeper, slower, messier truth.

The sea didn’t split in an instant. It was not a pyrotechnic moment. The Torah tells us that when Moshe lifted his hand over the water, a ruach kadim, an east wind, blew all night long. And only then did the waters recede. It wasn’t magic. It was process.

A process shaped by terror and uncertainty, by complaints and confusion. The Israelites cried out, afraid, cornered by Pharaoh’s army. Moses, too, was unsure. “Be still,” he told the people. “God will fight for you.” But God pushes back: “Why do you cry out to Me? Tell the people to move forward.”

Move forward. Into what? The water hadn’t moved. The miracles hadn’t come.

And then—then came the human moment that changed everything.

The midrash tells of Nachshon ben Aminadav, who didn’t wait for the miracle. He walked into the sea—waist-deep, chest-deep, neck-deep. He believed, before it made sense to believe. He stepped in before it was safe. That’s when the waters parted.

Not because of a staff. But because of faith. Of courage. Of human partnership in divine work.

And so, friends, what do we learn as we prepare to cross our own seas?

We learn that miracles don’t come all at once. They take time. They take risk. They take us.

We have prayed. Oh, how we have prayed—for healing, for peace, for release, for redemption. If miracles came from words alone, the world would already be whole. But our prayers are not incantations. They are declarations. They are commitments. Our prayers are the seeds of our actions.

When Moses stood at the sea, God didn’t say “Stand back and watch.” God said: “Go.”

So go we must. Not alone. Not leaving anyone behind. When Pharaoh asked, “Who will go with you?” Moses replied, “Our elders and our children, our sons and our daughters.” Everyone.

Freedom means everyone.

And let me say it plainly: if we call it freedom but we’ve left someone behind—someone poor, someone disabled, someone forgotten, someone who looks or loves or prays differently—it’s not freedom. Not in the Jewish sense. Not in the holy sense. Not the kind we sing about at our Seders.

I want no blood on my door if it means someone else must suffer. I want no celebration if it means someone else is left mourning. Yes, we sometimes must fight for freedom—but never with joy for the fight itself. Never with pride in the pain.

So this is my promise, and I invite you to make it with me:

I will step into the sea.

I will not do it alone.

I will hold the hand of someone who needs me, and I will let others hold mine.

I will remember that my freedom is meaningless unless it includes yours.

I will stand in the breach, even when I’m afraid, because faith demands courage before certainty.

And when I pray, I will listen for the echo of my own voice telling me what I must do.

The sea is waiting, friends. The wind has begun to blow. The moment is upon us.

Let’s show up for each other.

Let’s split the sea—together.

Pesach: How to Split the Sea - #Day560 #Broadcast1285 #Pesach #BringThemHomeNow 💙