Miracles by the Sea

This morning, Rabbi Miriam Lorie joined BBC Radio 2's Pause for thought.

Listen here.

Well Scott, lucky old me - I’ve just got back from a delicious week in Cyprus. It was sun, sea and sand. But no pita, garlic bread or pizza because it was Passover - Pesach, the Jewish festival where we eat no leavened food, only matza, a flat cracker bread. It’s to remember our ancestors on the run from slavery in ancient Egypt. When the moment came to get out, there was no time to even let the dough rise - so matza was born. 

Sitting by the sparkling Mediterranean sea, eating our matza picnics felt like stepping into the shoes (or sandals) of my ancestors over 3000 years ago. It was this very same ocean, just a few hundred miles south, which miraculously split to allow them safe passage to freedom. I bet they also found matza crumbs as well as sand everywhere for weeks after!

Being connected to the very waters crossed in that epic Exodus story felt particularly inspiring. I wonder, were my ancestors as transfixed by the sparkling water as me? Did the sight of the sea spell freedom and miracles for them too?

Or… maybe not. The poet Yehuda Amichai wrote the following humorous yet thought provoking words:

From a distance everything looks like a miracle

but up close even a miracle doesn’t look like that.

Even someone who crossed the Red Sea when it split

saw only the sweating back

of the man in front of him

and the swaying of his big thighs.

Well, no comment on thighs, but I love the idea that the people of the Exodus were too focused on the sweaty guy in front to absorb the epic miracle taking place. 

Because:

From a distance everything looks like a miracle

but up close even a miracle doesn’t look like that.

That’s a message I plan to take on board. To look for the big picture miracles, the sand and the sea, not the sand on my beach towel or the saltwater in my hair. And to embrace the Pesach matza crumbs. They represent our freedom, and freedom alone is a miracle of epic proportions.