In this week's Parsha, we read the story of the Splitting of the Red Sea.

Like all stories in our Torah, it is not a mere historical event, but one that has its parallel in the microcosm that is the human being throughout the ages.

The Talmud tells us that ‘everything that exists on land also exists in the sea.’

The difference is that whereas on land we see every creature and in full detail, the sea appears to us as a uniform body of water, all its inhabitants buried deep within.  In mystical, Kabbalistic terms, there is a ‘revealed world’ and a ‘hidden world’.

Just as the sea contains all that the land does, but in a hidden state, so the hidden spiritual world contains all that the physical world does.  The same is true of the human intellect – the conscious, rational mind is a reflection of the hidden, sub-conscious realm of the soul.  Although the two are like chalk and cheese, they are inextricably linked.  Even when we are seemingly utilising only our mundane, revealed potential, we are tapping into the vast pool of resources concealed deep within.

How are the two linked?  The Splitting of the Sea, all those years ago!

When the sea split, the entire underwater world was revealed, albeit briefly, for all to see.  Brief it may have been, but the seeds were sown.  Like any other Torah event, it resounds throughout the generations.  It is that brief, miraculous glimpse of the hidden depths, as we stood by the Sea, waiting to cross through the waters, which provides the impetus through to the present-day.