by Rabbi Daniel Huebner

One of the highlights of the story of the Exodus from Egypt is the Splitting of the Sea. The Egyptians, regretting freeing their Israelite slaves, gave chase and caught up to them at the sea, leaving the Israelites stuck between the sea and the mighty Egyptian army.

The Israelites were divided into four different schools of thought on how to deal with their difficult situation.

The first group said, let us plunge ourselves into the sea. There are no good options for us at this point. Going back to slavery isn't an option, and neither is a fight against the Egyptians in which we don't stand a chance.

The second group's approach was to surrender to the Egyptians. Life as a slave is still better than death.

The third group was the nationalistic. They said, let's fight Egypt. We don't stand a chance, but we'll go down with our dignity.

And the fourth group said, there are no good options other than prayer. We'll say a prayer, and hopefully G-d will answer.

But then, an interesting thing happened. Moses rejected all four options. "Don't be afraid!" he reassured them. You have nothing to fear but fear itself:

"Stand firm and see the L‑rd's salvation that He will wreak for you today, for the way you have seen the Egyptians is only today, but you shall no longer continue to see them for eternity. The L‑rd will fight for you, but you shall remain silent."

The instructions were to just keep on going. They knew their objective was to reach Mount Sinai and receive the Torah. And to do that they just had to keep going and not get distracted by obstacles along the way.

This is the key to our survival as Jews. Throughout our history we've had many challenges and tragedies. And our response has always been to keep on going. Not to be put off and resign ourselves to the challenges, or even to get caught up fighting. Just to keep on doing more of what we know we should be doing with our focus on the goal; building and rebuilding along the way, always looking to do another mitzvah and better the world around us.

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Rabbi Daniel and Raizel Huebner moved to San Miguel from New Jersey in 2018 with their family to start Chabad SMA. They enjoy living in San Miguel and integrating with the community through classes, Jewish activities and social events.

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