Parshat Beshalach: Where is G-d in the World? - Rabbi Yaakov Asher Sinclair

I remember as a young boy my mother taking ages weaving a tapestry of Gainsborough's boy in blue one day just before she finished it I remember picking up and thinking to myself mummy you're a really wonderful mother but when it comes to needlework well well there's a piece of red sticking out here over there there's a turquoise clump of threads it seems to go nowhere clumps of wool all over the place this doesn't look like any like gains real looks more like abstract ah and then my fingers detect it smooth regular stitching on the other side of the tapestry I turned the tapestry over and saw a beautiful and precise copy of Gaines's boy in blue the stitches were all regular and well-formed the colors all blended together a divine tapestry all the disjointed threads that I saw on the other side of the tapestry harmonize into a complete and beautiful whole sometimes it's very difficult to see sense in world events it's difficult to believe the world is being run by a God that there's a divine coherent plan they're suffering there's evil in this world how can this be the handiwork of a merciful God if you've ever felt that way don't worry because you're not alone one of the greatest men who ever lived felt exactly like you Moshe obey no Moses our teacher our great teacher also had his questions about God's running the world in last week's Torah portion Moshe Moses went to Pharaoh to peril to ask him to let the Jewish people go power if you remember was not the easiest of negotiating partners who reply to motions requests Poirot told the task masters to stop giving the Jews straw however the Jews were still required to produce exactly the same quantity of bricks as before the Jews complained bitterly to Moshe so much she went back to God and said why are you have you done this evil to this people why have you sent me from the time I came to power to speak in your name he did evil to this people but you did not rescue your people Moshe was saying that from the time from the very beginning the whole plan to take the Jews out of Egypt was faithfully flawed he was telling God they didn't see a divine plan he just saw chaos when you look at life's tapestry from the wrong side it looks like a complete mess Moshe was looking at events from the wrong side but he fixed that mistake and when he saw the miraculous deliverance of the Jewish people at the splitting of the sea he used the same word that he used to show his lack of faith that word is oz meaning then Naz is made up of an Aleph the numerical equivalent of one and Zion seven seven represents the natural world there are seven colors in the rainbow several notes in the diatonic scale seven days in the week when Moshe and the Jewish people emerged unscathed from the sea and saw the mighty Egyptian army strewn across the beach like so many broken toy soldiers it was there that every Jew and the greatest to the most humble reached a level of prophetic insight into the workings of the world that has never been repeated they plugged all the seven all the disparate and sometimes confusing events of this world back into the one the one who weaves life's rich tapestry [Music] you [Applause]