By Rabbi Yosef Shemtov
In this week’s Torah portion, Beshalach, we see the most magnificent and biggest miracle, the splitting of the Red Sea. Midrash describes this experience at length. The spiritual uplifting was so great that it says Vayaminoo be HaShem ve Moshe avdo, meaning they had full trust in the Almighty and Moshe rabenu. They saw all Paroh’s army drown, while Beni Israel calmly walked through, and gathered all the gold and treasures the soldiers brought with them from Paroh’s treasure house.
One might think anyone who sees these kinds of miracles would never forget HaShem and would do all his commandments.
However, it seems this is not true. Complains started a few days after they merged outside the Red Sea. People complained about bitter water and not having bread and meat etc…
What happened ? Didn’t they see that the Almighty is so powerful and is able to do anything? So why complain?
When difficult times come, unfortunately, we tend to forget the things HaShem has done for us. We forget all the favors HaShem has done for us. We forget that we are healthy, have roof on our head etc… and we complain why this,why that.
One of last generation’s big Rabbis promised if we thank HaShem constantly we will never miss anything to complain about.
We need to remind ourselves of HaShem’s goodness to us all the time.