A short while ago, Arutz Sheva carried an article entitled "Scientists Look for the Physics Behind a Miracle" about two scientists who are attempting to prove that a strong wind might have caused the splitting of the sea that saved Israel and destroyed its Egyptian pursuers. In their approach, a sea reef that runs through the Red Sea would have been the dry land upon which the Jews crossed the sea. One of the researchers was quoted as saying, "I am convinced that God rules the Earth through the laws of physics."



The approach of this research is in line with the literal account of the miracle (Shemot 14:21), and the scientist states a truism: HaShem rules the world within the confines of the laws of Nature. However, our Sages insist that the splitting of the sea was an exception to the rule. It was not caused by the wind. Instead, we are taught (Mechilta, Midrash Tanchuma,Pirkei Avot), the event involved ten explicit miracles.



Here are some of the claims:



The sea was cut into many pieces. Twelve separate passages through the sea were created, one for every tribe. Tunnels through the sea were created. The walls between the twelve passages were transparent. The water turned into a solid substance. The solidified water protected the Jews but hurt the Egyptians. The seabed dried instantly for the Jews, and then turned into mud when the Egyptians arrived, and so forth.



The miracles seem to overlap or exclude one another. If there were separate passages, it kind of follows that the sea was cut into many pieces. And are tunnels not also passages? If the water became solid, it is not so surprising that there was no mud. Our Sages were clearly not interested in giving us a precise list of all the miracles that occurred. Their message seems to be in what the "ten" miracles typify and in their official number - ten.



The descriptions of the "ten" miracles point to a fundamental modification of Nature, and to the student of Kabbala the number ten clearly refers to this also. In the symbolism of Kabbala, the forces of Nature are a ten-fold creation. In the Sefer Yetsira, the forces of Nature are depicted as ten sephirot, and in Pirkei Avot 5:1 we learn accordingly: "With ten utterances the world was created." Hence, ten miracles symbolize an upheaval of all forces of Nature.



Speaking about Kabbala and the forces of Nature, I cannot resist making a digression. Knowledge of the symbolisms of Kabbala is an asset of great value. Yet, to pursue it with passion is not without risks. In the words of the Sefer Yetsira: "and if your heart runs to them, return to makom (place, space)." The Nefesh HaChaim (3:3) explains that this means that the student of Kabbala should anchor his thoughts to notions of the physical world, like makom, which he can understand and sense. The Rambam gives a similar advice in the opening of his Guide to the Perplexed: "Knowledge of Nature delimits the knowledge of the Divine and precedes it in the process of learning; this becomes evident to whoever engages in it." The spiritual and the physical are intertwined, and we can and must learn from the physical to understand the spiritual. How then can it be that so many students of Torah disregard the study of Nature?



If the Rambam admonished us almost a thousand years ago to study science, his advice is surely much more valid in our times, after the great scientific advances of the last centuries. To the student of Kabbala, it pays to take the advice of the Sefer Yetsira literally, and learn at least some of the science of makom: modern physics. Interestingly, modern physics itself developed in accordance with the advice of the Sefer Yetsira. Physics' abstract concepts were learned from makom, in a process of step-by-step generalizations that started from simple concepts related to physical space.



The process culminated in a wondrous description of the sephirot of the four fundamental forces of Nature that is way beyond being just a chochma. Judaism claims that the physical is spiritual; physics proves it. The Dutch physicist Martinus Veltman put it like this after he received the Nobel prize for elucidating the sephira of the force called weak interaction, the spherical world of isotopic spin: "It is impossible to underestimate the practical relevance of my work." What he meant to say is that the relevance of his work is not at all in its technological potential. Its sole importance is that it is the truth.



Returning to our topic, we learn that ten continuous miracles happened in the Beit HaMikdash: "Ten miracles were performed for our ancestors in the Beit HaMikdash: No woman miscarried because of the sacrificial meat; the sacrificial meat never became putrid; no fly was ever seen in the place were the meat was butchered; no seminal emission occurred to the high priest on Yom Kippur; the rains did not extinguish the fire on the altar pyre; the wind did not disperse the column of smoke from the altar; no disqualification was found in the omer, the two loaves, or the show-bread; the people stood crowded together, yet there was ample space when they prostated themselves; neither serpent nor scorpion ever caused injury in Jerusalem; nor did any man say to his fellow, "The space is insufficient for me to stay overnight in Jerusalem." (Pirkei Avot 7)



The list is surely not complete. Elsewhere, our Sages teach about other miraculous phenomena in and around the Beit HaMikdash. For instance, the Ark seemed to not consume any space, a Kohen would eat only a little from the show-bread to be fully satisfied, and rays of light always radiated from the Beit HaMikdash into the world. As before, the message is not in the exact list of miracles or their factual number. The message, rather, is that HaShem is not bound by the laws of Nature and can overrule them if He so chooses. The message is also that the Beit HaMikdash has the power to change the world gently in its essence. May we soon see the Divine light emanating anew from Yerushalayim.