"He Who sets the boundaries of the waters of the seas"

And G-d said, "Let the water that is beneath the heavens gather into one place, and let the dry land appear," and it was so.

ט. וַיֹּאמֶר אֱלֹהִים יִקָּווּ הַמַּיִם מִתַּחַת הַשָּׁמַיִם אֶלמָקוֹם אֶחָד וְתֵרָאֶה הַיַּבָּשָׁה וַיְהִיכֵן:

I am sitting here in the sunshine of Yerushalayim, ever so grateful that HaShem has allowed us to live in the most beautiful city on earth. However, my thoughts are flooded with concern for friends and our Jewish family of Yidden, and all peoples, in America threatened by hurricane Sandy as she roars through several states unleashing the ocean's waters from their boundaries. HaShem gave the waters on the earth on the third day of creation a directive not to go beyond their boundaries, set by the sands of shorelines.


But what are they witnessing before their visual amazement? The waters are overflowing their boundaries. In all the coverage of Sandy's strange path through the ocean ('hugging the shoreline,' 'veering strategically left,' 'unleashing her might surrounding Manhattan,' and then in a reversed question-mark path' continuing) onto land, I have not heard anyone exclaim that "the Hand of G-d, is G-d angry with us! He has loosened the boundaries of the sea."

This experience should produce introspection, a delving into one's psyche to grasp a message embeded in this mega-storm. An "ultra-shattering" event occuring between the Parsha of Lech Lecha where HaShem instructs Avraham to leave his country and family for the promised land, and the Parsha of Vayera and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Could there be a message here for the "undecided" Jews in America?

• Who will lead the once great Republic away from a atheistic socialistic philosophy toward a restoration of G-dly values?
• Unclear about one's heritage and one's Jewishness? 
• Ambivalent about supporting the holiness of our G-dly inheritance of Eretz Yisrael?
• Antagonistic about returning home and living under the Wings of G-d's message to the world in the fulfillment of ancient prophecies, giving birth to the cities, farms, and Jewish babies on the Land.

How could one remain undecided about who Governs this world and what He wants from us! Who causes the sun to shine, Who loosens the boundaries of the seas upon the sands of the shores.


Midrash Bereshis on the creation of the waters:

"On the third day, the earth was as flat as a plain, and the waters covered the entire surface of the earth. And when out of the mouth of the Almighty there issued the command "Let the waters be gathered together . . . and let the dry land appear" (Genesis 1:9), mountains and hills rising up in different parts of the earth emerged over its entire surface, so that it became pitted with many valleys.

As the core of the earth rose up, the waters rolled down into the valleys [and became seas]. Forthwith, swelling with pride, the waters rose in order to cover the earth as at the beginning.

But then the Holy One rebuked them, subdued them, placed them beneath the soles of His feet, and measured out their extent with His own span, so that they should neither enlarge nor diminish. And as a man makes a hedge for his vineyard, so He made the sand into a hedge for the seas, so that when the waters rise and see the sand before them, they turn back and recede."