Chazal say matching couples is as difficult as Kri’as Yam Suf. What’s the connection?

“And you, lift up your staff and stretch out your hand on the sea, and split it, and Bnei Yisrael will come amid the sea on dry land. (Shemos 14:16)

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oes anything in our lives remotely reflect that unparalleled miracle of Kri’as Yam Suf? Chazal say matching couples is as difficult as Kri’as Yam Suf. What’s the connection? (Rabbi YY Jacobson, TheYeshiva.net)

They say that you hire a wedding photographer so your kids can look at your album and laugh. After a long hiatus, my boys were recently paging through my album.

“Is that Mommy?” said Avi. “I don’t believe it!”

Kids are great for the ego. I glanced over to see which photo had prompted his disbelief.

The photographer had caught me dancing, mid-spin. Arms graceful, veil flying, I was poised several inches above the floor. But it was my face that drew me now. I was ecstatic, eyes glowing, exuding the joy I was feeling.

Avi couldn’t believe that was me. I no longer can jump that high nor do I spin circles. But isn’t my face still the same? Or maybe not. Do I exude that kind of floating happiness anymore?

Tehillim (114:3) says: “The sea saw and fled.”

What did it see? The sea apparently refused to split for Bnei Yisrael until it was shown the bones of Yosef. Why?

The Zohar states that the original creation of the sea was contingent upon its splitting for Bnei Yisrael 2,448 years later. At creation, the sea — like any good businessman — asked to see those “Jews” for whom it would need to change its nature.
When it observed the souls of the Jews in Heaven, it was filled with joy. For such souls it’ll be an honor to split!

Fast forward 2,448 years. The Jews just left Mitzrayim, the most morally depraved society on earth. Now, they’re exhausted, devastated, and broken. Hashem tells the sea to split. The sea refused, saying: “These are not the same souls I saw originally in Heaven. Those were Divine. These people are filled with negativity.”

Then it saw the bones of Yosef. When Yosef’s brothers came down to Mitzrayim, he recognized them, but they didn’t recognize him. Why?

Outwardly, Joseph appeared a charming diplomat. But inside, his soul was pure holiness. This dual identity characterized Yosef’s life. When the sea saw Yosef, it realized its error.

Yes, those souls it had seen in Heaven were far loftier than the exhausted humans at its shore. But remembering Yosef, the sea understood that it shouldn’t limit its perception to external appearances. These Jews also had the souls of royalty. Thus, the sea agreed to split.

I wonder what my husband sees when he sees my face. Does he remember that glowing kallah who danced her way through our wedding, or the moaning bundle a few months later when I was hospitalized with a difficult pregnancy?

When had that smile reappeared? Had it ever? Life just kept getting in the way. Bills, dentists, sickness, wars and… where had that smile gone?

Chazal say before each of us was born, we were shown the soul of our spouse. When you saw the soul of your future zivug, you were ecstatic that this would be your future.

But decades later, you take another look at your spouse and you don’t recognize his soul in the face of the “faults” in his personality.

That’s why matchmaking is compared to Kri’as Yam Suf. One needs the ability to recognize your true spouse, beneath the layers of “rubble” that may eclipse his soul.

Recently we were zocheh to make a bar mitzvah. Yes, with a photographer. Perhaps the purpose of these pictures was so my son can look at them in a few years and tell me his hat was wrong, and his glasses terrible, and who decided the men should wear matching ugly ties?

But I had another purpose with those photos. I wanted to recapture the old me, who threw herself into a simchah a few inches above the air, her face glowing.

As the photographer was finishing up, I requested one final picture. Turning to my husband I called out, “Everyone! Come kiss Tatty and Mommy!”

Suddenly, we were surrounded by our kids (and grandkids!) vying for a position to hug and kiss us. When the album came, there
were the requisite comments as the kids laughed or complained over the various poses. But there’s one picture that makes my husband and me smile. Decades married, and my face is shining.

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 930)