Many of us have had life experiences that test our theology and force us to re-examine our beliefs about how God works in our world. For some it may be an illness, for others a freak accident; nonetheless, those events in which we feel our lack of control may push us to examine our relationship to God and God’s relationship to us.

This rich text explores the ways in which God rules the world: (1) single-handedly and independent of human involvement, and (2) with input from humans. While these two methods may seem to contradict one another, the text explicitly asks: “So how can these two ways [of understanding God to be the Ultimate Independent Creator and a God who is in partnership with human beings who have free will] be unified into one when they seem to be different and contradictory paths?”

By using the text of Moshe lifting up his staff at the splitting of the Sea of Reeds and harkening back to the creation of this staff when the world was originally created, we are taken on a journey of insight as we are taught the unity in these two seemingly contradictory modes of Divine operation in the world.