How do I get through suffering that feels like it will never end?

Rabbi Landau teaches that “the hardest part of suffering is not the pain, it's the feeling that this moment is your whole life.” He once asked a man who was really suffering to imagine himself at ninety, looking back at what he was going through now. The man was not able to.

That, he says, is why we recall Krias Yam Suf every day. Citing the Sfas Emes, he explains that the miracle was not only that the sea split. “The deeper miracle was Jewish nation walked inside the sea and yet for them it was dry land.” The sea did not stop being sea. “The fear may still be there, the pressure may still be there, the pain may still be there. But if connected to Hashem, even inside the sea, there can be dry land.”

“Real redemption is not always when the problem disappears. Sometimes it's when God gives you the power to stop drowning inside it.” The greatest salvation, he says, “is not always when God removes the sea. Sometimes it's when he gives you the dry land inside it.”

Going deeper: Rabbi Landau's teaching, level by level

Surface claim

Salvation is not always the problem disappearing. Sometimes it is dry land in the middle of the sea.

Fear, vulnerability, or tension

The hardest part of suffering is feeling that this moment is your whole life, so much that a person cannot even picture himself looking back on it.

Underlying need or longing

What does a suffering person need most?

Not always for the pain to vanish, Rabbi Landau teaches, but the power to stop drowning inside it.

Deepest human truth

When a person is connected to Hashem, the sea can stay sea, the fear and pressure can still be there, and yet there can be dry land under his feet.

More questions from this teaching

• What was the deeper miracle of the splitting of the sea?