Yisroel Say . . . and Believed in Hashem and His Servant Moshe
During a Shabbos meal in Maran HaRav Moshe Feinstein's home, a visitor told the following story. A Jew who needed a yeshu'ah travelled to a famous Rebbe known as a tzaddik who effected yeshu'os. When he arrived the Rebbe first told him: "I want you to be aware that a yeshu'ah is dependent upon emunah. If you do not believe in me, all your efforts in coming here are in vain." The Jew answered: "Rebbe, even by the splitting of Yam Suf the Torah writes (Shemos 14:31), "Yisroel saw the great hand which Hashem did upon Egypt," and only afterwards the Torah writes, "[the people] believed in Hashem." We see that emunah comes after the yeshu'ah. The Rebbe should first bring me a yeshu'ah and afterwards I will believe in him." The Jew won that argument and the Rebbe first gave him a yeshu'ah. This is what the visitor told HaRav Moshe Feinstein zt'l.
The Rosh Yeshiva answered that there is an elementary difference between saving a whole mass of people and saving an individual and therefore the kashyeh is not a good one. Moreover we can differentiate between two types of emunah: One emunah is knowing that Hashem can do everything, is Master of all, is more powerful that any power in the world, nothing can stop Him, no one can do anything without Him, and a person himself has no power whatsoever. Am Yisroel had this particular emunah before the splitting of Yam Suf since they saw the miracles in Egypt and had already learned that lesson. Even before the splitting of Yam Suf the Torah writes, "Bnei Yisroel cried out to Hashem" (Shemos 14:10).
There is, however, another type of emunah. Even after a person knows that HaKodosh Boruch Hu can do everything and everything is done through His desire, a person still does not know whether Hashem wants to save him and make a miracle for him, that is, to what degree He wants to change nature for him. Bnei Yisroel were lacking that emunah and could not compare one matter of emunah to the other. Even after they saw that HaKodosh Boruch Hu had made the water sweet for them, later when they were thirsty for water in Moroh they complained: "Maybe we were worthy for a miracle of yesh meiyesh (out of something already existent) to make bitter water sweet, but not for a miracle of yesh mei'ayin (out of something hitherto nonexistent) to extract enough water for six hundred thousand people from a rock." Bnei Yisroel had many similar fears because of their lack of emunah.
Nevertheless, we see there were two types of bitochon. The first type of bitochon, the basic one, bnei Yisroel were surely blessed with. They knew that Hashem can help them and only He can help them, and to Him they cried for salvation. Every person must embrace this emunah. The Rebbe who said that this type of emunah is a precondition to having a yeshu'ah was completely right.
However, bnei Yisroel still did not believe that HaKodosh Boruch Hu would want to change nature miraculously for them. They reached this understanding, the second emunah, only after the miracle, and then the Torah writes (Shemos 14:31) that they "believed in Hashem and His servant Moshe." They then understood that Hashem was prepared to make that miracle for them too. (Arzei HaLevonon)
Who Redeemed Us and Redeemed Our Fathers
On Purim we say the brochoh of she'osoh nissim la'avoseinu (Who did miracles for our fathers), but we do not include that miracles were performed for us too, as we do in the brochoh on the seder night. Why should there be any difference? If a person thanks Hashem for the miracles his fathers experienced it is as if they were done for him. He should include this point in the brochoh of Purim too. Why only on Pesach?
HaRav Shlomoh Zalman Auerbach zt'l explains: There are two different types of miracles. One miracle is such that had it not been, our fathers would not have been born. For such a miracle it is impossible to say in the brochoh that Hashem had redeemed us since we would not have existed without the miracle.
Another type of miracle is like our being freed from slavery in Egypt. Even if HaKodosh Boruch Hu would not have redeemed our fathers, we would have been born. Of course, we would have been on a low spiritual level because of the tumah in Egypt, but we would have been alive. In such a case it is appropriate to include in the brochoh that a miracle was done for us.
This is similar to the story told about HaRav Chaim of Volozhin who once made a brochoh of she'osoh li neis bamokom hazeh (Who made for me a miracle in this place) when he passed the place where a miracle was done for the mother of his rav, the Vilna Gaon. In the zchus of that miracle the Vilna Gaon was born.
R' Chaim made a brochoh that specified the miracle was done to him since even without it R' Chaim would be alive. It would not definitely be the same R' Chaim, but he would be alive. He would not be on the same spiritual level to which he was zocheh because of his being a talmid of the Gra. The miracle in that place changed his spiritual condition and therefore it was proper for him to make the brochoh. (Haggodas Talelei Oros)
