Why Do You Cry Out to Me and the Time to Cut Prayer Short

"Why do you cry out to Me?" (Exodus 14:15). Moses said before Him: Master of the universe, to what am I to be compared? To a shepherd whose master handed him a flock and he was negligent with them; he led them up to the tops of crags and did not know how to bring them down. He wrapped himself in his garment and began to sit and wonder what would become of them. So too: if I come to return them to Egypt, there is Pharaoh and the Egyptians; if I lead them south, there is Baal-zephon; if I lead them north, there is Migdol; if I lead them east, there is the sea. Rabbi Yehoshua says: The Holy One, blessed be He, said to Moses, My children are placed in distress, the sea closes them in and the enemy pursues, and you stand multiplying prayer? There is a time to be brief and a time to be lengthy. "O God, heal her now, I pray" (Numbers 12:13) - that is being brief. "And I fell down before the LORD as at the first, forty days" (Deuteronomy 9:18) - that is being lengthy. Rabbi Meir says: If for a single man, Adam, I made dry land, as it is said, "And God said, Let the waters be gathered" (Genesis 1:9), for this holy congregation shall I not make dry land? "Why do you cry out to Me? Speak to the children of Israel, that they go forward." Rabbi Yishmael says: For the merit of Jerusalem I split the sea for them, as it is said, "Awake, awake, put on your strength, O Zion, put on your beautiful garments, O Jerusalem," and it says, "Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the LORD... Are You not the One who dried up the sea... and made the depths of the sea a way for the redeemed to pass over?" (Isaiah 51:9-10).