The Mekhilta offers a parable about a mortal king going to war. When a king of flesh and blood prepares for battle, emissaries from neighboring lands come to him requesting sustenance — food, supplies, aid. The king responds angrily: "I am going to war! Do not bother me with your petitions now." He is too occupied with his military campaign to attend to the needs of others. Even after he returns victorious, the petitioners must come back a second time and start their requests all over again.
This is the nature of human leadership. A mortal ruler has limited attention, limited energy, and limited patience. When focused on one great task — especially the existential urgency of war — everything else falls away. The hungry must wait. The desperate must wait. The king's attention is finite, and war consumes it entirely.
Not so the Holy One Blessed be He. "The Lord is a man of war" — He wages battle against Egypt. But at the very same moment, "the Lord is His name" — He hears the outcries of all who enter the world. As it is written in (Psalms 65:3): "Heeder of prayer — to You does all flesh come."
God fights and listens simultaneously. While the Red Sea crashed down upon Pharaoh's army, God was also attending to the prayers of the widow, the orphan, the stranger in a distant land. His capacity for attention is infinite. No crisis, however vast, prevents Him from hearing the smallest cry. The Mekhilta teaches that divine multitasking is not divided attention — it is unlimited attention.