The Mekhilta examines the verse "And they went in the desert for three days without finding any water" (Exodus 15:22) and presents two conflicting interpretations. Rabbi Yehoshua takes the verse at face value: there was literally no water in the desert for three days. The Israelites walked, they searched, and they found nothing to drink. It was a straightforward crisis of survival.
Rabbi Elazar disagrees completely. Water was everywhere. The earth itself floats on water, as the Psalmist declares (Psalms 136:6): "He spread the earth over the water." The Israelites were walking on top of a water table. They could have dug for it at any point during those three days. The water was right beneath their feet.
So what does "without finding any water" mean according to Rabbi Elazar? It means God deliberately made them dig — not because water was absent, but because He wanted to weary them. The three waterless days were a test of faith. God placed water below the surface and then waited to see whether Israel would trust Him enough to keep going, to keep digging, to keep believing that sustenance was there even when the surface appeared barren.
The two readings offer radically different theologies. For Rabbi Yehoshua, the desert was genuinely harsh. For Rabbi Elazar, the harshness was pedagogical — a divinely orchestrated trial designed to strengthen Israel's faith through the experience of searching for what was always there.