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January 22, 2010
Do miracles happen?
You can choose to see the hand of G-d in nature.
RABBI SHMUEL YESHAYAHU
There are so many miracles mentioned in the Bible. Do you really believe in them? How are we, as sensible people, supposed to believe in such things?
First, a story: David is driving in Jerusalem. He’s late for a meeting. He’s looking for a parking place and can’t find one. In desperation, he turns towards heaven and says: “G-d, if you find me a parking place, I promise that I’ll eat only kosher, keep Shabbat and all the holidays.”
Suddenly a space opens up just in front of him. He turns his face up to heaven and says, “Never mind, I just found one.”
The conventional way of defining a miracle is by differentiating it from nature. Nature can be seen as a system of cause and effect and the average person would probably say that a miracle is an occurrence happening outside of nature. If you believe in G-d then you might say that nature is a kind of system created by G-d at the time of creation and a miracle is when G-d intervenes and overrides the system.
But the Jewish view is very different. Judaism tells us that nature is a miracle too. It’s the fulfilment of G-d’s will at any given moment. The fact that nature is constant makes us oblivious to the miracle in it. The occasional miracle that happens outside of nature reminds us of G-d’s involvement in our life.
There is a story in the Talmud (Tractate Taanit 25a) about Rabbi Chanina Ben Dosa. Accidentally his daughter put vinegar instead of oil in the Shabbat lamp. When Rabbi Chanina saw how upset she was, he asked her why. She said that she felt bad since they were very poor and she had messed up and had been wasteful. Rabbi Chanina told her not to worry – it makes no difference. Because, he said, He who told oil to burn can tell vinegar to burn. The vinegar burnt all Shabbat.
Why does oil burn? Because G-d makes it burn. So vinegar can do the same thing. The only difference is that G-d always makes oil burn but rarely ever makes vinegar burn.
Sometimes it takes great effort to see a miracle while at other times it may be obvious and clear. Ultimately we will only see them if we desire to see. The skeptic will explain the splitting of the sea as a natural event and the believer will explain the growing of the wheat as a miracle. It’s about how we perceive it.
In the Amidah (a central prayer recited every day), we thank G-d for “Your miracles which are with us daily, and for Your continual wonders and beneficences.” This is a reference to the miracles that accompany us daily and are disguised in nature.
The Talmud says on the verse, “He who does wonders alone....” that even “the beneficiary of the miracle does not recognize the miracle.”
The Hebrew words for nature and miracle back up this idea. Teva means nature. It comes from the word tavu’a, which means submersed. G-d’s involvement is tavua betocho (submersed within it), within nature. The Hebrew word for miracle, nes, means sign. Miracles are only reminders that G-d is actually right here.
In Jewish tradition we learn about many miracles. There are the plagues on the Egyptians and the splitting of the Red Sea, to mention a couple. On Chanukah we celebrate, among other things, the miracle of the oil that burnt for eight days when there was only enough oil for one day.
But interestingly, it is told that there are many miracles that happened that we don’t even mention or celebrate. For example, during the time of the Temple, there were 10 miracles a day inside the Temple. But we only celebrate those that are significant to us today, the miracles that happened for all generations. The other miracles were only for the people of the time.
One explanation why supernatural miracles don’t seem to happen today is that the ideal is not for us to pursue seeing these extraordinary occurrences but instead to focus on seeing the divine presence in day-to-day life. Every morning we say Modeh Ani, the prayer to thank G-d for the miracle of living, in order to nurture this perspective of seeing life as a miracle.
There is a story of a speaker who asked his audience: “Did you hear about the big miracle today?” No one in the room knew what he was talking about. “The sunset,” the speaker finally said. To the skeptic, even the supernatural is a self-running system. To the believer, even the natural is a miracle by G-d.
Rabbi Shmulik Yeshayahu is head of the Ohel Ya’akov Community Kollel. He wrote this article withDeena Levenstein, a freelance writing living in Jerusalem. Her website is habitza.com.
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