Miracles: now you see them, now you don't

Those members of the Jewish people who follow the weekly Torah readings through each yearly cycle will know that we are right in the middle of the season for miracles. Over the past fortnight we’ve had all of the Ten Plagues and we are shortly to embark upon the splitting of the Reed Sea and the subsequent drowning of the pursuing Egyptian charioteers.  Later we encounter the provision of manna from heaven—and more besides.

These miracles share a common factor: they are all visible, perceptible to the naked eye.

At Avot 5:7 we meet a list of ten miracles which, our sages teach us, God provided for our forefathers in the Temple. The list looks like this:

לֹא הִפִּֽילָה אִשָּׁה מֵרֵֽיחַ בְּשַׂר הַקֹּֽדֶשׁ, וְלֹא הִסְרִֽיחַ בְּשַׂר הַקֹּֽדֶשׁ מֵעוֹלָם, וְלֹא נִרְאָה זְבוּב בְּבֵית הַמִּטְבָּחַֽיִם, וְלֹא אִירַע קֶֽרִי לְכֹהֵן גָּדוֹל בְּיוֹם הַכִּפּוּרִים, וְלֹא כִבּוּ הַגְּשָׁמִים אֵשׁ שֶׁל עֲצֵי הַמַּעֲרָכָה, וְלֹא נִצְּחָה הָרֽוּחַ אֶת עַמּוּד הֶעָשָׁן, וְלֹא נִמְצָא פִסּוּל בָּעֽוֹמֶר וּבִשְׁתֵּי הַלֶּֽחֶם וּבְלֶֽחֶם הַפָּנִים, עוֹמְדִים צְפוּפִים וּמִשְׁתַּחֲוִים רְוָחִים, וְלֹא הִזִּיק נָחָשׁ וְעַקְרָב בִּירוּשָׁלַֽיִם, וְלֹא אָמַר אָדָם לַחֲבֵרוֹ: צַר לִי הַמָּקוֹם שֶׁאָלִין בִּירוּשָׁלָֽיִם

No woman ever miscarried because of the smell of the holy meat. The holy meat never spoiled. Never was a fly seen in the slaughterhouse. Never did the High Priest have an accidental seminal discharge on Yom Kippur. The rains did not extinguish the wood-fire burning upon the altar. The wind did not prevail over the column of smoke [rising from the altar]. No disqualifying problem was ever discovered in the Omer offering, the Two Loaves or the Showbread. People stood crowded together but had ample space in which to prostrate themselves. Never did a snake or scorpion cause injury in Jerusalem. And no man ever said to his fellow "My lodging in Jerusalem is too cramped for me."

There’s a difficulty with some of these miracles in that they cannot be perceived in a meaningful manner. If you see a woman having a miscarriage, for example, this is likely to be an extremely unpleasant and probably unforgettable experience. However, if you see a woman not having a miscarriage, this fact is unlikely to impinge on your consciousness at all. The same goes with flies in the slaughterhouse: you will see them if they are there and may note their presence but, unless you are thinking about flies at the time, you may be quite unlikely to notice their absence. The same goes with several of the other miracles listed here: they may exist as quite remarkable statistical propositions, but not as something an onlooker can or need recognize through casual visual perception.

Maharam Shik comments on this. In effect, though we don’t see miracles manifesting themselves before our very eyes, that doesn’t mean that we can’t sensitise ourselves to the fact that something is happening beyond the merely natural, mundane operation of the world.  Even statistical propositions can take the shape of perceptions of hashgachah peratit—God’s personal supervision of a world that normally runs smoothly in accordance with the laws of nature. 

In short, according to Maharam Shik, all we have to do is to keep our eyes open. On any given occasion when we find ourselves in a fly-free slaughterhouse we may have no reason to spot anything unusual. But if it happens again and again, but doesn’t seem to happen in other slaughterhouses, the penny might eventually drop that something special is happening.

Being aware of hashgachah peratit takes many forms even today, even though there is no Temple service and most of us are far from holy. But you have to believe in its existence or you may not detect it. Here’s a trivial example: one occasionally hears a person, not necessarily Jewish, saying things like “I must have been doing the right thing when I decided to do X, because all the traffic lights on the way were green”. If things like this happen even once, it feels great but one is unlikely to read any great significance into it. But if they happen every time, one begins to wonder.

The standard daily Jewish prayer format of the Amidah incorporates within its text the idea that miracles come in different shapes and sizes, possessing markedly different effects. In the “thank you” section, in the blessing that opens with the words modim anachnu loch (“we thank you”), we express gratitude for “miracles that are with us every day” and for God’s “wonders and favours that are in every season—evening, morning and afternoon”. On this basis we say thank-you even for those miracles that are too small to notice, and for those that cannot be seen at all.