Page 14 - HaMizrachi #15 2019 Chanuka USA

Rabbanit Rachelle Fraenkel

A Glimpse of the Divine

often wonder what a rationalist This fits in beautifully with the old Similarly, couples undergoing fertility
like me can do when encountering description of Zionism: treatments have a sharp awareness
I everyday miracles. of the fragility of the webs that keeps
The secular kibbutznik says, “You say
The old joke tells of a man drowning the State of Israel is from G-d? No the tiny embryo attached. There is a
in the sea, clinging to a floating board way! It’s from the Palmach!” Then feeling that the tissue is so delicate it
and praying to G-d to send him with a Yiddish accent, the chassid is almost held in place by prayer. That
salvation. A fishing boat passes and from Mea Shearim says, “You say it might tear if we let go even for a
offers help, but he says, “No thanks, the State of Israel is from HaKadosh minute.
I am confident in the L-rd.” Next, a Baruch Hu? No way, it’s from the We are all held in place by delicate silk
surfer reaches out to him and again he Palmach.” strands. We are all vulnerable, fragile
refuses, “Salvation will come like the and exposed – and miraculously
blink of an eye.” A helicopter flies over There are two types of ingratitude (in supported every second of our lives.
and our hero waves it on. He drowns. Hebrew it’s the same word as heresy).
He arrives in Heaven and asks G-d One could fail to understand that Not only are we more fragile and
why He didn’t save him. “I sent you a G-d is operating in the world because vulnerable than we care to admit.
boat, a surfer and a chopper. What the means seem too ‘secular’ – the We are also continually blessed and
more did you want?” intermediaries are not sufficiently coddled with an abundance of good in
refined. Or one could put one’s trust every second of our routine existence,
A similar joke tells of a woman in the ordinary and say it’s nature, so above all imagination and beyond
hurrying to a critical meeting in Tel why are you talking to me about G-d? our ability to perceive. The everyday
Aviv. She’s desperately searching for miracle is a kind of momentary
a parking space. She prays to G-d to What is an everyday miracle? Let us unveiling, a statistical glitch attesting
help her. The words have barely left suggest that it’s an occurrence that to our entire existence.
her lips when a truck moves out of a does not involve changes in the order
spot. The woman says “Never mind of nature, but is perhaps statistically Just like G-d-forbid, tragedies shake
G-d, I managed.” quite unlikely, happens with perfect our world, a miracle also has the
timing and even feels like a miracle, if power to make our world tremble.
What the two jokes have in common However, we have mere seconds
is that the person does not understand only for a second. in which to acknowledge what has
that G-d works through natural It seems like the purpose of everyday happened as literally awe-some or
agents, that all natural incidents are miracles – the exception, the unlikely, to see it as something natural and
G-d’s acts in the world. and sometimes even the unbelievably obvious.

In the first joke, the man does not crazy – is to teach us about the usual, “Even the person for whom a miracle
value the help offered because it the expected and the standard.
was not Divine enough. He didn’t Once at a Brit, I heard people joking is performed is unaware of the
1
recognize the agents as Divine because about the sleeping baby blissfully miracle.”
they weren’t decorated with fairy unaware of what was about to happen. So the next time you experience
dust or accompanied by thunder and Then one of them commented, “And an everyday miracle, be aware of it.
lightning. As far as he was concerned, do we know what awaits us?” Acknowledge it!
G-d had not yet intervened.
It felt like he had just exposed the
In the second, the woman hurried to strings that are attached to all of us.
use the opportunity that presented Like puppets, we move around with 1 Niddah 31a.
itself, but because it was ‘natural’ an illusory sense of control and choice,
she attributes no religious value to it. unaware of the directing instructions
Here, too, G-d did not interfere. and the plot being weaved over our Rabbanit Rachelle Fraenkel teaches Torah

We can manage on our own… heads. at midrashot in Israel

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