Page 286 - Coincidences in the Bible and in Biblical Hebrew

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CHAPTER 20 COINCIDENCES IN JEWISH HISTORY AND BEYOND
CHAPTER 20 COINCIDENCES IN JEWISH HISTORY AND BEYOND 265
Twenty-Eighth Iyar
• Israel captured the old city of Jerusalem and united it (for the first time

since the establishment of the state) in 1967.
• Hostilities between Israel and Jordan came to an end upon their accep-

tance of the cease-fire demanded by the Security Council of the UN in

1967.
Twenty-Ninth Iyar
• Israel, Egypt, and Syria accepted the cease-fire ordered by the Security

Council, 1967;

This list, though not exhaustive, is bizarrely coincidental due to the dispropor-
tional number of major military incidents that have taken place in that month.

20.4 Everyday Coincidences and Their Lessons

Coincidences happen to us all, all the time. The truth is that we are constantly
bombarded by bizarre coincidences, each one with a message, frequently of a
moral nature. Furthermore, clues are constantly sent to us to observe the mes-
sages. Yet, we are blind to them—and most of the time, we ignore them, because
they go against the way we have been brought up. We were taught to perceive the
natural world around us as ruled by visible, logical, and controllable regularities.
The subject of coincidences is not new to human culture. Indeed, it has been
the focus and central theme in most cultures and countless number of books. For
example, the two best-sellers, The Celestine Prophecy and The Tenth Insight, by

James Redfield (1995 and 1996, respectively) focus, first and foremost, on coinci-

dences and their messages.
Jewish tradition also accepts coincidences. The only difference is that it refuses
to acknowledge them as such. In Jewish culture, all coincidences are acts of God,
intended to help us avoid “missing the target” (refer to section 2.1). One can quote
numerous verses in the Bible where this theme is raised, and there is emphasis on
the “error of judgment” in any acceptance of a bizarre coincidence as random. In
fact, as discussed in chapter 3, the sheer concept of randomness is an abomination
to Jewish thought. When God warns the children of Israel to obey his statues, he
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warns them: “If you will walk with me in [kerri ]; then I will walk with you with
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the fury of [kerri ]” (Lev. 26:27–28; also see 26, 21, 23, 24, 27, 40, 41). Kerri,
of course, implies randomness, and the verse implies that if one behaves randomly
in his or her personal conduct, not obeying moral code, then the reaction—the