What’s in a Miracle?
Seems like it’s not “in” to believe in miracles today, is it?
Modern thought would seem have it that only primitive or ignorant people would be so stupid as to REALLY believe that there is a Supreme Creator at all, let alone that he interferes in OUR world in such an unbelievable way as to perform miracles of nature…
Or does it?
Both the Ha’Aretz and Jerusalem Post carried this Reuters story:
The New Testament says that Jesus walked on water, but a Florida
university professor believes there could be a less miraculous
explanation - he walked on a floating piece of ice.
Professor Doron Nof also theorized in the early 1990s that Moses’s
parting of the Red Sea had solid science behind it.
I’ll leave the Jesus-question-thing to my Christian friends to thrash out, but as to Moses and the REED Sea,(that’s Reed, not Red, according to the original Hebrew)…
…Of course it was a strong wind that split the waters so that Moses and the Jews could keep going on their merry way from Egypt to Israel.
…Of course the reason that Pharoah’s soldiers were all drowned under the returning wave of sea water sea was because the wind stopped blowing just as THEY were in the middle of their sea-crossing, in hot pursuit of the Jews!
But that’s exactly the point…the Jewish view of miracles…
The book, “Ethics of the Fathers” , teaches us that all of the miracles of “nature” that would be needed as history unfolds itself through the ages were pre-programmed into the fabric of the universe by The Creator. We acknowledge that the forces of nature are controlled by G-d. We are taught that every single blade of grass has its own angel hovering above it saying “Grow…Grow!”
Yes, it is a miracle every time the wind blows at all, or the grass grows, or a baby is born, but we’re not talking about the little, day-to-day miracles like that. When it come to the “biggies”, the miracles that seem to defy nature (is such a thing really possible if G-d controls all of nature?)…in these cases, the real miracle is WHEN and WHERE the forces of nature act.
“It’s all in the timing…”
“Location, location, location…”
The miracle of the Exodus, the parting of the Reed Sea, is not the fact that the Reed Sea opened to let the Jews pass and then collapsed on the Egyptian pursuers , but the reality that the wind blew at exactly the right time, in exactly the right place to let the Jews pass, and then it stopped at exactly the right moment, when the Egyptian army was in the middle of the sea, and they all were drowned.
Seems quite miraculous to me, primitive and ignorant though I may be…
My Uncle Alan used to tell me, long before I became religiously observant,
You kind of have to pay attention and keep your eyes open to see it…
As to whether or not Jesus walked on water or ice…
I guess it depends upon how you look at things.
Happy Passover…Chag HaPesach Sameach V’Kasher!
April 19th, 2007 at 9:28 am
Interesting theme have mentioned. With pleasure I shall support.
And in general, good blog