Why Are There No Miracles These Days?

Bs”D

From my monthly column in Jewish Life magazine, published in South Africa

THINGS I LEARNED…While Teaching Everyone Else

Why Aren’t There Miracles Anymore?

By Rabbi Yossy Goldman

Every Rabbi is asked this question regularly and repeatedly. “The Bible is full of earth-shattering and sea-splitting miracles which clearly show the hand of G-d, Rabbi. Why are there none of those kinds of Biblical miracles today?” And the implication is clear. If G-d would only show me His heavenly hand today I would then keep the faith more faithfully. In Egypt, they experienced the Ten Plagues, the incredible Exodus, and then the splitting of the sea, and the Revelation at Sinai. Later, Moshe would draw water from rocks, his untrained slave-nation would defeat the most powerful armies of the day, and his internal enemies would be swallowed up by the earth. And the miracles would continue under Joshua as he brought down the walls of Jericho and more.

And today? We can’t even sort out a little virus!

Well, many would argue that the Coronavirus itself is proof positive (pun intended) that there is indeed a Higher Power running the universe, and that even the most advanced medical systems are struggling with a virus that keeps outsmarting them and always seems to be one step ahead of the game. But I won’t limit my thoughts to Covid here. After all, this vexing question has been around long before the dreaded virus.

So, let me take two seemingly contradictory approaches.

Firstly, those early Biblical miracles seem to have been a necessary historical platform to establish and fortify the faith of a fledgling nation just liberated from its pagan oppressors. And those miraculous heavenly interventions in the early days of our nationhood did indeed build and develop our people’s faith.

But let me ask you. If similar miracles occurred today, would we, in fact, appreciate them for what they were? Let’s say Rabbi Goldman invited his congregation down to Zoo Lake, and I proceeded to demonstrate my miraculous powers by splitting the lake in two. What do you think would be their reaction? Would they all become believers and start flooding the Shul? Or would they say it’s a trick? ‘He’s probably got some kind of generator underwater that manipulates the lake.’ Or any number of scientific or David Copperfield-type explanations.

We are not simple, primitive people. We have become enlightened and sophisticated. And with sophistication comes a certain cynicism. Today I think most people in Western nations have become super-cynical, even those who are not necessarily conspiracy theorists. Maybe there are no more miracles like in the Bible because it would be a waste of G-d’s time. People today wouldn’t be impressed. We’d have all types of explanations and rationalizations, and we’d basically laugh it off.

But there’s another completely different approach that answers the question very differently. You say there are no more miracles today. Really? Are you oblivious to recent history? Are you completely blind? How can anyone say that there are no more miracles today?

In my own living memory, Israel has been the beneficiary of miracles nothing short of the Biblical variety. How well I remember the Six-Day War in June 1967. To wipe out the Egyptian Air Force in an instant - is that not a miracle?! ?And what about the Rescue at Entebbe in July 1976? I heard it personally from one of the commandoes who were there. Many miracles were needed to pull off the greatest rescue mission in history! And I was personally in Israel on a South African Solidarity Mission during the 1991 Gulf War. Saddam Hussein fired 39 Scud missiles into Israel and there was not one fatality! A Scud puts those Hamas missiles to shame in size and lethal power. We stood on the debris of a house in Ramat Gan that was flattened by one of those Scuds. Miraculously, no one was home at the time. And there were another 38 miracles too.

And what about our own peaceful transition to democracy here in South Africa? The media called it nothing short of ‘miraculous.’ They don’t usually use the word ‘miracle.’ G-d doesn’t often feature in the media (unless it’s a scandal with a member of the clergy).

And on a personal level, so many of us have experienced miraculous recoveries from dreaded diseases and life-threatening illnesses, survived fatal accidents, and more. One woman told me how she went into hospital for a minor procedure, and they happened to discover the early stage of a deadly disease - in time to heal her. Was it just her good luck, chance, or a miracle?

As I write these words, I am busy with a dear friend and congregant who is in ICU, and the other night we feared he wouldn’t make the next morning, G-d forbid. Today, there has been a fantastic improvement and his doctor is calling it ‘miraculous.’

And in our own family, we have been blessed on multiple occasions to be spared from serious harm, whether in a car hijacking, highway accident, or difficult births. Of course, just crossing Louis Botha Avenue safely is a minor miracle. I have no doubt that you who are reading this have your own miracle stories too.

And there are innumerable stories of people who personally experienced miracles through the guidance and blessings of my saintly teacher, the Rebbe, of righteous memory.

And what about all the Holocaust survivors? Every one of them has their own dramatic tale of the unbelievable wonders of their survival. There are quite a few books just of Holocaust miracles.

I once asked my own father, of blessed memory, who was the sole survivor of his entire family from Poland how it was that, unlike many survivors, he never lost his faith. He told me that he felt the hand of Hashem plucking him from one dangerous situation after another. He was able to escape Poland, Vilna, Russia, Japan, Shanghai, and ultimately merited to rebuild his family in America. From age 14, his whole life was one big miracle!

Interestingly, my father was not the rebellious, or even adventurous, type. He wasn’t a risk-taker. His Kosher butchery in Brooklyn was, arguably, the very last of its kind with the sawdust on the floor. He resisted the move to pre-packed meats and the Yiddishe women from the Flatbush neighborhood would still come in and ask him to cut the meat for them in their own way that they liked. And yet, as a 14-year-old he ran away from home! That was completely out of character. If that wasn’t a hand from above pushing him and saving him, then I don’t know what was.

So, I learned that miracles don’t happen in vain. And I also learned that if we but open our eyes and look objectively we will see miracles all around us.

May we take notice, be warmed, and inspired.

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