Everyday Miracles

Make everything in you an ear, each atom of your being, and you will hear at every moment what the Source is whispering to you...you are -we all are-the beloved of the beloved, and in every moment, in every event of your life , the Beloved is whispering to you exactly what you need to hear and know. Who can ever explain this miracle? It simply is. -Rumi

I love the idea of ‘everyday miracles,’ miracles all around us that we fail to recognize because we’re too distracted.  It’s an idea found from Tanach (for instance here) up to modern Jewish philosophy.

I was thinking about everyday miracles a few times last week.  A couple of times were on Shabbat.  During last week’s Torah reading, we stood to recount crossing the Red (Reed) Sea.  In Judaism this is the classic example of a miracle, but the midrash has a take on the event that puts it an entirely different perspective:   two Jews during the crossing looked down at the muck of the still muddy sea bed.  “In Egypt,” they said to one another, “we were immersed in mortar and at the Reed Sea we are immersed in mortar. In Egypt we had the mortar that accompanied the bricks and here at Yam Suf we have the mud caused by the splitting waters.”   They were so busy looking down, the midrash records, they couldn’t even recognize the greatest miracle of all time, which they were participating in! If it were possible then, how much more today do we have to be on guard to look up at the miraculous world around us.

Thursday I was speaking with one of my teachers and she mentioned that she and her husband had just bought an apartment here.  Just think about that.  She and and her husband signed some papers that listed ‘Jerusalem’ as their address!  A couple of generations ago that would have been an outstanding statement, a couple of centuries ago an almost impossible statement.  How blessed we are to live in this age!  There are some who say that we shouldn’t say Hallel on Yom Ha’Atzmaut (Israeli Independence Day) because we’re not celebrating a miracle like Passover or Hanukkah. Without getting into the halachic arguments here, it’s hard not to see Gd’s hand in the creation of the Jewish State after centuries of exile and powerlessness.  

Tuesday night Sheryl was meeting Michelle Sider so Zoe and I went to Pizza Hut.

Is it the best pizza in Jerusalem?  No.  
Did we know it’s not the best pizza in Jerusalem.  We suspected.
So why?  Just because we can!

 

OK, it’s ridiculous to think about a restaurant at the same time as crossing the Red Sea.  It’s laughable to even consider comparing to Israeli independence.  It’s not even in the ballpark of buying a home. But sometimes I am awed -- and I always try to be grateful -- that I can do things here that I can’t do anywhere else.  

People are always asking us what we think about our experiences this year.  I might talk about having half a dozen synagogues (and even more bakeries!) within five minutes of our apartment, what a luxury it is. But to me, there is something intangible about the experience that anecdotes can’t convey.  I struggle to put it into words because even the mundane feels special here.   It’s like a miracle every day.

מִן הַמֵּצַר, קָרָאתִי יָּ-הּ; עָנָנִי בַמֶּרְחָב יָ-הּ

What happens in Israel...