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Prayer,
Miracles, and Chanuka
Prayer,
Miracles, and Nature:
Two Aspects of the Chanuka Miracle
Rav
Shaya and Binyamin Karlinsky
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The following D'var Torah is an English translation
of the Drasha that was delivered by my son, Binyamin
at his Bar Mitzvah, and for our siyum of Masechet
Ta'anit. (Rav Shaya Karlinsky)
The Gemara in Ta'anit (2a) analyzes the verse from
Kriyat Shma, "To love Hashem your G-d, and to serve
Him with all your heart" (Devarim 11:13) to teach
us: What is service which is in the heart?
This is prayer.
The comparison between prayer and service (worship,
"avodah") is well known, based on a number of sources.
The Maharal (opening of Netiv Ha'Avodah) asks how
can prayer, in which man asks G-d for his own needs
and requests, be called service and worship of G-d?
The Alter of Kelm asks an even more fundamental
question on the nature of prayer. Man is supposed
to serve G-d in every situation in which he finds
himself. In fact, the more difficult his circumstances
and the greater the obstacles he must overcome,
the higher is the quality of his service and the
greater is his reward. So how can asking G-d for
improved circumstances, more money, better health,
and greater success - how can that be considered
service and worship of G-d? And since G-d, who is
the essence of kindness and mercy, knows better
than man what he needs and what is good for him,
what value can there be in man asking G-d for things
that either G-d will provide since man needs them,
or shouldn't provide since man does not need them?!
We are taught in Ta'anit (8a) that a person who
prays that the grain in his storehouse be blessed
with an increase after he has measured it, has made
a vain prayer, for blessing befalls things only
when they are hidden from view (not apparent to
an observer). This principle is also stated in the
Mishna at the beginning of the ninth chapter of
Brachot (54a) that teaches that a person who prays
for something which has already happened (yet he
doesn't know the outcome) has made a vain prayer.
The principle that we are being taught is that one
is supposed to pray for things to happen in a natural
way. Praying for miracles that don't conform to
the natural systems is prohibited. The story of
Elazar ish Birtah, told in Ta'anit (24a) is a striking
illustration of this principle. After Elazar ish
Birtah gave most of the money he had saved for his
daughter's dowry to a pressing charity need, he
purchased a small amount of wheat with the remaining
money, which he threw into the grain storehouse.
The wheat increased miraculously, making him a wealthy
man. Yet he wouldn't let his daughter take more
wheat than she would have been entitled to as a
normal recipient of charity. Rashi explains the
reason, "Since it was the product of a miracle,
and it is prohibited to have benefit from something
produced miraculously." (The fact that miraculous
solutions are frowned upon is also demonstrated
quite dramatically in the Gemara (Shabbat 53b),
which tells the story of a newly widowed man who
couldn't afford a wet nurse for his infant, and
miraculously grew female breasts to nurse the infant.)
Why is it so important for the world to operate
within a system of natural laws? Why must our prayers
seek solutions to our problems specifically within
the natural system?
The Alter of Kelm offers the following explanation.
G-d created and runs the world within a system of
nature, creating the impression that everything
runs on its own, with no intervention on His part.
The challenge of man, the main "work" he has to
do in the area of his belief system, is to understand
and integrate the reality that the world is run
by G-d, with His ongoing supervision and interaction.
In a world that operates within consistent laws
of nature, it is difficult for man to feel that
he is in the hands of G-d. Prayer is the vehicle
by which he concretizes in his mind and in his heart
that all his needs are provided to him by G-d, with
personal attention and direct intervention. What
man asks from G-d in his prayers enables him to
internalize that all that comes to him through the
natural system is really being provided by G-d.
This is the purpose of prayer, and in fact it is
how man serves and worships G-d in the area of his
fundamental belief system. The word for service
and worship, "avodah" also indicates that this is
hard work, going against the inertia created by
a casual and causal view of the world through the
eyes of nature.
Miracles contradict the entire purpose of prayer,
which is to help man realize G-d's control and intervention
in the natural system. When a supernatural miracle
happens, it is clear that G-d has brought it about,
and G-d's intervention is clear. There is no need
to pray for such an occurrence. In fact, prayer
for a miracle would raise all of the problems about
prayer that we had discussed above. Since G-d has
brought man to the situation he is in, what right
or reason should man have to ask G-d to change it?
G-d will certainly do what He deems in man's best
interests. We pray to G-d for rain when it is not
brought, we pray to Him to heal an illness or provide
more money, only to concretize within our hearts
and minds that he controls nature, and that "natural"
occurrences are really in his hands on a very direct
basis. But what role would there be for prayer which
asks for a miracle, in which there is no question
that G-d is in control of the system and intervenes
in it? This has to be left for G-d to choose if
He wishes to intervene in a way that leaves little
choice but to recognize that intervention.
The real difference, then, between miracles and
nature is that the former is obviously the hand
of G-d, while the latter is His hidden hand, with
man required to recognize G-d's control and intervention
when it is not obvious.
An analysis of the way Chazal structured Chanukah,
along with the conflict with the Greeks, will help
us understand this distinction more clearly.
There is a famous question of the Beit Yosef (Orach
Chaim 670). Since there was enough oil to burn for
one day, how come Chazal made Chanukah for eight
days. There was a miracle for no more than seven
days!
Among the decrees the Greeks forced upon the Jews,
there was one that was most strange. "Write upon
the horn of an ox: You have no part in the G-d of
Israel" (Breishit Rabba 2:5). With this decree,
the Greeks acknowledged the existence of G-d, and
in fact, His being the G-d of Israel! So what were
they trying to accomplish? Forcing the Jews to write
that they had a "part" in Him was really the declaration
that he isn't involved in attending to our needs,
that the systems of nature operate on their own
within the material world, and that what happens
in this world is disconnected from the upper, spiritual
worlds. This decree reflected the fundamental point
of conflict between the Greeks and the Jews. Greece
glorified the supremacy of nature, the power of
the physical, the value of externals. For the Greek,
G-d has no interest or ability in acting within
the world's natural systems, while man has no responsibility
to act against his own natural systems of drives
and inclinations, with his instincts and physical
drives governing his behavior. The Jew stood for
the reality that G-d controls nature. And it is
man's responsibility to control his own natural
drives and instincts. Beyond the visible world,
there is a hidden, inner world. Man's development
of this spiritual dimension enables him to connect
with the higher-level world of the Divine. The natural
world in which we reside is simply a vehicle through
which G-d can reveal his intervention and control,
if man but chooses to recognize it.
There were two miracles on Chanukah: The oil that
burned for eight days, instead of one day, and the
miraculous victory of the few Jews over the many
Greeks, the weak Jews over the strong Greeks. The
first miracle was supernatural. The second, no less
great, was done within the confines and illusion
of the natural system. Why was it necessary for
G-d to perform the supernatural miracle of the oil,
when He had available other, more natural solutions
to the problem? Specifically at that time, in the
context of the battle with Greek ideology, G-d wanted
to demonstrate, unequivocally, that He interacts
with the world, controls nature, and guides events
based on the moral and spiritual behavior of man.
The overt miracle, changing nature, comes to show
that G-d is also the ongoing source for the functioning
of the natural system. One of the reasons that Chazal
established Chanukah for eight days, despite the
oil burning miraculously for only seven, was to
teach the inseparable link between G-d's intervention
when the Jews are saved through miracles and their
being saved through apparently natural means. Winning
a war, or oil that burns for one day, should be
viewed as no less Divine control of the world than
oil which burns miraculously for seven extra days.
A daily challenge for the Jew is to see G-d's intervention
and guidance in the daily events of nature, and
to internalize the conviction that every occurrence
in our lives, whether on a personal level or on
a national level, is directed by G-d's control of
the natural systems.
Prayer comes to strengthen that conviction. Truly
service of G-d is in our hearts. May G-d answer
our prayers, both for our daily needs, as well as
to alleviate the difficult situation in which the
Jewish people now finds itself.
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