Prayer, Miracles, and Nature: Two Aspects of the Chanuka
Miracle
Rav Shaya and Binyamin Karlinsky
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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Noam Institutions
