Parshat Va�era
3 Shvat 5761
January 27, 2001
Daf Yomi: Sota 37


Guest Rabbi:
Rabbi Chaim Casper
Associate Member, Young Israel Council of Rabbis

What is a miracle?
Parshat Va�era is full of apparent miracles. The staff of Aaron turns into a serpent and then is returned into a staff at which point it swallows the staffs of Pharaoh's magicians. The Nile River is turned into blood. Frogs come out of the Nile and other bodies of water and inundate Egypt. Lice overwhelms Egypt. Bands of wild beasts roam the land. A disease wipes out the Egyptian flocks. Boils appear over every person and the remaining animals, etc.

Each one of these events can be viewed by the skeptic or rationalist as a natural calamity, void of any Divine significance. But to the person of faith, these occurrences (both individually and collectively) can point only to the existence of an Omnipotent ruler (even the Egyptian magicians say, "This is the finger [i.e. the work] of G-d.").

But the question is what is the nature of a miracle? How and why does it occur?

Rav Ovadiah ben Ya'akov Sforno (Italy, 1470-1550) defines a miracle as HaShem changing the natural course of events for His needs. For example, by the plague of the Nile River turning to blood, Sforno says that HaShem changed the physical nature of water to blood until it had killed all the fish in the Nile (on the other hand, the Egyptian magicians only evoked sleight of hand to give the appearance of a change in the water). It was by Divine will, says Sforno, that the frogs left their natural habitat (the water) to stay on land in order to punish the Egyptians (Sforno explains the Egyptian magicians duplication of this feat as another sleight of hand that caused the frogs to temporarily leave their habitat). And so on, for all the other makkot and signs.

Thus, Sforno's definition of a miracle is that HaShem in His mercy interrupts the natural course of nature to benefit an individual (e.g. Yonah being swallowed and living in the belly of a large fish) or the entire Jewish nation (the sun standing still in the time of Yehoshua).

There is another definition, however, of a miracle. Pirke Avot 5:6 (or 5:8, depending upon edition) states, "Ten things were created erev Shabbat bein hashmashot (at twilight): The opening of the earth (that swallowed Korach and his followers), the well (that opened when Moshe hit the rock), the mouth of (Bilaam's) donkey (that enabled it to speak), the (original) rainbow (during Noah's time), the manna, (Moshe's) staff, the shamir (a worm that burrowed through rock that was needed for the building of the Beit HaMikdash, may it be rebuilt speedily in our day), the shapes of letters, the original writing implement used in writing the aseret dibrot and the original stone tablets used in writing the aseret dibrot....."

If we apply the Sforno's definition of a miracle to the ten things listed above, there would have been no need to create them at the time of Creation--HaShem could have created them on an as-needed basis. But perhaps the author of this mishna held differently. He held that to say that HaShem had to create miracles on an as needed basis would detract from the Wisdom of Hashem. He, in his Omnipotent Wisdom, knows everything that will ever happen in the world. If so, for HaShem to create a world which requires His intervention to change the course of nature to help the Jewish people would indicate that an imperfect world was created, an idea that perhaps the author of this mishna could not accept.

Rather, the author of the mishna in Pirkei Avot takes the view that HaShem is all knowing, and He is the ultimate Planner. He foresaw at the time of creation the need of a rainbow, the need for writing, the need of Bilaam's donkey to talk. Hence, He created a world where these miracles would take place at the proper time and proper place, without His having to change the course of nature.

The same thing is true to the Ten Plagues. HaShem knew that the day would come when Pharaoh would need an extra nudge to let the Jewish people out of Mitzrayim. And so, when He created the world, He created a world that would spring forth these miracles at the exact time they would be needed.

This, then, may be the difference between Sforno and the Tanna of the Mishna. Sforno understands HaShem will intervene into nature to help B'nei Yisrael while the Tanna believes that HaShem has built the occurance of a miracle into the groundwork of the world.

I would add that it doesn't have to be an either/or situation; one can accept both definitions of a miracle. For example, a popular secular theory to explain the splitting of the Red Sea comes from Emanuel Velikovsky who suggested that the Red Sea split as a result of a tremendous gravitational pull that occurred when Venus (which had been a satellite circling Jupiter) broke away from the giant planet, came very close to Earth and then settled into its current orbit. If this answers the "What caused the Red Sea to split at that time?" question (and I will admit this is a big "if"), then Sforno and his supporters would say that HaShem entered history at this time and caused Venus to break away from its orbit at the precise time needed for it to cause the Red Sea to split. On the other hand, the Tanna and his supporters would say that when HaShem created the Solar System, he created it so that Venus would break away from its orbit, some thousands of years in the future, at a time that would cause it to fly by Earth at the right time in order to effect the splitting of the Red Sea. As Rabbi Joseph Hertz, z"l, the late Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom would have it, the mechanics as to how the miracle occurred are secondary to the fact that it did occur as a result of ratzon HaShem--the will of G-d.

May the Shomer Yisrael, the Guardian of Israel, continue to make miracles fall upon His Chosen People.