Melton class, miracles

[cellio]

Last night was class #10 (of 30 for the year), and evaluation night. They wanted the forms back that night, so I had to write comments quickly. I hope I was sufficiently diplomatic about the first course.

The second class last night involved a discussion of miracles. The rabbi started by asking us to list things we considered miracles, and we got some interesting personal stories that way. I, in typical fashion, said that it depends on how you define "miracle" -- which, I wasn't surprised to learn, was the point of the exercise. :-) (Collect input first, then look for trends, then bring sources to bear.) It was a good discussion.

One idea I want to capture before I lose it: we might think of the burning bush as a miracle about the bush (that it burned without being consumed). How long do you have to stare at a burning bush to realize it's not being consumed? Maybe the real miracle was that Moshe stopped to look and study it. (This tied into an idea I raised in the earlier discussion, not original to me, that God is always present, like a radio signal, but you have to be tuned to the right frequency for that to do any good.)

Comments

[baron-steffan.livejournal.com]

There's a kabbalistic notion that the focus of Creation isn't so much manifestation per se as the imposition of order, that is, the manifestation specifically of physical laws. We can look at the first thing created -- light -- as an ordering of primordial chaos by the imposition of divine Law. So that leads to a definition of
"miracle" as "violation of physical law". That, I think, is a little broader than the popular idea, which seems to require some sort of specific benefit that we can believe was a deliberate gift from God. (Well, okay, everything is, but you know what I mean. See why I'm not a Talmudic scholar?) It takes a rabbinical mind, I think, to look at an unconsumed burning bush in the desert that way. Yes, we can evaluate the bush in terms of the gift to which it led Moses, but it itself...well, it isn't like the parting of the Red Sea, which was clearly done at that moment to save Israel from Pharaoh's pursuit.

I'm probably not expressing myself well here, but I'd be interested in how a real scholar (like, um, you) defines "miracle".

[cellio]

We can look at the first thing created -- light -- as an ordering of primordial chaos by the imposition of divine Law.

Makes sense.

"Violation of physical law" is broad, but I think "specific gift from God" is too narrow. I think the latter comes, at least in part, from certain Christian groups that see God as almost your buddy -- all immanent and no transcendant, maybe.

In my opinion, there isn't a single definition which all miracles fit. That life works at all is in a sense miraculous, but it's not necessarily a specific gift from God. The parting of the sea was a blatant, open miracle. (Rambam the rationalist holds that ten miracles were "programmed in" at creation, including this one, and so it's not really a violation of natural law. He's free to believe that. :-) )

I think a miracle is, definitionally, of divine origin, but it is not necessarily specific in target. It can be -- the parting of the sea -- but might not be (life). Targetted miracles pose a theological difficulty in a way; if you believe, for instance, that surviving a serious illness is a targetted miracle rather than just the way the world works, then don't you also have to believe that those who don't survive were targetted? While I do believe that God can intervene in the world, I do not believe that it happens very often. The consequences of believing that this happens on a daily basis are a little disturbing.

We've talked a lot about the experience I had during that one Pesach, when I started to realize that God might be there and relevant. Did God tap me on the shoulder and say "hi"? Not exactly, no. But did something happen to cause me to be attuned to that idea? Yeah, I think so. God was always there; I was the one who changed. The bush might have been burning for years for all we know; Moshe is the one who stopped to look.

I don't think I'm expressing myself very well either. I'll try again later.