Shabbat Parashat Tazria Metzora 5777

Ein Ayah: Can Miracles Happen for Insignificant Things?

Gemara: It once happened that a man’s wife died and left a baby who needed to be nursed. He didn’t have the funds to hire a nursemaid. A miracle happened and he grew breasts and nursed his son.

Ein Ayah: Miracles and nature were both created by the same architect, the Master of the Universe, may He be blessed. There is no order or path of action that the divine wisdom, kindness, and splendor have not investigated in order to reveal the light of His goodness and kingship. The natural development as well as surprising changes, order as well as haphazardness, are all weighed by the wisdom of the G-d of knowledge, in order to bring a certain reality to fruition, to disseminate the flow of life and goodness.

We, due to habit, define things as nature or miracle, based on the systematic periods or lack thereof that events occur. However, just as the rule, so too is the exception to the rule, a part of the whole. Miracles and nature join together to form an entire course of actions and reality.

We have become used to thinking that only for a great necessity of importance to a whole community, will Hashem perform a miracle. However, we must acknowledge that when we look with a more holistic vision, it will be impossible for us to decipher what is considered something small and what is something great.

Everything connects and becomes unified, everything gets elevated, and there is nothing that can be so small and insignificant that cannot be the foundation for something grand and of great importance. There is no difference between them other than thousands of years, which is just like a drop of water in the ocean in the “sea of eternity.” 

Therefore, in a circumstance that the divine wisdom has earmarked a miracle to occur, that is when and where it will take place. This demonstrates the strength of life and changes within the natural realm. We should not be surprised if it seems small and insignificant in our eyes. [However, the next passage does stipulate that only a person who is focused on the nation or community and not on themselves alone should be worthy of having such miracles occur to him.]

We should bear witness to the fact, that in truth, there is nothing that is really small, for everything is of importance, for it all came through the Master of the World. His actions are great and wise with no limit. Surely, He has preordained that at a certain place, in a certain time, it is fitting for the order of nature to collide with the order of miracles. “Great are the wonders of Hashem, sought out by those who seek them” (Tehillim 111:2).

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