Expecting a Miracle

This is the season of miracles.

Christians around the world are celebrating the miraculous birth of the baby they believe grew up to be the Messiah. We are ready to light the first Chanukah lights.

The festival of Chanukah is one of two (the other is Purim), where we explicitly thank the Almighty for the miracles bestowed on us and on our ancestors in our prayers and in the blessings over the food we eat.

There is some dispute as to which miracle or miracles we are commemorating and celebrating.

Chanukah always falls as we are reading the Joseph stories in our cycle of Torah readings. It is worth contemplating that Joseph’s story contains many examples of his miraculous survival: The fact that he did not die in the bore into which his brothers threw him (according to midrash, it was full of snakes and scorpions and he had no water); his sale into a household where his skills were recognized and that he was not enslaved as a physical laborer; his release from prison based on his ability to interpret dreams; his rise to power; his control over Egypt and that he was not deposed by local Egyptians!

As we focus our attention on a later period in history, we cannot ignore the miracles in the lives of our forefathers as described in the Torah. It may seem like good fortune but through a believer’s prism, this is one type of miracle – everything that happens in our lives that leads to where we are now.

The miracle that we articulate in the blessings over the Chanukah candles and after food, is that the small band of Hasmoneans, a minority of Jews who were themselves a minority in the Hellenistic world, had a military victory over the much larger army. The ability of the Jewish people to overcome forces that seem more powerful and to survive against the odds is a miracle that occurred not just at this one point in history but over hundreds of years both in our Land and in exile.

As Rabbi Jonathan Sacks says, Chanukah is the Festival that celebrates the miracle of our survival.

Most Jewish children grow up with the story of the miracle of the small vial of pure olive oil that lasted for eight days when it was really only enough for one. Perhaps they even consider the idea that this miracle is two: the first is that the oil lasted an additional seven days; the second, which is actually the first, is that the Judeans of the day had the faith to light the flame when they knew it should not be expected to last. This great act of faith was a miracle in itself. However, the “big” miracle was that nature did not follow its natural course.

We tend to talk more about this last category of miracles than the others. When something happens that is outside what we consider the natural course of cause and effect, then we see a miracle – the splitting of the Red Sea, manna falling from heaven, the walls of Jericho tumbling down and the like. It is the category of miracle into which the birth of Jesus falls for Christians.

However, I am more deeply attached to the miracles in everyday life and I am teaching myself to notice them. The birth of each of my children was a miracle. It is a miracle that I have managed to make my life here, in Jerusalem. Each day that the sun rises is also a miracle. If we describe something as a “miracle”, we ascribe meaning to it. If it just “happened,” then it means nothing.

Not only can we help ourselves see the miracles all around us but we can make our own miracles. We can change the world through our commitment to an idea and through our faith that it is possible. Indeed, the events of Chanukah teach us that a small number can have a huge influence. It was not “natural” that the Maccabees would prevail. In this story, Divine intervention only came in the wake of or through the medium of human effort.

There is one other version of the miracle of Chanukah found in the midrash: “When the Hasmonean High Priest defeated the Greeks, .. they entered the Holy Temple. They found there eight iron stakes, fixed them in the ground and lit lamps upon them.” (Midrash Pesikta Rabbati )

The midrash is talking about the miracle of peace after a vicious war, the fulfillment of Isaiah’s vision of turning our swords into ploughshares. The weapons the Hellenists had used against the Maccabees became lights in the Temple. In this version of the story, the Chanukah menorah was made from iron stakes that had once been used to attack us.

This is the miracle for which I am waiting – the Chanukah miracle of turning our weapons of war into holy lights.

My mother taught me that a Jew should believe in miracles but not expect them. Not “expect” but we can definitely imagine.

It might seem like Israel is in a terrible state right now but, despite my mother’s teaching, I am imagining, even expecting, a miracle. There are so many good people fighting against injustice, working for an end to the war and the return of the hostages, taking care of the traumatized, the weak and the needy, and the few are becoming many.

It is the season of miracles. Let’s put down our weapons and let them be transformed into holy lights. If we can imagine it, we can achieve it.