Miracles

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all right so um we
are going to talk about miracles today
how many people had a miracle happen in
their life
anybody not have a miracle happen in
their life
all depends on how you define miracle
right
you’re going to learn that a lot of my
teaching and my learning is all about
definitions my rosh hasheva my rabbi
used to say without definitions
you got nothing how can you communicate
if you don’t if you don’t know what the
words mean
right so uh it’s a big problem
especially when we’re doing hebrew we’re
doing into english even we’re speaking
english to english i’m watching the news
in america
it’s like the tower of babel it’s really
incredible
how uh somebody says one thing and
somebody hears
exactly like something totally
totally different it’s mind-boggling
and you can watch it from one channel to
the next it’s really incredible
to see how how some politician i won’t i
won’t mention names
but some politician can say something
and you know paul simon
you hear what you want to hear and you
disregard the rest
it’s really incredible so uh yeah a lot
of it has to do with definition so what
we’re going to do is we’re going to do a
deep dive today
into the concept of uh miracles
and miracles is something that is
very um it’s very near
and dear to me because again
as a young adult when i started studying
torah
it was something that bothered me it was
a
barrier actually to my studying am i
reconnecting with my judaism
the whole concept of miracles because
when you go through the bible
and you see seas splitting and sun
standing still and
mon coming from the heavens and that’s
their food for 40 years in the desert
and i come from a science background a
mathematics and computers and science
background
and that’s hard that’s hard i like
i have to okay you’re saying all that
happened okay that can hap
but why hasn’t it happened ever again
like we don’t see these things happening
anymore
how does that work like we had all these
miracles in the biblical period
and now we don’t seem to have those kind
of miracles anymore
so it makes it hard to accept it
as being true right coming from a purely
scientific
background so on one hand you can say
okay
that’s a test of your faith right just
gotta accept it as an act of faith
we talked a little bit about that and
remember we said what’s the hebrew word
for faith
anybody remember remember what we said
there isn’t one there’s no word in las
anakodus for that kind of faith
accept it as being true even though you
might have your eyes are telling you the
opposite and science is telling you the
opposite you accept it anyways an act of
faith and that’s a virtue
this idea doesn’t uh really exist right
we said that the first of the ten
commandments was to know
know that there’s a god not have faith
that there’s a god
to know that there’s a god so again got
to have a definition what do you mean by
god and how do i know what do you mean
by no
is that absolute knowledge or is it
enough knowledge to come to a conclusion
in a court of law
we need definitions of our terms so
today
we’re going to talk about miracles and
uh see what the torah really means by a
miracle but more important what what is
a miracle
why do we have miracles i’m always a big
why asker what do i need that for what’s
it doing for me how’s it helping me
what’s the miracle all about so that’s
uh what we’re gonna do let me go to our
source sheet right now for a minute here
we go
yeah it would be so much easier if a
miracle could happen i had many
all along the years when i would have
students who say you know it would be so
much easier to believe if there was just
a miracle why couldn’t he just do a
little one for me you know like
take a have my cup float over to the
coffee machine and have it pour itself a
cup of coffee and float back down to my
desk and a voice comes from heaven says
there he goes small
good going learn that torah it’s me god
it’s true
i’m here wouldn’t life be so much easier
it would it would but the world doesn’t
work that way for a reason we’re going
to see in a minute
so we’re going to talk about miracles
there are
three kinds of miracles open miracle
open miracles are the kinds that i uh
explained earlier the splitting of the
sea man comes from heaven
the laws of physics as we understand um
the world not operating according to the
laws of physics as we understand it and
the laws of physics are being
suspended that’s called an open miracle
and uh this is how it’s articulated by
monitors and his commentary the torah
we’re going to see
encounter him a little bit later from
the 11th century
then there’s hidden miracle what’s a
hidden miracle
a hidden miracle is where
we’re stretching the laws of coincidence
right and an example of

an example of a hidden miracle would be
the purim story
if you read the book of esther you see
it’s basically a political drama
everything is happening according to the
laws of nature in fact it’s the only
book
of the tanakh the hebrew bible where the
name of god’s not mentioned at all not
god is not mentioned once in the entire
book of esther and you see
eventually everything turns out right
the jews or there’s the decree that the
jews are going to be destroyed
haman is the viceroy he wants to kill
all the jews in one day
then they have this lottery and happens
the nice jewish girl
ends the lottery amongst all the persian
beauties
right it’s stretching the odds a little
bit all these series of coincidences and
things happen
and ultimately the jewish people are
saved and redeemed
we call that a hidden miracle if you saw
my post today
right same thing happened to me in my
life hidden miracle
my family was saved in the holocaust i
just posted we found another
uh if you didn’t notice or what if
you’re on facebook and you’re not my
friend
that’s not a good thing you have to
friend me okay so friend me
um on facebook i posted we discovered
descendants of the seven there’s seven
different families
who were involved in rescuing and saving
my family in holland hiding from the
nazis
and we just confirmed another one today
exciting mrs benneker and her son
phillip
we tracked down it took us three weeks
to track down we found the descendant
also
named philip bennecker he was like
blown away never knew this story we let
them know and we just got the letter
from yad vashem today
that he mrs benneker
and philip and i posted on my facebook
page uh a picture
of the people who helped rescue my
family so that’s a hidden miracle
hidden miracle the laws of nature are
stretched
then the third category of miracle
according to nachmanidis
is what nature
i know some of you’ve been posting
grandchildren or great grandchildren
being born a baby being born
you know what amir for as a from a
scientific point of view
from an engineering point of view do you
understand
what a miracle that is for a baby to be
born
right you’re on the umbilical cord
system right we’re getting the oxygens
in through the bloodstream right and
then all of a sudden this kid comes
out and all of a sudden somebody flips a
switch okay we switch over to the air
lung system
that is a miracle but you know what
happens every minute of every day and we
get used to it so we call it
nature right nature something that
happens that you expect
to happen in according to the rules the
way god set up the world
we call that nature but it’s a kind of a
miracle
god’s operating in real time
every day and it’s miraculous
so we have open miracle hidden miracle
and nature those are the three kinds now
i was hoping didn’t get it done in time
i was hoping to get
my book republished missiles masks and
miracles about the gulf war people
remember the gulf war
you remember general schwarzkopf you
guys were in america you had your own
approach the gulf war
get that saddam hussein get those
weapons of master were there weapons of
mass destruction where they’re not
weapons of masses
don’t know but what there were were scud
missiles
aimed at israel that saddam hussein
promised if america attacked kuwait
to get america out of kuwait he was
going to destroy us with his missiles
and took him three days he kept his
promise
and during those weeks
aish begin from the third day of the
third month of shut
until purim adar six weeks later
39 scud missiles rained down on us now

nobody died so when you heard cnn
and you heard nobody die 39 missiles
you’d assume
oh they fell into fields you know

they were not smart missiles they were
dumb missiles
so you couldn’t really aim them properly
right
no big deal nobody hurt nobody died no
blood no
news the missiles came in at mach
9 nine times the speed of sound they
wanted they were worried that there was
going to be gas
so they asked us to tape plastic around
the windows with packing tape
to see make a hermetic seal so that if
the missile landed and there was
gas we wouldn’t get poisoned so we wore
gas masks everybody put plastic on their
windows
and this is not a direct hit people
mach 9 the shockwave from the missile
blew the entire streets front
windows and walls out a lot of good that
little plastic was gonna do right
sort of like the face mask and the virus
a little bit
at any rate and if you thought they were
empty they weren’t
empty there were people in these
buildings when the missiles landed
here are some elderly ladies being taken
away
missiles landed blew out apartments
nobody seriously injured
nobody died this went on for weeks
39 missiles after the first couple weeks
a friend of mine went down and they
interviewed people just hear the stories
of the miracles
a person went to the bomb shelter their
apartment blew up somebody decided
they didn’t want to go to their bomb
shelter they stayed in their house and
their bomb shelter blew up
miracle after miracle story so we
decided to record it for posterity
here’s here’s my favorites picture
my friend spoke to the cameraman who
took this picture
this was in uh savion
and it was this was a villa this was a
little one-story house
and uh my friend spoke to the
photographer who lived right across the
street from this fellow named mickey
mickey when the siren went off you have
about 30
seconds before the missile would land
you didn’t have a lot of time to prepare
we were supposed to be warned
8 10 12 minutes in advance we only had
we had less than 30 seconds in the end
mickey sat down on a chair
in his living room he had two
ipso lapso lapso ipso i’m not a dog
owner and two big dogs
seated beside him on either side of the
chair
the missile landed destroyed his house
the entire house
fell down on him killed the two dogs
this is mickey still sitting in the
chair
with his head coming out i can show you
other pictures i didn’t post them of the
rescue crews when they arrived
it took them three hours to get mickey
out because it was like pickup sticks
all this stick and the concrete were
leaning at him in precarious way if they
took it away
it might collapse on him from a
different direction and kill him
so it took them three hours with the
cranes to actually lift the rubble
this is his front door here right to
lift the rubble away from mickey
got up and walked away
but these were the miracles these were
hidden miracles
hidden miracles
all right so why why does god
why do we have miracles why not just
nature what do i need a miracle for
so let’s put them in the context
we take a look at the big picture i
learned take a look at the big picture
from my rabbi
ari khan from my other rabbi let’s take
a look at the big picture and not get
caught up in the details
miracles in the context of the purpose
of creation what’s the purpose of
creation
we’ve said this a number of times
already the almighty wanted to
give of himself to something other than
himself
he wanted and what’s the greatest gift
that he could give he decides to give
of himself to something other than
himself which is the godly experience
so he creates a human being creates
people and he says okay
i want you to have the greatest gift
possible but we know
that it’s greater to earn the gift it’s
more godlike to earn the gift than it is
to get it as a free gift
because if we get it as free we’re being
dependent upon something other than
ourselves for the gift
and god is not dependent upon anything
else if you want to be more god-like the
more
independent you become
the more god-like you are the more
you’ll be able to relate to god
you know we don’t like to remix religion
and politics
right but in judaism there is no
difference
torah is about life including politics
so if you’re going to have a society
if you want a god-like society you want
to empower the individual
the more freedom you give the individual
to
earn what they
merit through their own efforts the
rewards that
what they achieve will give them
a more god-like experience
all right so in order to have that we
said before you need to have
a opportunity to do the opposite you
need to have the opportunity
to ignore god or
choose to see god you can choose to see
god in
the birth of the baby or you can chalk
it up to
nature that’s why he created nature so
you can say
oh that just happens on its own it’s
part of
nature it’s not god it’s natural
and the word olam the word for world
universe is olam and it comes from the
shoresh
hidden the world was created
in such a way that god is hidden the
word olam itself testifies to that
okay so the
the prime characteristic
of a human being who’s there to earn and
achieve a relationship with god
is free will free will doesn’t mean the
ability to choose between vanilla and
chocolate free will means when i see the
baby born i choose to see
god’s hand in it or not when i see the
miracles of the gulf war
i choose to see god’s invisible hand
protecting the nation of israel or
i choose to see great soldiers and
patriot missile batteries armed by
american
soldiers and bad aim by saddam hussein

i choose to see god i choose not to see
god
that’s what free choice means
it means to i elect for i elect god or i
don’t elect god
so that has to be protected at all costs
so if that’s true right that’s a prime
principle we want to use principles my
goal is to give you principles so you
can understand how the world works and
how god works
and answer your own questions instead of
having to go to rabbis and ask them
questions right
so if that’s true what happens when you
have an open miracle
when that coffee comes in and just
starts floating into the scene
and said here you go schmul without a
hand you know what i mean it’s like
starts floating in whoa
have a drink of water small
what happens at that point do i have the
ability to ignore
god can’t chalk that one up to nature

that’s god so if i was thinking about
skipping my afternoon prayers it’s a lot
harder to choose to skip my afternoon
prayers to talk to god when he asked me
to do it
after that happens so you have to
realize when an
open miracle happens
to us what’s it going to do
it’s going to change what i choose to do
during the day
it’s going to change my life right once
the open miracle happens to me can i
choose to ignore god
it’s very hard to choose to ignore god
when the open miracle happens to you you
appreciate that
it’s hard to do it with the story of
esther
it’s easier than an open miracle but
it’s
harder than just nature when the odds
start getting stretched it gets your
attention right
so now i want to i want to uh
i want to skip ahead i want to show you
what the word of um
word for miracle really means

there you go see these guys
this is world war one british soldiers
they’re learning how to use semaphores
they’re waving the banner right
so you know what that little banner is
called that they’re waving these guys
that’s called in hebrew a ness
a nes the hebrew word for miracle
is ness the hebrew word
for a signal flag is
a ness
the idea of a miracle is hello

try to get your attention right you’re
going down with your eyes looking down
to your at your shoes walking ahead down
the street
and you’re about to bump into the
lamppost and somebody goes
small hello wave a banner
right it’s a miracle miracle is there
it’s a signal flag to get your attention
and just like these soldiers in world
war one
to give you information to change your
direction your strategy
it’s a messaging system the point
of a miracle is
god is pr using providence providence
means god is involved in history
god’s involved in our lives at the
individual level and at the national
level
and the idea of a miracle is god
at this point in history is
communicating
we’re going to see in a minute he’s
cranking up the volume depending upon
water
he’s got to crank it up from nature a
little bit louder maybe to a
hidden miracle and sometimes to really
make his point because people aren’t
paying attention the way they need to
pay attention
they’ll volume will really go up it’ll
be an open miracle
okay so i want to go into um
mahmondi’s

11th century
one of our greatest commentaries on
the torah on the humash he
we mentioned this once before about noah
and his arc
and here’s what the ram ban ahmadis says
he says

there were a lot of animals everybody
knows that um
and there were very many big ones like
the elephants
are missile arts and all the creeping
little things all the you know
mouse mice’s mice and rodents and bugs
rob what tons of them got me off of
all those birds he says there were there
were 120 different species of owls
because sherta and once noah
gathered all of them together and he got
enough
food remember how to feed them they had
to gather enough food for a year
to me ma a complete year lo takhilotam
it was impossible for the tava
for the ark this particular ark and not
even
ten of them to contain it
so however it says nah modernity’s

it was a miracle
it was a miracle that this little boat
little boat
was able to contain so much
so wait a second now we just said it’s a
niss
it was a nes in english it’s a miracle
seagull yippee miracle wait a second
it was a niss it was a message it was a
signal flag
to all of the people around hey guys
pay attention this is a message this
giant
boat that noah is gathering all of these
people
of these animals and they can’t contain
it but it’s a giant
boat this is trying to get your
attention to get you to get a message
that’s what an s god doesn’t make
miracles stam stam means just because
it’s a message all right let’s go back
to
my our humanities

and you might want to say well listen
if you’re already doing a miracle god
have rachmanin
here let’s take a look at the picture
right anybody been here in kentucky
this is noah replica in kentucky look at
these little cars
look at what noah had to build in his
driveway
for all of those years and it was a
miracle that all of the animals two by
two
or seven of the kosher species fed in
here
and that was supposed to get their
attention so if if it’s going to be a
miracle anyway
here build something the size of this uh
truck or this
car and shove all the animals in there
why not you’re already doing that why
not depend on the miracle
so here is what nakhmanidi says
hashemite god
had the ark made dola so big kadeshi
doro he wanted a huge boat
so people would be astonished beat muba

to get people talking he wanted the
whole world talking about this
boat and that they’d start talking about
this boat why do you need a boat for
because noah says there’s going to be
a flood and then this speak it would
start the conversation because it was so
astonishing it was a nest
a banner an attention getter they would
talk about it they talk about the flood
in god’s opening
if they talk about the flood and now is
explaining to them
why the flood is going to happen
because all flesh has perverted its ways
on
the world in the world
he says they’ll maybe decide not to do
it right
force them no we don’t want to force
them
we want them to use their own free will
but in order to use their free will
sometimes you have to give them
information and you have to give them a
s
in order to make that choice oh
right and they talk about the knows

and and how amazing it was that all the
animals were coming in
the there’s that word that we had
from the repentance sin and repentance
he wanted them to do teshuva
right lashuv to change their ways to
come back to the path that humanity is
supposed to be on
so we have the signal flags to say over
here in this direction
right switch direction guys do teshuva
return to the path and aim in the
direction you’re supposed to be going in

god made him make it very big not only
as an attention-getter
but because
he wanted to minimize the miracle
kikach
because that’s the way of every miracle
in the torah
or in the books of the prophets

we want as much as possible to be done
by human beings
god can do everything he doesn’t need us
he wants us
he wants us to build the world in the
way that’s good for us
that’s going to build the world
connecting to god and he said
and if we need help at some point
he’s going to come in he’s the masjid
the supervisor he’s the creator
the sustainer and the supervisor
the supervisor does not sit on the
assembly line
we’re on the assembly line we’re
manufacturing the perfect world
but you need a supervisor to make sure
everybody has all the tools and the raw
materials they need and if somebody sort
of
trips up or faints right stop the
assembly line for a minute
get that worker back on track right when
there’s an emergency
or a serious problem that maybe
everybody’s gonna get messed up and not
be able to accomplish the goal
then the supervisor has to step in not
to do it
for them but to help everybody
realize they’ve gotten off track all
right so that’s what we mean when we say
god is the creator
of the universe the sustainer he means
every breath every molecule every day
right every baby right god did not wind
up the world and let it go
he did not wind it up he’s the sustainer
he’s constantly
you know what it’s like you know why we
have these screens that you’re all
looking at god created the screen that
you’re looking at
so you would understand this principle
we say that god
is god renews the world
every day every moment every second
which is exactly what’s that’s me on the
screen right
60 hertz 50 hertz 50 times a second
there’s little dots going across the
screen
it looks like a solid image this is not
a solid image
it’s being refreshed 50 or 60 times a
second depending upon where you are
in the world god is constantly
refreshing the world if he pulls the
plug
screen goes black so now that we
understand that
we’re going to start moving towards
answering our question
why did they have miracles during the
biblical period
open miracles and we don’t have open
miracles
today right
so what are the conditions we’re going
to have to require
if we don’t want to change somebody’s
mind
about believing in god or not believing
in god
what are the conditions we’re going to
require
so that when an open miracle happens
that doesn’t take place
right think about it

let me ask you a question do you think
when
moses lifted up his hand and said the
c’s gonna split
and then the c split
did that change any behavior what
moshe was going to do the next day

you think it changed them or it was the
same moshe before
during and after the open miracle

okay you think it did change or he
didn’t change
he did change i would claim
moshe got up to talk to god early the
day before the miracle
and after the miracle he probably got up
early
to talk to god and if the miracle hadn’t
happened
i think he would have gotten up early to
do his morning prayers and talk to god
people like me sometimes i had a late
night i got to sleep in oh
god will understand
if i’m there and the sea splits i don’t
care what time i went to sleep late i’m
up on time for minion for the
group prayers or any morning prayers
moses wasn’t changed by that miracle
happening
moshe comes into paro’s palace and he
throws down his staff
and it turns into a snake
right what would happen if you were
there and you saw that happen what would
you do
you’d go wow that’s awesome
there’s a god i’m going to get up early
i’m going go make sure i make make it to
prayers
you know that cheeseburger i was
thinking of happening i’m not gonna have
and then what happens paro’s magicians
come along and they throw down their
sticks and they turn into snakes
and what do you say hey the cheeseburger
is looking better every day
right all of a sudden there’s a balance
of free will again right you see that

so in order to maintain free will when
you’re having open miracles or
transcending nature
you have to have it one at the same time
what we would call
black magic uh people having the ability
to manipulate nature
right all this astrology stuff all this
idol worship stuff
right you’re going to have to have idol
worshipers be able to pull off a lot of
good tricks
otherwise if it’s only god that’s doing
these things
and he does them yeah your free choice
to ignore god is taken away
paro you see if you read the story
carefully when the times
that paro’s heart is hardened sometimes
he hardens it himself one of the reasons
why he’s hardening it
himself is he’s got options
he’s got options to explain it away it
was his magicians it was
you know was it moses we talked about
this right with the staff and hitting
the rock
was it the staff maybe it was the fancy
staff that he had right
so you need to have balance in the world
for an open miracle
so you’re going to see one in the same
so there’s going to be three things
one you have to have such a commitment
to god
such an awareness of god like moshe had
to have the miracle happen through
somebody like him we call that a prophet
a prophet who is so at that level
someone who is at that level of
commitment
and understanding and sees the world
that way he’s seeing the world the way
god sees the world
that’s a prerequisite for prophecy
prophecy is an emergent
property of someone who has

developed their character and studied
and understand from a wisdom point of
view how the world works
learned torah they’ve studied the torah
understand
how god sees the world because that’s
what a torah is a manifestation of how
god sees the world
it’s the instruction guide how to use
the world so therefore
that’s how god sees the world you build
up your character traits
to such an extent that you get all of
your ego out of the way
you’re the most humble person we talked
about this in our torah from sinai
session
and now all of a sudden the emergent
property is
i have clarity of how the world works
and if i really have clarity how the
world works i understand how nature
works and i understand what’s going to
have to happen
for nature to be broken to get the
world’s attention when they get off
track it’s predictable that’s what a
prophet is right
he knows it’s going to happen prophecy
is an emergent property
of knowing intellectually olive torah
seeing the way that god sees the world
and getting your ego out of the way so
you’re not projecting
in america just watch
the cable news and you’ll see
one channel projecting themselves onto
the story
and you flip the channel you see another
one projecting
their ego onto the story and it’s two
different worlds people meaning it’s
as an objective third party without a
horse in the race
you watch this it’s incredible
to see that happening if you want to see
what’s objectively happening for
real how god sees the world get your ego
out of the way that’s the only way
you’re going to come out with one common
vision and appreciation of what’s going
on in the world
and if you understand god’s will then
you’re going to understand
what’s going to happen when the world
gets off track this is jeremiah this is
isaiah
it’s clear to them i start learning
torah i know
there’s big trouble ahead in america
if so we’ll we’ll have a whole separate
session about that maybe i’ll do a walk
and talk on that
right i don’t want to get off track too
much so um
yes once you’re understanding god’s plan
you learn his torah you get your ego out
of the way and instead of having the
world want to
operate the way i wanted to operate
which is idle worship
i’m trying to see how it’s going to
operate according to god’s plan
i know god’s plan is to have the jewish
people back in the land of israel and
build the temple
and have a kingdom that’s teaching the
right we know this
so now project that onto
annexing the territories project
that onto the government of israel
project
that on to what’s going on in america
right you understand what the endgame is
don’t don’t don’t
want it to end up nice the way you want
it to end up
nice
you think god’s going to let millions of
jews assimilate themselves out of
existence in america

think about that you know god doesn’t
want the jewish people
to disappear you know he wants them
in israel how long
is he going to allow them to stay in
america
think about it all right
so prerequisites for open miracles
we need a prophet because somebody has
to be the agent
what’s a prophet uh what’s a miracle
what made the miracle of the splitting
of the sea
was it that the sea split the mirror
because you could you know i’ve seen
people uh
it was a strong east wind the tidal
flows in the eastern side of the
mediterranean
they have done this with models you can
actually do it if there’s a lot of wind
coming a whole night
it says it it’s what happened the
miracle is
a prophet says it’s going to happen
right frogs isn’t such a big miracle
locusts
locusts happen all the time what makes
it a miracle is
moses says a month in advance there’s
going to be a this is going to happen
once every month
and moses says parallel you don’t let it
tomorrow
the locusts are coming and it happens
that’s what makes it a miracle
so prerequisite is a prophet and you
have to have somebody whose
free will is not going to be taken away
when it happens via the prophet
so you need to have an arab prophecy for
an open miracle we don’t have
prophets today no but miracles you need
a prophet
two you need to have the counterbalance
in society
right you need to have the black magic
guys you need to have the sorcerers we
don’t have that also
as much as open miracles are foreign to
somebody in the
in the 2020 so is somebody doing black
magic
so is idol worship it actually does
something you see that
okay i want to tell you a quick story
about a cab driver i met
about this idea that it has to happen
via a prophet
so uh i and actually i was uh i was in a
cab
a long time ago and there was something
political going on
and there was some scandal with rabbi
there’s always scandals in the left-wing
liberal press about rabbis right they
have an agenda
to put down religion so at any rate
there was a big scandal
and it was a cab driver there was
talking about what was going on in the
headlines he’s saying you know
people say they’re holy they’re holy he
says you know who was holy
he says my safta she was holy
my safta so she was from iraq he was an
iraqi jew and she’d come from iraq they
came in the 50s and lived in
hats when there was a big aliyah from
from the
african nations north africa
so she was iraqi so he was telling this
story when he was a little boy
in the late 50s early 60s and and they
were living in mabarot
the mabarot they had to build like 10
cities to to accommodate to absorb all
these million people that came in such a
short amount of time it was a fledgling
little country there were
600 000 people here in 1948
and in the next few years a couple
million people showed up where where do
you put them right so actually down here
in uh
in yamnia right about here there was
like a tent city
with uh tunisians tunisian jews
anyways it was a tent with a dirt floor
and he went into his sub
softest tent her ma bara and she’s like
cooking up like a
iraqi stew kind of thing i don’t know
what and he walks in
this little kid standing beside his
grandmother
and all of a sudden he looks and the
software says she sees
slithering in through the tent door is
this
palestinian viper palestinian viper are
are deadly right we have these poisonous
snakes
up here so it slithers in
and the softer looks the snake in the
eye and it says
snake we’re the jewish people
god’s made a miracle he brought us back
to the land
we are here i demand
you leave my tent right now you are not
going to harm
anybody you are leaving the tent right
now
and the snake is like staring her in the
eye
while she’s saying this turns around and
slithers out the door
and the kid’s watching this he says
shmuel says my
safta she was a holy lady
so i look over at uh at uzi the cab
driver i said uzi
i said he’s not wearing a kippah
i said uzi i said why aren’t you wearing
a kippah
he’s like he’s he’s such a he’s so into
like religion and spirituality and god
you know that’s about killing right the
army ruined him
right because that was the big big uh
absorption of
whatever right makes uh campus life on
campus look like the mickey mouse club
right to go into the army
like party time for three years you have
17 18 and 19 year olds being supervised
by
20 year olds and 21 year olds right
that’s the army
so for three years any rate
so he said you know
i said listen let me ask you a question
udi i said
if you would have looked at that snake
and you would have said snake leave i
demand
that you leave to protect the jewish
people because that’s what god wants
and it’s left would you be wearing a
keep it today
right i said oody i said you’re safta
she was a holy lady before the snake
during the snake after the snake whether
the snake left or didn’t
she did not change an iot he says that’s
true
he says but me udi i would have changed
a miracle has to happen via
a sadiq a person who is totally
righteous meaning
it’s not going to change their decision
about connecting to god
or who else can make a miracle happen
a russia gomur somebody was totally bad
whether the miracle happens or not he’s
still going to do you know
party all day right do his own thing
one or the other that’s because we care
about free will so much
okay let’s continue on here
now i want to uh share with you
you know rabbi khan was talking about
the gemara talmud
this is in the fourth century the time
of the talmud repapa and abaya
in babylon in iraq and um
they were discussing the same question
right they’ve been
separated out from the land of israel
right the exile
the destruction of the city happened in
the year 70 were
in the nine days now leading up to the
commemoration of the destruction of the
temple in the year 70.
and this is in the year 320
right so we’ve been in exile for a while
there in babylon
the babylonian talmud is being edited
and compiled
so marleira papa labaya he says what’s
different about the earlier generations
he’s talking about the biblical period
for whom miracles occurred
and what’s different about us for whom
miracles don’t occur
this is not a new question that
shmuldwefer invented in 1985 right
they’re asking the same question in the
year 325.
so abaya answers them back um are they
the previous generations were wholly
dedicated to the sanctification of god’s
name
well we are not as dedicated to the
sanctification of god’s name
it’s basically saying what i just said
right
they were so committed they weren’t
going to change
whether the miracle happened or the
miracle didn’t happen
in the biblical period or they had
magicians
that could counteract the power of the
miracle
all right uh i just want to share now
back here
let’s take a look at this

hidden miracles are happening all the
time nature is happening all the time
the only question is are we listening
right this is
providence the divine providence we’re
not prophets
so god does not speak to us
god does speak to us through revelation
through the torah so if you want to hear
what god has to say about something
you open up the tory open up the talmud
you learn to see what
god is saying if if you can’t figure out
what he’s saying
then you go to you’re wrong you ask a
rabbi if he can’t figure it out
ask a rabbi okay so that’s how god talks
to us the other way god talks to us
is he speaks to us in real time at the
individual level
and at the national level and the volume
that he speaks to us
is commensurate to how open our ears are
how much we’re paying attention
right same way we talked about this once
how you’re talking to a teenager
the volume increases you want them to
make their own choice
you want them to make their own choice
but sometimes they need some supervision
and they need some information
and they could be getting themselves
into trouble so sometimes you have to
step
in to protect them for their own sake
all right so the hidden miracles and
nature
nature is nature and then the hidden
miracles that’s how god talks us that’s
how providence works providence god
communicates us through torah
and god communicates to us through
history
through events so at the individual
level
i’m going to cross the street and
i never get hit by a car and i back off
god’s talking to me
that’s a message it could be a message
if i choose to say god
speak to me every day otherwise it’s
just nature
right statistics are you don’t look both
ways you can get hit by a car
but if i say god i’m ready to listen you
can talk to me
in whispers and i’m willing to pay
attention
then he will then that car can have
meaning
he said god give me messages along the
way you know let me try to figure it out
i want to
learn this language of non-verbal
communication with you god
and the car could come i was oh wait a
second was i going in the right
direction where was i headed to
does should i really be going there
maybe i should go in a different
direction
just got fired oh hmm that’s interesting
what’s the message in that should i
change
careers should i fight for the job am i
being too lazy like
god’s talking to me if i invite him to
speak to me
at the individual and it’s definitely
happening at the national level
definitely happening at the national
level and you know the war
there was two things going on in world
war ii with my family
one is the national level it was a
miracle
miracle does not have to be oh
an amazing thing happened look at it
turned around everything worked out
great that’s not what miracle miracle is
the signal flag right
something that’s happening in such an
irrational
crazy way to grab your attention to say
hey
for the p for the jewish people
the holocaust was a miracle

i see it it was a miracle
again miracle doesn’t mean good miracle
means
something extraordinary something that
is happening to get the jewish people’s
attention in particular
it was a world war
to get the world’s attention to say
hey people what are you
doing are you fulfilling your rule are
you
doing what i created you to do
that’s national providence now
individuals can get swept up in national
providence innocence died
i have hundreds of family members and
cousins that went to the ovens
there’s a bunch of us that survived
why them and not my father
right they were innocent there’s a
million and a half names of children in
yad vashem
at the holocaust museum in jerusalem
what’d they do wrong to deserve it
why was that the best thing for them
well maybe it wasn’t
but if the holocaust if the only people
who went to the camps in the ovens
were rapists and child molesters and
drug dealers
what would your conclusion be about the
holocaust don’t be a rapist or a child
molester or a drug dealer that’s who the
message was for
by necessity if you’re having a national
providence
the nation has to be swept up in it
you appreciate that otherwise it’s an
individual message and not a national
message
how god takes care of that right we can
have a different session
right because god’s just and people
getting swept up in something that
wasn’t had nothing to do with them
for the sake of the group
right shouldn’t suffer and they don’t
suffer for that we can talk about that
one day
why bad things happen to good people
good things happen to bad people good
things happen to good people and bad
things happen to
bad people all right so everybody see
that
so we’re having things happening at one
in the same time the nationally
individual
providence all right i want to
finish up and i want to talk to you a
little bit about the gulf war
and because that was a hidden miracle to
get the jewish people’s attention
and everybody was swept up in it
and i
remember being in a cat i used to take a
lot of cabs back in those days when i
lived in jerusalem because i didn’t own
a car
so i’m in another cab and actually i was
on the way to the printing press to
print up the book mrs masks of miracles
and the cab diary says where are you
going i said tell him you know i wrote
this book about the gulf war
and we’re printing it up it was very
shortly after the war i wrote it during
the war
the war it was written as it was
happening that’s
as i got heard the stories about the
miracles i was writing them down
any rate he says wrote a book about the
gulf war
what’s to write about we spent six weeks
we didn’t fight nobody got called up we
sat in our houses
missiles fell nobody got hurt what’s to
write about
it was like a war that was a non-war it
was the first war that
i remember i got i got called up to go
to do my reserve duty on the gaza border
and i had five kids my son was just my
fifth son was just born he was two weeks
old
and they called me up from my
headquarters to to go down to the gaza
border gaza
everything was shut down during those
six weeks right you sit on a jeep and
you know have a beer and roast some
potatoes with the guys
that’s what it would have been meantime
there were missiles falling
you had 30 seconds to get five kids all
out of bed
into the sealed room close the door put
the gas masks on
so i i said to my picky dumb i could see
now cashier my um
the the the person calling me up the
girl so
the 19 year old girls run the army by
the way so she says to me
you know you got to come up i said
listen i said the war is going on
here in my apartment we just had five we
got five little kids under the age of
six
we haven’t got enough time i said i’ll
tell you what you send a soldier over to
help my wife
and i’ll go sit on the gaza border and
drink some beer with the boys and coffee
she says let me call you back so she
calls me back 15 minutes later she says
you know what you’re right stay home
it’s like only in israel only in israel
the soldiers had called to stay home
because there’s a war on
right in america there were people who
were in the reserves
parents two parents got called up during
the iraq war remember that
they’d have a two-year-old kid and both
parents got called up who’s going to
take care of our kid they said you
should have you should have thought of
that before you signed up
i remember hearing that story anyway
so the udi says what’s the point of
writing the book
so i said you know hootie i said uh i
remember
when the sirens would go off
you’d you’d i’ll go into the room and
you’d have to know
if a missile land you heard a thump you
have to know can i come out right
where’s the all clear
so there would be another siren and they
would call it on the radio which areas
could
could actually come out of your sealed
room it was safe to come out
and there was like this 20-minute period
where we’d all be glued to the radios to
hear
is it okay to right and there was one
station all the stations were
broadcasting the same message
so imagine you have the entire country
all
listening to the radio for 20 minutes
everybody listening so remember during
one siren
they put prime minister shamir on
and we’re listening and he gets on this
little sighty little
grandfather right here he is here i’ll
show you in a picture of him in a minute
so he gets on the radio and he says you
know
i’m happy to speak to all the people of
israel the nation of israel
and i’m sitting here in my sealed room
like each and every one of you just like
everybody else here with my family
waiting for the siren to go by
and he said you know we have thousands
of years of history
and we’ve been through a lot and gum zev
or this too shall pass
he says at this very moment knowing that
the entire people of israel are
listening to me the jewish people we’re
all in this together i feel the
i feel the unity of our people
and the strength that we have in the
unity of our people
and i turn to uzi and he says yeah you
know
i felt that he said you know during the
war
if there was a soldier or somebody
needed a ride you didn’t matter
religious not religious
whoever they were you picked them up you
helped their random acts of kindness
people were helping each other all
unified
i said udi i said when was the when was
the last time before that you felt that
he said uh 73.
the yom kippur war right the yom kippur
war
five armies attacked us we almost died
everybody was together
everybody in our arguments the pettiness
went away
so when when when was the time before
that
he said the 67 war the six day war

we were all united felt like one
and he turned to me and he said shmuel
isn’t it a shame we need a war to get
the jewish people to unite
and i said udi isn’t it a shame we need
a war to get the jewish people
together why don’t we get the jewish
people together and then we won’t need a
war

right that’s the message of tish above
that’s what’s coming up now right the
temple is destroyed
the twin towers were destroyed united
right everybody united in america
until they forgot a few weeks later
right why are we inviting it
learn the message hear the message
learn it say god speak to me and
whispers i’m willing to listen you don’t
have to yell
speak to me in a whisper
why is that happening okay uh
all right i just want to show you this
picture and we’re finished
all right this is actually a picture of
prime minister shamir
i think it was shortly after legal four
and this is his assistant and this is
rabbi uri zohar
urizor at the time was uh like uh

the top comedian the top television
personality the top
producer the top director uh stand up
he was like you know seinfeld johnny
carson everything all wrapped up into
one
and he actually became religious he did
chuba
so he was like one of the most famous
personalities this is him here
prime minister shamir and this is me
this is my friend rabbi tom meyer and
we went to prime minister shamir
and we said listen the jewish people are
assimilating out of existence in america
israel is strong now and it’s just like
we sent people to entebbe
to rescue jews because their physical
eyes were in danger we have millions of
jews whose spiritual
eyes are in danger and it’s up to this
we’re doing it as an organization but
there’s only so much we can do there’s
other people trying but we need to have
an umbrella we need somebody to direct
it we need
this is a a a national challenge
that requires a national response and he
agreed
and he said you know what you’re right
we’re gonna do it and they were about to
set up the whole thing
and that’s when the madrid conference
happened
and everybody turned against them and he
had a crisis in the government and
it didn’t happen in the end but
[Music]
we need a we need a miracle for that one
but we don’t want the miracle we were
trying to preempt it
we were trying to reach out to the
jewish people and teach them who they
are so that they’ll make their own free
choices
and become the people who were supposed
to be as opposed to
being somebody else right there’s a lot
of jewish people in america today being
somebody else other than the jewish
people who they’re supposed to be
and we don’t want to have a miracle to
wake them up and bring them all back
home
all right so that’s what i wanted to say
about
miracles there’s a lot to say and maybe
at some point we’ll have a session on
providence or go deep dive in providence
a little bit more
and about why bad things happen to good
people good things happen to bad people
but thank you for all of your attention
and
uh you’re all great and
so everybody have a great week and thank
you very much
have a great day
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