Open intervals or determinism

How do you understand the verse that the one who goes to measure his neighbor says, "May it be pleasing to You, O God, that You send a blessing on the work of our hands?" The one who begins to measure says, "Blessed is He who sends a blessing on this field," and then "Blessed is He who sends a blessing on this field," and then "Blessed is He who blesses." This is a vain prayer, since the blessing is not found in the thing that is weighed, nor in the thing that is measured, nor in the thing that is counted, but in the thing that is hidden from the eye.

And this means that asking for a real miracle, but that is not yet visible to man (because it has not yet been measured), is not a vain prayer.

The sages of the Gemara certainly understood that there was divine involvement (they also thought it was possible within the framework of natural laws, which is now known to be untrue). Beyond that, I explained that God's leadership has apparently changed, and at least in our day it seems that He is not involved.

Can you please explain what it means that the sages thought this was possible within the framework of natural laws and told us that it was not true?
What do we know more than them about nature that is relevant to this question?

Beyond Nadav's question, I don't understand how you understood Chazal regarding the blessing on measuring the threshing floor. Let's assume that the Chazal understood that there is intervention in nature (without a miracle). How does a person's knowledge of the amount of threshing floor turn the blessing into a miracle (which is why they don't pray). After all, before knowledge, prayer is legitimate and the intervention is not miraculous. An explanation is really needed

Now an explanation came to my mind according to the words of the Ramban and the Ritva in the second chapter of the book of the Hebrew Bible. Which means that the one who goes to measure etc. is only in the tenth, about which it is written and examine me in this and so on. And even though it is a visible miracle, it is necessary to pray. But after measuring the tenths, one should not pray because it is a vain prayer. And he is pressed

It seems that Chazal has two relevant parameters in the issue of praying for a miracle: one does not pray for an overt miracle (divine involvement) and one does not pray for an exception to nature even in the hidden.
The one who enters to measure his threshing floor does not pray after measuring because it is an overt miracle. Before measuring, he prays because it is hidden. But here there is no exception to nature, and therefore everything depends on the question of whether it is hidden or overt.
As stated, if this is an exception to nature, then even in the hidden realm one does not pray and ask for it. And there is evidence to suggest that the prayer is for his wife to give birth to a male. After all, the fetus is still in the womb, and therefore even if a miracle occurs and the female becomes a male - this would be a hidden miracle. So why not pray? How is this different from asking for the threshing floor before measuring? Because here, according to Chazal, this is an exception to nature and not a miracle within the framework of nature (which, according to Chazal, there is such a thing. And it is not). Therefore, before the sex of the fetus is determined, it is permissible to pray for its sex, because even then, according to Chazal, this is a request for a miracle within the framework of nature (and again, in practice, this is not true).
In the margins, we should discuss whether entering the threshing floor is an exception to nature or not. Ostensibly, anyone can add a few grains to the threshing floor, and why can't God? So maybe that's why in their eyes it is a miracle within the framework of nature. But to the same extent, changing the sex of the fetus can be done surgically by a doctor, so why can't God do it? In this picture, there are very few miracles that are not within the framework of nature. It is quite clear that the natural phenomenon means what would happen without God (and without other people, such as a doctor).

You wrote:

“It seems that the Sages have two relevant parameters in the issue of praying for a miracle: We do not pray for a miracle (divine involvement) that is obvious and we do not pray for a deviation from nature even in the hidden”

It seems that you are confused. And the Sages: It seems that the Sages have two relevant parameters in the issue of praying for a miracle: We do not pray for a miracle (divine involvement) that is hidden (like a fetus) and we do not pray for a deviation from nature in the open (after measuring one's throat)”

Now I think that my ’correction’ is actually just a semantic game. However, I understood your answer. Interesting. And helpful. After all, it is not clear to me then why prayer is not prohibited today due to false prayer?

A hidden miracle is a reason to allow asking and not to forbid.
If I were to be honest, I would forbid. But perhaps there is a hidden divine intervention that goes beyond nature in special cases and for which it is permissible to pray. Therefore, it is difficult to forbid categorically. I do think that this should only be done in cases where there is no natural origin (very extreme cases), and there perhaps one can ask God to rob nature because there is no other origin. This is only regarding the permission to pray, but as mentioned, I assume that in most cases this will not be granted.

Thanks for the answers, much appreciated!

I still don't understand. What do we know today that rules out a hidden miracle (to the point of being a slur) more than the sages knew in this context?
We know that everything is deterministic and they didn't know? So why did they consider it a miracle if there are no determinisms?

In the book of Proverbs, the Lord is with you, 2019

Did the Sages not know the ‘orders of Genesis’ and not attach importance to them? After all, the Sages knew how to calculate with precision the course of the sun and the moon in order to know how to pass the years and sanctify the months, and they adhered to the laws of their course. Laws from which our father Abraham concluded that ’there is a leader for the capital’ to whom the sun and the moon are subject.

Regarding those who grew up in a fraternity because they did not have the money to pay for their son's nursing, the Sages said: ‘How disgraceful is this man that the ‘orders of Genesis’ were changed for him; Divine intervention that undermines the orders of Genesis – is not desired and is only done as a ’default choice’. After all, it is God who established the ‘laws of heaven and earth’.

However, God is not only the creator of nature, but also the God of justice and law who determined that everyone with a choice should be given what he deserves, and He is also the God of grace and mercy who satisfies the desires of every living being, and especially the needy and oppressed who need His salvation.

Therefore, He will not usually bring His help and salvation through visible miracles, but in ways that do not ‘break the rules of the game’, and so someone who needs milk to nurse his son – May God help him, whether by preserving the mother's health so that she will have milk to nurse, or by granting him favor and kindness in the eyes of people who will help him pay for the wet nurse, or by finding people to find him a job that will provide a living.

All of these ways of helping do not violate the laws of nature, but they are also not trivial, and man needs a lot of divine help, both to maintain his health, to find livelihood and honor, and to be pleasing to the people who will help him. And for this we pray, give thanks for the past, and ask for the future.

With a Shabbat Shalom greeting, Sh”tz Levinger

Incidentally, in the days of Chazal, the prevailing view of nature was that the orders of Genesis depended on the course of the zodiac signs, and an agent who knew when a person was born could calculate in advance what was expected of him at any given moment as if he were ‘Laplace's Elf’ In its entirety 🙂

Modern science can in most cases only give a probabilistic forecast of what is expected to happen, and therefore today the ‘gap of maneuver’ of divine intervention that will not be seen as an obvious change of the ‘orders of Genesis’ – is greater. And indeed, our eyes see the hand of ’ in history that brought about the beginning of the return of the people of Israel to their land and the return of their physical and spiritual sovereignty, and all this without breaking natural law.

What we know today is that there are no gaps in the laws of nature. The sages probably did not know this. The term "Greno" is unrelated because it is hidden versus revealed, not within the laws of nature versus outside them. The relevant example is a fetus. The sages probably thought that the sex of the fetus was not a natural result of circumstances but something accidental. Nature allows for both possibilities. The miracle is that God creates something according to our request when otherwise it would have been a lottery.

On the 9th of Elul

In Rabbi Zamir Cohen's article, "Do You Want a Boy or a Girl? Ask for Mercy" (On the ‘Yiddrav’ website, he points to studies according to which even when the male Y chromosome exists, there is a situation where a female will be created, since the male chromosome needs to secrete a substance that overcomes the larger female chromosome, and when the substance is not secreted, a female will be created despite the existence of the male chromosome. The determining time for such development is days 22-40 of pregnancy.

According to this study, even from a natural perspective, there may be a chance that a pregnancy with male XY genetics will develop into a female, and only on the 40th day does the ‘window of opportunity’ close and there is no natural chance of change. Although the Jerusalemite's opinion that even in the ’crisis’it is possible to pray for a change in the sex of the child, and it seems that the Jerusalemite is also given a miracle Pray.

Best regards, Sh”t

Rabbi, I came to the thread following your reference in the second book of the trilogy (p. 262, note 11). Does the Rabbi have a satisfactory answer - beyond what is written here that I didn't really understand - to the contradiction between the issue of the embryo and the issue of measuring the threshing floor?

I brought the Meiri (that the prayer is for the goods and not for the fruits). Beyond that, perhaps there is a disagreement on the issues. One way or another, on the issue of blessings, it is proven as I said.