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Did I understand – your method is providential (I read the columns).

שו”תDid I understand – your method is providential (I read the columns).
asked 5 years ago

Hello Rabbi, as I understand it:
The rabbi denies divine intervention in nature.
He says – if it is the way of nature, it is not divine intervention, it is simply nature as God Himself determined it.
Therefore, if you take paracetamol, you don’t say, “God healed me,” but rather you attribute it to paracetamol because that is nature.
Any divine involvement is beyond nature. Therefore, there may be hidden miracles (it is impossible to rule this out, but the rabbi himself claims that in his opinion this does not exist).
Regarding visible miracles – we all agree that they do not exist, because we do not see them.
In short, the Rabbi says – if something happened that can be explained naturally, leave it natural and don’t say ‘it’s the hand of God,’
That’s why he says, ‘There’s no point in praying,’ because simply if you take medication, then it’s not God causing it, but the law that He has established in advance that this medication will heal you.
And if you don’t take medication, then God clearly doesn’t show divine intervention.
And you can trust that God will intervene in a hidden way and heal you. You just don’t think it will happen, even though it is possible, because God can do whatever He wants.


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0 Answers
מיכי Staff answered 5 years ago
That is indeed true, except that I do not completely rule out the existence of sporadic cases. I do rule out assertions about one case or another being the hand of God.

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יהושע בנג'ו replied 5 years ago

https://he.wikisource.org/wiki/%D7%9C%D7%A7%D7%95%D7%98%D7%99_%D7%9E%D7%95%D7%94%D7%A8%22%D7%9F_%D7%AA%D7%A0%D7%99%D7%A0%D7%90_%D7%92

Torah J’ Likuti Moharan Taninya. I did not insist on the division and difference between your approach and his approach. On first reading I actually found something in common. Medicine is deterministic. If you do soul redemption, there is a chance to change something. That is, to allow space in nature.

גוג replied 5 years ago

1.
When the Rabbi says that he does not rule out sporadic cases, he means a change in reality that is only hidden from human eyes, right? (Because if it is not a change but a natural process, it is simply nature).

So if I understood correctly:
A. Overt miracle – The parting of the Red Sea (a change in nature in an obvious way)
B. Hidden miracle – A change from nature that humans just did not notice (example?)
C. Naturalness – Paracetamol reduces fever.

2.
The assumption of origin since time immemorial –
According to the Rabbi, because natural events are not divine intervention but nature as it created it, then according to you this is a principle that has been true since time immemorial even when there was a prophecy, because if it is natural it is not divine intervention.
For example: Even during the time of prophecy, a person who took paracetamol could not attribute his healing to anything other than paracetamol.
(And it seems to me that according to this, it is not possible to see God's intervention at all, because even if for the sake of the matter, the person was completely successful, rich, etc., then it can be attributed to the person's wisdom, Nobel Prizes, etc., meaning that everything can be explained naturally, as long as it is natural).
So this fits the Rabbi's approach that only through an obvious miracle do we see God's intervention. Did I understand correctly?

3.
A question about the premise of the origin
It seems that in the Bible, we find God's will appearing as nature. For example, the story of Joseph and his brothers, who tell them that he was taken down to Egypt by God, and yet the brothers took him down!
How would the Rabbi interpret this?

מיכי Staff replied 5 years ago

Yehoshua, I didn't understand what he wants from my life. If there is a specific argument he is making, please formulate it and then we can discuss whether I agree or not.

Gog,
1. Yes.
2. I didn't understand. If something happens against nature, it is a miracle. If something happens that a prophet said was a miracle, then it is a miracle. If something happens that a prophet predicts in advance and it does happen, it is a miracle.
3. There was God's involvement. What is there to interpret here?

גוג replied 5 years ago

2. I saw in your words a statistical difference between the ‘creation of a world with life in all galaxies’ something that is negligible to happen and therefore is defined by you as a covenant/hand of God, and between the ‘return of my people to their land’ as an event whose possibility is not negligible and therefore is not defined by you as a covenant but as a reasonable phenomenon.
‏And this is contrary to the rule you brought here, that if the words of the prophet come true, then it is a miracle.

3. Where does the Rabbi see the story of Joseph as divine intervention that goes beyond nature? (I went through the story quickly now.. I saw nothing except ‘giving grace’ and it too can be explained by double causality).

מיכי Staff replied 5 years ago

Your numbers seem like the result of a random generator.
If a prophet predicts something undefined that can happen naturally, and he also doesn't give a date for it to happen – I don't necessarily see it as a miracle. I can predict that in the future there will be a person in the world who is two and a half meters tall. If somewhere sometime it happens, is it a miracle? What's more, this prophecy doesn't necessarily mean that it's a miracle either. The Jewish character and the halakhic commandment (and of course this prophecy itself) can do this naturally.
This discussion seems completely unnecessary to me.

ק replied 5 years ago

I want to ask a question about something I once heard in a song by Shuli Rand:
If you pray that God will give you a sign, and let's say suddenly at the end of your prayer in the forest you encounter a meteor shower...
But it turns out to you in retrospect that it was already known and publicized in all the news that today was supposed to be such an event.
Is this a miracle?

מיכי replied 5 years ago

Hypothetically, if you certainly didn't hear in any way that this was going to happen (usually there's no way to know this), and if you haven't prayed thousands of times before and been unanswered, then maybe it is.

גוג replied 5 years ago

My numbers (2, 3) were in accordance with the literature you wrote (I did not see the need to refer to 1, because I answered it). I feel like the question is being ignored. Especially since you gave an example that is not a miracle at all. Apparently we have a difference in definitions of what a miracle is.

In any case, I would love to understand what your innovation is in the field of providence. Because you have two statements:
1. There is no divine involvement in nature – and Maimonides already said this.
2. From the fact that there is no change from nature in an overt and consistent way, you conclude that there is no change from nature in a hidden and consistent way. And I have not found anyone who disagrees with this (or more precisely – I have not seen anyone say. Even in Shaalt, etc.).
- We all agree that an overt change does not exist, and you agree that a hidden and sporadic change is possible.
If so, what is your innovation?

מיכי Staff replied 5 years ago

I didn't say there was anything new in what I said. I'm saying what I think, and everyone will decide for themselves whether there's anything new in it or not.

גוג replied 5 years ago

I mean, why is there opposition to you? That you claim that God left the earth, etc. I see your points as appropriate, and therefore I feel that I did not stand by all of your points.

גוג replied 5 years ago

Actually, now I understand, indeed your definition of a visible miracle does not match the biblical definition. A victory of the few against the many would certainly be defined as a victory, and that is what we saw in the years of the state's revival.
Therefore, I disagree with your definition that we do not see a visible miracle, we do.
Thank you very much.

צחי replied 5 years ago

Ramban”suf Parshat Ba Chapter 13’ Verse’ 16– – That a person has no part in the Torah of Moses our Lord until we believe in all our words and events, which are all miracles, and there is no nature or custom in them, whether in public or in private, except that if he does the commandments, his reward will be successful, and if he transgresses them, he will be cut off, and all will be punished by the decree of the Most High

Here I would like to add an interesting distinction to Gog.
In the prayer “On Miracles” we thank God’ and describe the miracles of Chanukah
The delivery of heroes in the hands of the weak – This is a miracle!!
And many in the hands of a few – This is a miracle!!
And the impure in the hands of the pure – This is a miracle??
And the wicked in the hands of the righteous – This is a miracle??
And the zedis in the hand of those who practice your Torah – is it a miracle??

What does the question – “is it a miracle” mean? I mean to say that according to the pure laws of nature, the righteous and those who practice your Torah should win. On the other hand, a large part of their victory is based on a miracle. And wars in general are miraculous affairs.

It just seems that there is a situation here that is presented to us naturally. And at the same time, it is certainly defined as a conference.
Of course, also according to the words of the Ramban above.

צחי replied 5 years ago

By the way, it's interesting, according to the method there are no miracles in the world at all. Or something like that. There are cases that are just statistics…
It seems that even “heroes in the hands of the weak” and ”many in the hands of the few” are not miracles – because statistically there were cases that the weak and the few won.

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