Q&A: Miraculous Deed
Miraculous Deed
Question
For quite a while now I’ve been digging through the site like the poorest of the poor, and one of the messages is that no miracle happens in this world except in connection with some major event, like the splitting of the sea and the like.
Not so long ago, I witnessed a rather strange phenomenon.
People with disabilities would come to a kabbalist rabbi (whose name I won’t mention, lest I speak against him), and when he blessed them, their affliction would leave them.
One of them is my nephew, who until age 15 was confined to a wheelchair, paralyzed from the limbs downward, and after the blessing he began to walk. My own eyes saw it.
What is your explanation for this phenomenon?
Answer
I have no explanation. You just have to examine the circumstances carefully, because in many cases it turns out there was some mistake in analyzing the data (selective or random data, placebo, etc.) or fraud.
I also am not claiming that miracles happen only in major events. What I do claim is that anyone asserting a miracle bears the burden of proof, and usually he doesn’t meet it.
Discussion on Answer
Punishment for not believing in the blessing
Elchanan, there are stories like this in a variety of cultures, not only among us. I know many such stories among Christians. It is commonly explained as a psychological act that helps in the same way placebo medications help a person, even though there is no physical change.
I assume that if you try to check with that miracle expert whether this is something that can be tested systematically, he will refuse to submit to it. And that says a lot.
Wait, wait, friends.
My nephew was paralyzed in his limbs. Meaning, there was no transmission from the spinal cord.
In your opinion, this is a side effect of placebo that causes nerves to start moving again?
Do you really believe that?…
Until age 15 he was confined to a wheelchair with paralysis in his limbs, got a blessing from a rabbi, and started walking by the power of that blessing forty days and forty nights later? If this rabbi has miracles dripping out of his sleeve like that, then he’s the most successful doctor in the world. That’s a power worth billions (a comfortable livelihood for all the kollel families), and it takes better evidence than a comment-thread story to believe something so fantastic. By the way, as part of the evasion from being disproven, I assume that the said rabbi would not be willing to put his abilities to a public and rigorous test. Even though I have no doubt that if he performed such wonders and left all the world’s doctors open-mouthed, tens of thousands would become religiously observant and many ignoramuses would convert to Judaism.
*by the power of that blessing
“My eyes saw it” is one of the symptoms of hallucinations and false imagination.
A familiar and well-known phenomenon in psychiatry since ancient times, and there is nothing miraculous about it.
Elchanan,
For the sake of a relative suffering from paralysis, I’d be happy to get the details of this miracle worker…
Haha, what’s with the pile-on? Over a real case that happened…?
If the claim is that I’m making this up to an almost pathological degree, then obviously there’s no discussion, and we can conclude it’s just trolling.
I didn’t come to provoke anyone (not 100%), but to try to understand such a phenomenon, which according to the Rabbi has no explanation.
I said there is an explanation, and it’s in the field of psychiatry. What’s unclear?
Elchanan. Could I get details about the kabbalist you mentioned? Or hear about him? It’s for something important to me. Gil, giladstn@gmail.com. Please send me your phone number or anything of the sort. Have a kosher and happy Passover
Hello Elchanan,
I’m with you! “A person is led along the path he wishes to take.” Someone with simple faith merits to see miracles. And someone who comes to test the righteous person apparently will not merit to see miracles.
Most of the world lives in a rational way, and therefore they operate through the natural order, and from there they will merit deliverance (or not).
To believe in the salvation brought by the righteous person is not at all simple work. There too there are tests. But whoever has merited a close connection with a righteous person sees endless great miracles, and more than that, feels that he has heavenly assistance.
Personally, I am connected to a righteous person through whom I have merited to see great miracles that are impossible to grasp. And everyone who belongs to that rabbi’s community sees miracles.
This is not something that can be tested or brought into a forum, because that would negate free choice. But דווקא because the miracle happens to you and people are doubtful whether it happened or not, that preserves the choice. And there has to be free choice.
So all that remains for me is to feel sorry for all the commenters who have not merited to know true righteous people and do not merit to see miracles…
My own eyes saw how, after receiving blessings, people were killed, got sick, lost money, and lost their minds…
What is the Rabbi’s explanation for this phenomenon?