Q&A: The Holy One, Blessed be He, and the World
The Holy One, Blessed be He, and the World
Question
It seems to me that the definition of prayer about the past falls under the category of an overt miracle, meaning: it is not a matter of timing circumstances that are not supposed to happen, which is also a miracle, but rather something whose definition is that it cannot happen within nature under any circumstances whatever, such as turning a staff into a serpent and the like. This is a distinction in the ways God conducts the world, not a substantive distinction in terms of the need for a miracle.
Answer
I assume that here too there is some context to the question. What is it? Please place it in its context. Also, if there is a question here, please clarify what it is.
Discussion on Answer
I didn’t understand the difference.
The difference is from the human point of view: from his perspective there are levels of miracle, and an action that contradicts the laws of nature is seen by him as a greater intervention. And for some reason, such a revelation of God is not accepted by the Sages.
As I understand it, they do not accept prayer about the past because it changes something that has already happened. It has no connection to the laws of nature. But of course the Sages did accept prayer for miracles that could happen in the future.
But even prayer about the past is, in practice, really a prayer about the future. For example, if someone prays that his wife gave birth to a girl, that prayer can be translated into a prayer that from now on the entire world will be exactly as if a girl had been born, even if a boy was born (God will hide the boy and create a new baby girl and fix all the memories, and it will be read automatically with no human hand signed to it).
In the world as perceived by the observer, there is no difference at all between whether she was originally a girl or whether only from now on it appears as though she had originally been a girl, and therefore this is clearly a perfect fulfillment of prayer about the past. If so, we return to the conclusion that the problem is changing the known, famous, overt, and fixed laws of nature, and if so the same applies to any fixed law—there is no room at all for prayer against it.
[I wrote this from what I remember understanding somewhere-or-other from the words of the master of this site, may he live a good long life.]
I thought the title “The Holy One, Blessed be He, and the World” would provide the context. In any case, I’m referring to things said in lesson 6 under that title. You argued that the Sages do not accept prayer about the past, because in their view it is a miracle, and since we know there are no gaps in nature, then seemingly prayer is pointless. My claim is that the Sages distinguish between things that nature does not allow, which is called an overt miracle, and things whose circumstances are not timed because of determinism, which is called a hidden miracle. And that is a distinction in God’s governance of the world, not a substantive distinction.