Q&A: On Miracles and Strengthening Faith
On Miracles and Strengthening Faith
Question
Hello Rabbi. Recently I was browsing the internet and saw an incident from the Yom Kippur War. This incident is described as a tremendous miracle that many people witnessed at the time it happened. What do you think about it, and is it objective?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4nKEAI8N1g
Answer
I don’t see much point in addressing this type of material. If you have a specific question, you can ask it.
Discussion on Answer
We have stronger testimony from Israeli soldiers about Mama Rachel during Operation Protective Edge. Looks dubious to me.
Rabbi, your doubt seems exaggerated to me.
By the same logic, you’d have to cast doubt on the historical reliability of the revelation at Mount Sinai. “We have more common cases among idol worshippers who saw their idol in a dream,” and so on.
Don’t let doubt blind intelligent and discerning people.
Aside from the scope of the phenomenon (one Syrian soldier can always hallucinate and give various excuses, as opposed to six hundred thousand), and aside from the fact that in our time there do not seem to be open miracles, unlike what was common in that period (see my comments on the change in the Holy One’s mode of governance), in the case of the revelation at Mount Sinai there are also additional supporting arguments. See the fifth notebook. If this is the level of credibility you assign to the revelation at Mount Sinai, the situation is bleak. That itself is a refutation of the revelation at Mount Sinai, because it may be that those who stood there believed just like those who believe the story of the Syrian soldier.
Let us not allow “cleverness” and “discernment” to blind the eyes of healthy skepticism…
I’ll write briefly, Rabbi. But again, for a deeper look, see 2:50 (I know the material is a bit cringey, but I’m interested in your reaction).
Basically, in the Yom Kippur War the Syrians came with something like 200 tanks (if I’m not mistaken; I also didn’t really look deeply into the video), onto the Golan Heights, and they just stopped. And there was only one Israeli tank! And when they interviewed someone who had been in the Syrian tank and asked why they stopped, he answered (minute 2:53): “I’d like to see you cross the Syrian missile line when you see a whole row of white angels standing on the missile line and a white hand from the sky signaling to you—stop!
I stopped…”
Again, I’m not sure how reliable this material is, and looking at it generally it seems like pseudostuff from people trying to bring others to repentance, but they brought a source from an interview conducted something like 40 years ago. And my teacher also told us this in school, so apparently it really happened.
What do you think about this case?