Question

Rabbi, regarding God’s active presence in the world (not דווקא in a miraculous way) — why shouldn’t we learn from the words of the Sages that one must bless for the bad just as one blesses for the good, that this determinism is God? Meaning, from the perspective of the Creator of the world there is no difference at all between a miracle and an action He set in motion 13 billion years ago, since He has no time, and from His perspective now and 13 billion years ago are the same moment. Following that question, I would suggest an approach that says: true, I see a causal world, but I’m not interested in how things happen or in their form; the main thing is that in the final analysis God is here, hears me, sees me, and cares about my actions, and my prayers and my deeds have value, such that through them I can lead myself to my own correction. I intentionally say my own correction and not the specific requests that I think are important. And there is no need or point in asking whether my prayer helped me at this specific moment, because as we know, I may pray for something that I think is good for me, but from a broader perspective it is bad for me. So one can simply assume the straightforward and natural view that emerges from the Torah and from the Sages, that God is present and watches over us, even if not in the way a preschool child imagines it (miracles).