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Q&A: More on the Miracle in Gedera

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This is an English translation (via GPT-5.4). Read the original Hebrew version.

More on the Miracle in Gedera

Question

Hello.
I’m trying to understand your view on providence better.
 
If I got up in the morning and went out into the street, and saw that the whole neighborhood was empty of people (at an hour when it is usually bustling),
my first thought would be that I had missed a warning that terrorists were roaming around here, and if not that, then there was radioactive fallout or some especially violent bacteria.
Only after I had called the police, Magen David Adom, the neighbors, etc., and ruled out all the possibilities, would I conclude that this was a very unusual case: Reuven was tired after a wedding, Shimon left early to pay a shiva call, Levi is recovering from surgery, Issachar was hospitalized in a psychiatric hospital, and so on (x10,000). Very rare, but it can’t be ruled out.
Why, in the miracle in Gedera, do you prefer to define it as an unusual event (which indeed can happen), rather than assuming that it has a cause (God’s providence)? After all, you yourself do not rule out in principle that God can act in the world (if He wants to), and in the past He also did so.
And one more point (which is also important in itself for understanding your approach regarding the lack of providence): even if there is a scientific difficulty in understanding how God acts in the world against the laws of nature, since you believe in free choice, meaning that free choice does not contradict science, you could say that God acts in the world by changing people’s choices: He decided that that driver would not notice the red light, He decided that that neighbor would not notice the turn, that those hitchhikers would not want to travel with him today (and of course that same driver would not be punished for it).
 
I’d be happy to understand your view better

Answer

Because the laws of nature are a consideration in favor of that option. True, I do not rule it out, but the burden of proof is on the one who claims there was divine involvement. If it can be explained in a natural way, I will prefer that.
As for the question about free choice, I’m already tired of hearing it. In my view it has come up on the site many dozens of times already. So allow me to answer briefly. Intervention in free choice is no different from intervention in the laws of nature. If the Holy One, blessed be He, wanted to intervene, He could intervene in the laws of nature. And if He does not want to intervene, He will not intervene in free choice either. Intervention in free choice is a miracle like any other miracle, except that it is perhaps a hidden miracle. I am not inclined to accept hidden miracles without evidence any more than open ones.

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