Before the last Chanukah candle is lit, I’d like to say a word about miracles.
As one who lives daily with the diagnosis of cancer, I find that the lighting of the menorah has a special resonance this year. I know more than I care to about dark, unpredictable fortune. I have a Maccabean sense of being in the bunker, fighting a lopsided battle against a grave enemy. And I have a true believer’s optimism that, no matter how bad the odds, a great miracle can happen here.
Having seen all this in my own life, I’ve been saying the "Shehecheyanu" prayer every evening, for the blessing of having survived to see the first candle, the second candle, the third, and so on.
Some days I feel I am witnessing a personal corollary to the oil that lasts eight days.
And that presents a problem. I make it from day to day with God’s blessings, true. But is something bigger at work? Am I also seeking a miracle?
Like many Jews, I don’t know what to think about miracles. As I struggle to find the perfect vegetable cocktail with antioxidants, the right combination of vitamin supplements, not to mention the appropriate medical treatment, I look for some sign that I’m on the right track. Against the odds, there can be a miracle.
A miracle is something not Jewish, like an episode of "Touched By an Angel." Though rabbis insist Jews do believe in angels, I still think of them as glass ornaments on a Christmas tree.
A discussion with Rabbi Harold M. Schulweis a while ago put an end to my miracle obsession, at least for a while. Schulweis convinced me that seeking miracles was magical thinking. Magic is trouble, said Schulweis, because it cuts both ways.
And basically, he’s right. A year after my diagnosis, I am now healthy, physically strong, and capable of changing light bulbs in the ceiling chandelier. This is miraculous, right? There’s no explaining why I have cancer, but now that the disease is here, it’s good that I’m doing well.
Yet a few months ago, a CT scan showed that my lungs once again had tiny tumors. Does this mean that the magic has died out?
Jews seek miracles like young lovers seek diamonds: Both seek objects that are finely cut and seductive.
"I’m expecting another miracle," said a friend when she heard the errant cells had returned.
I flinched, thinking of Schulweis. But isn’t that what I want, too?
The fact is that Jews do believe in miracles. The Children of Israel received 10 miracles in Egypt, for having been spared the 10 plagues. And they received 10 additional miracles at the Red Sea. (This is a terrific and largely unknown story, retold in the Sayings of the Fathers.)
Moses told the Israelites to cross the sea to escape Pharaoh’s army. They refused 10 times, demanding that Moses first perform the magic transformation of the sea into 1) a tunnel; 2) a valley; 3) two pieces; 4) clay; 5) wilderness; 6) many pieces; 7) rocks; 8) dry land; 9) walls; and 10) upright flasks containing liquid.
These biblical miracles, however, pose a threat to a religious philosophy that wants men and women — not God — to do good works. I remember reading a chat room thread on a Jewish Internet site in which an observant man claimed he would not get his cholesterol checked, thinking that God would save him if he was in trouble.
We are actively dissuaded, as Schulweis suggests, from seeking God’s intervention as a substitute for our own acts.
The hard and fast rule is: "Trust in God, but do not rely on miracles."
As Nachmanides wrote, "Do not pray to God for a sign or trial, since the Lord does not necessarily will to perform miracles for any particular person at any time."
That’s why the rabbis go to such lengths to separate Chanukah from the big miracles at the sea. Jews do believe in miracles, but only those we help bring about ourselves.
The miracle of Chanukah is not that the oil burned eight days. It is that the Maccabees knew there wasn’t enough oil, and yet they burned it anyway, so eager were they to rededicate the Temple. They took Judaism, which the Greeks regarded as dead from within, and through their actions willed it back to life.
"This is the meaning of ‘miracle,’ writes Rav Ezra Bick, of the Israel Koschitzky Virtual Beit Midrash. "There always exists the possibility of a new beginning, because, despite the seeming contradiction, the seeds of a new beginning are implanted into the past, like a small vial of oil sealed with the seal of the high priest."
Possibility is the miracle of Chanukah. Possibility is the miracle I seek.
