Chasidut for Niddah 61:42
מאי דכתיב {תהילים קלט } אודך (ה') על כי נוראות נפליתי נפלאים מעשיך ונפשי יודעת מאד
and blessed be His glorious name for ever?<span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' Ps. LXXII, 18f. ');"><sup>37</sup></span>
Kedushat Levi
Another approach to the words: נורא תהלות עושה פלא, is found in the Talmud Niddah 31, with a slightly different wording. The Talmud relates instances of where the person who experiences miraculous salvation at the hand of G’d was totally unaware of this. This is the case very often; in fact it is almost a necessity if we are to acquire faith in G’d in the proper manner. To quote an example from the folio quoted in the Talmud.
Two colleagues set out on a business trip which also involved a voyage by sea. The first of the two stepped on a thorn and was prevented from continuing his journey. He was very upset at what he considered a stroke of misfortune. Some time later he heard that his colleague, who had boarded the ship they were both supposed to travel on, had drowned when the ship he was on capsized in a storm, and all hands were lost. This is when he realized that what he had thought to have been a stroke of misfortune was in fact a miracle performed by G’d in order to save his life. Miracles do not necessarily consist of the laws of nature being suspended in a certain place at a certain time. True faith in the Lord is based on our appreciating that in the eyes of G’d, as opposed to in the eyes of the human onlooker, performing a miracle such as splitting the sea does not require more effort than causing a thorn at a certain place at a certain time to penetrate the skin of the foot of a person walking on a path. A truly wise person has come to realize that to the One Who had given instructions for oil to be a potent fuel, vinegar can just as easily serve as a potent fuel if the Creator so desires. (Compare Talmud, Taanit 25) Similarly, it requires no greater effort for G’d to cause the sea to be calm than to cause it to be stormy. If G’d nonetheless does perform “miracles” of the kind we have been reading about in the last few chapters of the Torah, this was only in order to give the beneficiaries an opportunity to express their gratitude to G’d, something they would not have been aware of in their daily lives, although it may happen repeatedly on a daily basis without the person for whom the miracle was performed noticing it.
The author views the sea’s alternating between being calm or stormy, as “miracles” which alternate constantly, and therefore do not strike us as miracles. When the sea split, however, this was a different miracle, and that is why people perceived it as such. It had the desired effect on both the Israelites and the nations of the universe. The former broke out in a song of gratitude, realizing that G’d had performed this miracle for their sake, while the nations were frightened and realized that there was One Power that towered above all the “powers” which they had been worshipping. The greatest “surprise” of the miracle was that G’d loves mortal man, Israel, so much that He performs such basic miracles upsetting basic elements of the globe, i.e. water. This gave rise to the psalmist in psalms 107,8 to proclaim: יודו לה' חסדו ונפלאותיו לבני אדם, “let them (man) praise the Lord for His loving kindness; His wondrous deeds for mankind.” The words לבני אדם, at the end of this verse indicate that the word יודו, at the beginning of the verse is addressed to celestial beings, for whom the splitting of the sea had been an eye-opener, as even they had been unaware of the depth of Hashem’s feelings of love for His people. As far as G’d Himself was concerned, this was no special effort at all, as we already pointed out.
Two colleagues set out on a business trip which also involved a voyage by sea. The first of the two stepped on a thorn and was prevented from continuing his journey. He was very upset at what he considered a stroke of misfortune. Some time later he heard that his colleague, who had boarded the ship they were both supposed to travel on, had drowned when the ship he was on capsized in a storm, and all hands were lost. This is when he realized that what he had thought to have been a stroke of misfortune was in fact a miracle performed by G’d in order to save his life. Miracles do not necessarily consist of the laws of nature being suspended in a certain place at a certain time. True faith in the Lord is based on our appreciating that in the eyes of G’d, as opposed to in the eyes of the human onlooker, performing a miracle such as splitting the sea does not require more effort than causing a thorn at a certain place at a certain time to penetrate the skin of the foot of a person walking on a path. A truly wise person has come to realize that to the One Who had given instructions for oil to be a potent fuel, vinegar can just as easily serve as a potent fuel if the Creator so desires. (Compare Talmud, Taanit 25) Similarly, it requires no greater effort for G’d to cause the sea to be calm than to cause it to be stormy. If G’d nonetheless does perform “miracles” of the kind we have been reading about in the last few chapters of the Torah, this was only in order to give the beneficiaries an opportunity to express their gratitude to G’d, something they would not have been aware of in their daily lives, although it may happen repeatedly on a daily basis without the person for whom the miracle was performed noticing it.
The author views the sea’s alternating between being calm or stormy, as “miracles” which alternate constantly, and therefore do not strike us as miracles. When the sea split, however, this was a different miracle, and that is why people perceived it as such. It had the desired effect on both the Israelites and the nations of the universe. The former broke out in a song of gratitude, realizing that G’d had performed this miracle for their sake, while the nations were frightened and realized that there was One Power that towered above all the “powers” which they had been worshipping. The greatest “surprise” of the miracle was that G’d loves mortal man, Israel, so much that He performs such basic miracles upsetting basic elements of the globe, i.e. water. This gave rise to the psalmist in psalms 107,8 to proclaim: יודו לה' חסדו ונפלאותיו לבני אדם, “let them (man) praise the Lord for His loving kindness; His wondrous deeds for mankind.” The words לבני אדם, at the end of this verse indicate that the word יודו, at the beginning of the verse is addressed to celestial beings, for whom the splitting of the sea had been an eye-opener, as even they had been unaware of the depth of Hashem’s feelings of love for His people. As far as G’d Himself was concerned, this was no special effort at all, as we already pointed out.
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