Rabbi Marc D. Rudolph

In the Book of Deuteronomy, Moses assembles the Israelites on the plains of Moab, poised to enter the Land promised to our ancestors. In a series of three speeches, Moses recounts the history of the past forty years, reviews old laws and imparts new ones, exhorts the people to follow the commandments and castigates them for their failure to do so in the past.  He recalls the miracles of the plagues in Egypt and the miracle of the splitting of the Red Sea. He reminds the Israelites how God cared for them in the wilderness, and how God personally guided the Jewish people on their journey, going before them “in fire by night and in cloud by day” (1:33).

Despite all this Moses maintains that the Israelites lacked “a mind to understand or eyes to see or ears to hear until today” (Deuteronomy 29:3).

What does Moses mean?  Moses maintains that his people never understood that their liberation and survival were miraculous events.  “The ability to understand, to see or hear the divine significance of events, may be granted or withheld from man,” writes Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel. “One may see great wonders but remain entirely insensitive.”

In our “Modim” prayer of the Amidah we declare that God’s “miracles are with us every day”. But like the Israelites, we may not be aware of them. Perhaps this is simply part of the human condition. Rabbi Elazar expounds on verse 72:18 in Psalms, “Blessed is Adonai Elohim, the God of Israel, who does wondrous things alone”. “What does it mean that God does wondrous things alone?” asks Rabbi Elazar. “It means that even the one for whom a miracle was performed does not recognize the miracle that was performed for him.” (BT Niddah 31a)