At the morning
service, we begin by thanking God for, as I like to say, ‘all the miracles we
experience daily, which we often let pass unnoticed.’ We thank God for enabling us to distinguish
day from night. That is, for giving us
to ability to know when to get out of bed.
For opening the eyes of the blind; that is, for letting us awaken to the
sight of the beautiful world that surrounds us.
For freeing the captive; that is, for allowing us to wake up feeling
free to leave our homes and engage in the ‘business’ of the day. For lifting up the fallen; that is, for
giving us the strength to rise to the vertical position. And so on, and so on. In the time we have awakened on a ‘typical’
day, we have experienced no fewer than 14 discreet miracles. And so what?
Well, if we did not experience one or more of the aforementioned,
that means we are bedridden, incapacitated, really…in for a lousy day. So the Rabbis who put together the ritual of
daily prayer, thought it would be a great start for our day if we acknowledge
these miracles. One need not witness the
splitting of the Red Sea, in order to experience the miraculous Hand of God. Waking up in the morning, getting vertical,
emptying our bladder and bowels…these may seem like ‘small’ miracles, but they
are miracles nonetheless. But once these
miracles are behind us, we must face the slog of the day. Once the miracle is over…the real work
begins!
That’s why we precede the Morning
Prayer with the Morning Blessings. If
you are not a ‘regular’ at the Shabbat Morning Service, I challenge you to make
participation in the service part of your regular routine. As a result, you will experience, if nothing
else, the centering that comes from acknowledging how miraculous our daily life
is. If you are already a regular
at the Shabbat Morning Service, I challenge you to recite the Morning Blessings
every morning, not just Shabbat.
Doing so, you will experience a measure of the centering that our
communal Shabbat worship brings, but in the privacy of your own home and for
your benefit on an ‘ordinary’ day.
Sometimes we experience a miracle that is, shall we say, far more
dramatic than the ones mentioned in the Morning Blessings. Let me tell you one that Clara and I
experienced. When our son, Eyal was
born, he was in the 24th week of gestation. That is, he was seriously premature. A prematurity that would have been a certain
death sentence only a few decades before his birth. I never thought much about the incredible
gift of modern medicine before the fateful June day of Eyal’s birth, which
would send us into an incredible drama over the next few months while he fought
for his life. But believe me, I think
about it now.
It was difficult, emotionally, to watch our son’s birth and struggle for
life. But the real difficulty
came afterward, when we had to raise him to be a man. Once the miracle ends…the real work
begins. In our case, the slog of the years
of struggling with him, to teach him how to be Good. To help him develop an effective work
ethic. To deal with each little crisis
as he grew and experienced life. I do
not mean to imply that Eyal was a difficult child: no, that’s not my point at all! Rather, that raising a child is hard work,
sustained over many years. Eyal’s birth
was nothing short of miraculous, but the truth is that every birth is a
miracle and should be experienced as such.
Only if we remember the joy of experiencing this miracle, will we have
the stamina for the Great Slog that is the ‘career’ of parenting.
That’s why we accompanied our son’s miraculous survival with the
constant and repeated recitation of Psalms.
The reason for this traditional custom is to plant indelibly in our
brains the connection between the overcoming of great adversity, and the
miraculous saving power of God.
Remembering why we are still here after the miracle, girds us for the
slog to come. It certainly did for us.
In our Torah narrative, we learn that the ancient Israelites faced the
same challenge on a larger scale. It was
one thing to experience the miracle at the Red Sea. It was another thing, once across, to begin
the struggle to constitute themselves into a Holy People. Beginning with this week’s Torah portion, we
see that struggle reflected in the weekly cycle of readings. It took four weeks for us to read the text
that shows the set up, and the execution of the miracles that define us as a
people. Now, for the rest of the year
until Simchat Torah, we will read of the Great Slog that is the ‘career’ of the
Jewish people. And as we will see – as
we already know – that career is fraught with difficulty. Once the miracle ends…the real work
begins.
In reality, everything in life is a Great Slog. We may experience miracles along the
way. We experience the little miracles
like getting up every day, day after day, ready, willing and able to face the
day. And then, we have the slog of the
day’s toil to face. We experience the big
miracles like seeing a seriously premature infant overcome his physical
challenges and survive. And then, we
have the slog of parenthood to face, as he has the slog of growing up on his
plate.
If we do not recognize and acknowledge the miracles we experience, then
whence comes the wherewithal to face the Great Slog? And if we do not acknowledge the
inevitability of the slog, if our emotional constitution requires a steady diet
of miracles to get and keep us going, to feed our emotional needs, to make us
feel rewarded because, because…we are entitled to reward, then we are
not going to make it. And this so common
to the human condition. This is why so
many people today are dependent upon pharmaceuticals to keep going. This is why so many of us are touched by
mental illness. This is why each one of
us knows so many people who, despite therapy, despite pharmaceuticals, despite
constant attention and pampering…cannot keep on an even keel. Folks, if we do not acknowledge the miracles
that we experience, and then acknowledge the inevitability of the slog that
then ensues, then we are…dead in the water.
Thank God it’s Shabbat. Another
great gift…another great miracle. An
opportunity to experience the daily miracle on a larger scale. An opportunity to lay aside the accumulated
anxieties we feel and give our minds a rest.
Ahad Ha-am, a contemporary and colleague of Theodore Herzl, put it this
way: ‘More than Israel has kept the
Sabbath, the Sabbath has kept Israel.’
But it is easy to translate his words into something far more
personal. More than the individual
Jew has kept the Sabbath, the Sabbath has kept the individual Jew. Kept the Jew from going crazy. Kept the Jew from caving in to the crippling
anxieties that conspire to drag him down and make him dysfunctional. Kept the Jew to weather the Great Slog that
is life.
When we open and read from the Torah tomorrow morning, we will read of
how Moses begins the real test of his leadership. That test was not the leading of the people
across the parted sea. No, that test was
organizing and inspiring the people as they settled in to the Great Slog that
was the galvanizing of the people into a nation. The Great Slog that was their preparation for
the conquest of the Holy Land. The Great
Slog that was the setting up of cultus and government for the task of everyday
life once ensconced in that land.
That all these things came fraught with difficulty, does not call into
question Moses’ leadership. It does not
call into question the people’s fitness for the task. It simply speaks of the reality that the
Great Slog is no walk in the park. Once
the miracle is over, the real work begins.
Acknowledge the miracles. Face
the slog. That’s how it’s done,
folks. Shabbat shalom.
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