Q:
I think that if the people here saw with their own eyes, the plagues and Kriyas Yam Suf and all the nissim that Hashem did for us, they wouldn’t have to depend upon artificial and superficial enthusiasm when doing mitzvos. Don’t you think we deserve today an injection from Hashem of real sensory perception?
A:
The question is as follows: Why doesn’t Hakodosh Boruch Hu repeat for us the same miracles as He did for our forefathers?
And the answer is this – Hakodosh Boruch Hu hates miracles. You know, when a man gives his word, if he’s an honest man he hates to take back his word. הוא צוה ויעמוד – Hashem commanded the world into being and it stands. There’s no such thing as nature; all the laws of nature are Hashem’s will. If you throw something in the air and it falls down, that’s Hashem’s will that it should fall down. He passed the law of gravity.
When Hakodosh Boruch Hu finds it necessary to suspend nature for certain reasons, it’s done with the utmost unwillingness; it’s against His word. It’s not the ness that is His word, it’s nature that is His word. The ness is an abrogation of His word; He doesn’t want it. Only that at one time in history, at the beginning of our nation’s history, Hakodosh Boruch Hu did these things to serve as a lesson for all generations to study. But after that, Hakodosh Boruch Hu said, “Look, I gave you the lesson already. How many times do you want Me to break My word? The laws of nature – that’s what I want to follow.” Nature, that’s His word. And so today, anybody who wants to see Hashem, can see Hashem in nature. Spring time you can see Hashem on all sides if you’re really interested in seeing the truth.
However, if you want to see the lessons of history, they are available too and that’s why we study them – especially on Pesach night. If you study them properly, they’re going to go with you all the days of your life. It’s only laziness that you don’t do it. Can people really say, “I have tried and I haven’t benefited by the examples of Yetzias Mitzrayim despite my efforts?” What efforts did you invest?! Did you sit down five minutes to picture the makah of dam? And five minutes is not enough! You never did it!
Like Reb Yisroel Salanter once said — he once came into a house of a Jew who asked him this question that you’re asking. Now this Jew was already a little bit modern and Reb Yisroel saw that his daughter had taken singing lessons and she had a diploma from a singing school in Memel. So he said to the daughter, “Is this your diploma?” She said, “Yes.” So Reb Yisroel said, “I don’t believe you. Give me a demonstration of how you can sing.” So she said, “What do you mean?! Every visitor that comes here, I have to show how I can sing?! Here’s the diploma! They listened to my singing once; they examined me and the diploma says it.”
“Aha,” Reb Yisroel said to the father, “You want miracles today too? Hakodosh Boruch Hu should perform for you in every generation and break the laws of nature and show nissim? He did it once — that’s the testimonial; that’s the diploma hanging on the wall there. Study the diploma in the Torah; it’s all there and you’ll see there all the things that Hakodosh Boruch Hu did. And if you put thought into it, if you really study them, those nissim will go along with you all the days of your life.”
TAPE # 504
