The Real Benefit of Miracles

A miracle as such is often a bright "flash in the pan". Like the brilliant, blinding light of a camera's flash - brilliant, but of a duration measurable in fractions of a sentence. The effect of the flash, however, can last a much longer time.

B'shalach is a sedra filled with miracles - big miracles, little miracles, miracles within miracles. The people of Israel were accompanied by a miraculous pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. Aside from the practical purposes of these wonders - essentially, direction and protection - they can teach us not to take regular every day clouds or fire for granted. They can enable us to see the Hand of G-d in every cloud and in every fire, not just these two miraculous ones.

The sea split for us once (or a couple of times), but from the experience (and the report of the experience) we can gain an appreciation of the everyday sea. The sea is teaming with life; the sea also takes life.

The people travel to a certain place, they are thirsty, but the water there is bitter. G-d has Moshe perform a miracle by throwing a certain stick into the water, and the water became sweet. Miracle that once. Practical and impressive. Next comes the lessons of the miracle. The challenge. When we encounter bitter water, we remember the miracle and we remember nature, G-d having wrought both. We study the chemical content of the water, we develop methods of purification, and we perform "miracles" over and over again. That is the real benefit of the miracle in the first place.

Food miraculously falls from the sky. We appreciate it (most of us), we thank G-d for it. And years later, our food comes from the ground. No miracle there. It's natural. What do you mean, no miracle. Nature is a miracle. Nature are the miracles we expect to continue to happen over and over again. The obvious miracles help us appreciate the subtle ones. That is the most valuable contribution of the B'shalach-type miracles - They teach us about TU b'Shvat.