[Avodah] [Areivim] shidduch statistics

[Micha Berger]

On Thu, Dec 03, 2009 at 01:51:12PM -0500, Zev Sero wrote:
:                      It seems to me that the point you make about it
: being a small miracle each time something goes right is reminiscent
: of Moshe's hava amina.  But according to Hashem's answer it would follow
: that crossing the road at the lights and not getting hit is simply the
: normal way Hashem runs His world, and doesn't count as a miracle, even
: of the "nisecha sheb'chol yom imanu" kind....

I don't think I mentioned miracles. However, I'm more inclined to agree
with REED that nature is more like predictable miracle than anything the
rishonim thought of it. IOW, I don't find the Malbim's model as
compelling.

And I use the word "model" very intentionally. The difference between
attributing something to teva or to a later shelichus is how we choose
to model "actions" of One Who doesn't experience time. The machloqes is
really which way that we temporal beings can best relate to an "act" that
has no particular point in time. The only real time is when the effect is
felt within the universe, and that's not under discussion. Rather, it's
whether Hashem did it during maaseh bereishis when He set the system up,
or later. And the answer is neither -- it is our models of something we
can't fully comprehend that force one or the other.

Aspaqlaria: Divine Timelessness
<http://www.aishdas.org/asp/2005/01/divine-timelessness.shtml>:
    Bereishis Rabbah (5:5):
	G-d made the creation of water conditional on its splitting
	before the Jews when they left Egypt....It was not just with
	the sea that He made a stipulation but with everything that
	He created during the six days of creation.... G-d commanded
	the sea to divide, the heavens and earth to be silent before
	Moshe...the sun and the moon to stand still before Yehoshua,
	the ravens to feed Eliyahu, the fire not to burn Chananya,
	Mishael and Azariyah, the lions not to harm Daniel, the Heavens
	to open before Yechezkeil and the fish to spit out Yonah.

    (See also Rambam Shemoneh Peraqim, ch 8, his commentary on Avos 5:6,
    and Rabbeinu Bachye on Avos 5:8. Sources posted to Avodah by R'
    Daniel Eidensohn.)

    The problem with miracles is that they seem to imply that G-d changed
    His Mind between establishing the natural order and choosing to
    perform that miracle. However, G-d is timeless.
    ...
    Similarly, our opening issue. Miracles were written into creation
    because Hashem has no "initially" and "later". The decisions were made
    "simultaneously", for want of a better word to say "not separated
    by time". And in fact, they were therefore the same decision.

    This is true for every event of all of creation. God created a 4d
    sculpture. Not a watch that He could then leave to run on its own.
    (The use of the word "then" in the previous sentence is a tip-off.
    It makes sense only in the context of time.) Picture the printing of
    a timeline in a book. The spot of ink representing 1702 was printed
    in the same act as the spot representing 2004. Because from the
    perspective of His Action there is no time, all of the history of
    the universe is equally ma'aseh bereishis -- the act of creation.
    Our persistence from one moment to the next is the same "strike of
    the printing press" as the six days at the far end of the timeline.
    Deism is simply not tenable if time is a created entity.

What I did discuss is hakaras hatov. And one can be equally makir that
HQBH set up a teva such that things overwhelmingly most often go right.
That the things that go wrong are rare enough to make us ask, "Why
me, G-d?"

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             A cheerful disposition is an inestimable treasure.
micha at aishdas.org        It preserves health, promotes convalescence,
http://www.aishdas.org   and helps us cope with adversity.
Fax: (270) 514-1507         - R' SR Hirsch, "From the Wisdom of Mishlei"