We Need a Miracle Now!

Israeli dreidels are different than ours. One letter is changed. Whereas our dreidels have the letters nun-gimmel-hey-shin, theirs show nun-gimmel-hey-pay. These letters remind us of Hanukkah’s message: “a great miracle happened there.” In Israel they instead proclaim, “a great miracle happened here.”

On the one hand, one letter seems to make little difference. A miracle is a miracle after all. On the other, whether we say, “here” or “there” can suggest a world of difference.

For years I thought, keeping miracles at a distance was the safer approach. Like the rabbis of old I believed that when the miraculous gets too close, when we feel that God is nearby working wonders, we begin to lose our grip on reality. We cease to do the hard work of improving our world. We think, “God will take care of it. I can sit back and wait for God.”

Like the Maccabees of old we can become infatuated with God’s power, and even intoxicated with God’s nearness. We start saying things like “We are instruments of God’s power. Our victories are evidence of God’s majesty.”

Such thinking leads to corruption and oppression. This is exactly what happened to the ancient Maccabean dynasty. They persecuted those who disagreed with them. Unlike the rabbis, the Maccabees did not believe in compromise and peace making. The rabbis sought to keep God near through our prayers but distant from the earthly and political.

And so, until the founding of the modern State of Israel, we safely said “there.” We kept God in our thoughts. We affirmed God’s miraculous powers but kept such power and might far away. Miracles like those military victories of the Maccabees happened there and not here.

We avoided zealotry. We pushed away the tendency to see God in the political. We hesitated to say, “God is on my side (and not yours).” There was safety in the rabbinic approach. That little dreidel, and that one letter difference, hints at a tension that has followed us through centuries of pain and struggle.

The rabbis believed in God’s power but skeptical when it was wielded by human hands. Listen to the blessing over the candles: “Blessed are You, Adonai our God, Sovereign of all, who performed wonderous deeds for our ancestors in days of old at this season.” Miracles happened back then—and for them.

For years, I focused on the words “in days of old.” I shared the rabbis’ skepticism. I affirmed their worries. I seek peace and compromise. I wish to avoid zealotry.

I believe in miracles—but back then and over there.

These days, however, I find myself hoping and praying for a miracle in this season. I feel we need one here and there—and most importantly now. This year our prayers feel different. Our blessings are tinged with hopes of yesteryear.

I push caution aside.

We need a miracle now!