Tzav (Age of Miracles)

We must have confidence that each day will produce its own miracle

            (Rebbe Yitzchak Meir Alter of Ger)

Seems we’re just standing still

One day we’ll ride up that hill

In the age of miracles

There’s one on the way

            (Mary Chapin Carpenter, The Age of Miracles)

Amongst the many sacrifices described in this week’s Torah portion, Tzav, we find a detailed description of the todah—the offering of thanksgiving.  Individuals brought this sacrifice to express their gratitude.  Rashi suggests that occasions for the todah include safe completion of a sea or desert journey, deliverance from captivity, and recovery from a severe illness.  Today, when we no longer offer sacrifices, we mark such passages with our modern equivalent, the gomel blessing, a public expression of thanksgiving proclaimed during the Shabbat morning Torah service.

One of the great nineteenth century Hasidic teachers, Rebbe Yitzchak Meir Alter of Ger, comments on our portion’s insistence (in Leviticus 7:15) that the todah be consumed on the same day that it is sacrificed.  For the Gerer Rebbe this teaches:  We must have confidence that each new day will produce its own miracle.  Therefore, the feast celebrating a miraculous event should be confined to one day and not extended into the next.  Tomorrow will bring its own miracle.

This is a lovely expression of faith, but it does not seem to square with a another Talmudic principal: “Do not rely on miracles.”  Our Sages worried that the anticipation of Divine marvels could easily diminish our human efforts to heal our broken world.  Our tradition unequivocally obligates us to do tzedakah and feed the hungry, rather than praying that God miraculously shower down food for all who need.

So how do we reconcile these two teachings?  Is it possible to live with faith that each new day will provide its own miracles while avoiding the temptation to rely on them?

I think this depends upon how we define the word “miracle.”  If we equate the term with showy supernatural events like the parting of the Red Sea, then we should never depend on—or even expect—miracles.  But if we shift the context and redefine the miraculous as a product of our own sense of wonder, then we should anticipate them daily, from the sunrise that greets our wakening to the immense starry sky at night.   To return to my earlier example, while we must not look to God to feed the hungry, we can give thanks for the marvel of growing things—and share our bounty with those in need.

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This week, like last, I turn to one of my favorite musicians, Mary Chapin Carpenter.  Her song “Age of Miracles” inspires gratitude and hope in challenging times. 

She begins by harkening back to childhood, when we are naturally filled with wonder:

The past comes upon you like smoke in the air

You can smell it and find yourself gone

To a place that you lived without worry or care

Isn’t that where we all once came from?

Green leaves and tall trees and stars overhead

And the sound of the world through the screen

But as we grow older and more anxious, our view of the world changes.  It feels dark and dangerous out there, and we slip into cynicism:

Now you sleep with the covers pulled over your head

And you never remember to dream. . .

Thousand-year storms seem to form on a breeze

Drowning all living things in their paths

When a small southern town finds a rope in a tree

We’re all once again trapped in the past

Following Bruce Springsteen’s playbook, Carpenter gives voice to despair in the verses, then returns to hope in the chorus:

It seems we’re just standing still

One day we’ll get up that hill

In the age of miracles

There’s one on the way

In the next verse, she notes the enormous gap between our culture’s technological and moral progress:

We can fly through space with the greatest of ease

We can land in the dust of the moon

We can transform our lives with the tap of the keys

Still we can’t shake this feeling of doom

But Carpenter does shake the feeling of doom, as she watches myriads of monks marching in support of Myanmar’s 2007 Saffron Revolution:

I woke to see monks pouring into the streets

Marching thousands strong into the rain

Now if courage comes dressed in red robes and bare feet

I will never be fearful again

She ends with the chorus, affirming that we live in the age of miracles—if and when we are able to envision the world this way, and work together toward that vision:

Seems we’re just standing still

One day we’ll ride up that hill

In the age of miracles

There’s one on the way

The organ swells, the guitars soar, and the music takes us out, certain that in this age of miracles, there really is one on the way.

To hear Mary Chapin Carpenter and her band performing “Age of Miracles”: