The Miracles in This Place

I have already publicized the story of the miraculous “bird that cannot fly” (https://www.blogotherapy.co.il/viewpoint/bird-cannot-fly/) that took place in front of the door to my home. Now another miracle has occurred in that same place – at my front door. If previously, after an absence of 30 days from my home, I could have made a blessing to thank God for the miracle that occurred at “this place”; now I can say the blessing for the miracles at this place as I approach the door.

In the bird story, the meaningfulness of the synchronicity was based on the strong feeling that accompanied my peculiar thought together with the unlikelihood that the thought would be physically instantiated. And it was instantiated right before the front door to my home. In the following story, the meaningfulness of the event is evident due to its extreme, out-of-the ordinary improbability, together with its great significance to me.And once again further meaning is found in the place of the event – right before the front door to my home.

The story of the miracle begins six days before it occurred. It was on a Wednesday that I began midday to drive to Jerusalem and discovered that my left hearing aid was missing. I don’t always feel the hearing aid in my ear, so I have to touch it in order to check that it hasn’t fallen out. This time I discovered that it was not in my ear about five hours after I had put it in. Where could it be? At home where I switched sweaters? At shul where I put on tefillin? In the car where I put on my safety belt? At the organic food store where I often bent over to pick up produce? Any of these scenarios and countless more could have caused the hearing aid to fall out. There were several hours of wandering activity that left little clue regarding where it was most likely to be found.

On that Wednesday I upended my bed and similarly searched thoroughly any suspicious area of my home. I turned two sweaters inside out, checked throughout the car, visited a few places in the synagogue, and wherever I walked my eyes remained focused on the ground. I put up notices requesting to be phoned if the hearing aid was located. My searches continued during the following days, but by the following Tuesday it was six days after the loss and my hope was also gone. I made an appointment with the hearing institute in order to see how I could use my previous left hearing aid in tandem with the new right hearing aid. It wouldn’t be as good as having a new hearing aid, but to buy one would be unquestionably too costly. I didn’t want to invest several thousand shekels and live with the risk of losing it again. So I was willing to suffer from some hearing loss.

On the day before the miracle, I stretched my physical stamina by working from morning to evening sanding and painting the railing of my terrace. The railing was badly in need of a paintjob and the work required a lot of bodily flexibility – bending over the railing; reaching for the paint; and kneeling to scrape and paint its underside. Not yet halfway through this Herculean task, I had the thought how good it would be to have my son join me and pick up another paintbrush. About five minutes after I had the thought, he called. For no particular reason and quite out of the ordinary, he’d decided to come home for a brief visit. After about an hour, he arrived, had something to eat and then got to work on the railing with the energy of a 24 year-old young man. The synchronicity of my prayerful thought and his unexpected and critical assistance was a clear sign that the prayer had been answered. But this was just a hint and preparation for a greater revelation on the following day.

We completed the painting, but my 76 year-old body was aching. Nevertheless, the next day I was tempted to continue the painting spree by tackling the small railing along the stairs at the entrance to my home. It really didn’t need so much to be painted, and my bodily exhaustion should have signaled me to leave it for another day. But after the early afternoon prayer, with just three hours left to daytime, I made the irrational decision to change clothes and start scraping the rust from the railing. The bottom bars of the railing disintegrated more and more as I attempted to smooth the surface in order to prepare it for painting. This created piles of rusty crumbs that I proceeded to scrape along the ground in order to clear the area. After about an hour of this work, I discerned a peculiar object as I scraped beneath the railing. Upon closer examination I realized with amazement that – at a very unlikely place for it to be, while on my knees at a place where it was very unlikely for me to be – the lost hearing aid had been found.

What was it doing there under the railing? What was I doing there under the railing? How extraordinary that it didn’t rain during those six days despite our being in an unusually rainy period. Indeed, it rained the day after I found it. If it had rained on the hearing aid, it would probably have been ruined. But it remained outside for six days, dry and intact. And there it was, right in front of my door although I had lost all hope of seeing it again.

Here we can see how such synchronicities can be interpreted in a manner that effects “attitude modulation,” as logotherapy would label it. I had lost hope of finding the hearing aid and despaired over the expectation to spend at least a few years with significant hearing loss. Its miraculous appearance suggests that I was “supposed” to find it. It creates the feeling, that even if I didn’t find it, I would somehow find a positive value in my reduced level of hearing. The handicap would not prevent me from continuing my life in pursuit of significant goals. Perhaps it would even become a benefit. This positivity results from the feeling that my life is guided by a higher dimension of meaning.* As a religious Jew, I believe the ultimate source of this higher dimension is the ineffable Creator.

After finding the hearing aid, I was shaking from the revelation that God was with me. God is present all the time. How can we be distracted by lowly pursuits when we can choose instead to sense the divine around us and within us? It was all too real. Once again – as at the moment after the miracle of the bird that cannot fly – the presence of God was too obvious to bear, right where I pass by every day –  before the door to my home.

After charging the hearing aid, I again could hear well, and with strengthened faith I could “hear” that God is truly guiding our lives. May the month of Adar  – which began with this private miracle – also herald miracles for the nation of Israel in its struggle for survival.

Blessed are You Hashem, our God, king of the world, that made for me miracles in this place.

  • This footnote is intended for readers whose focus is on logotherapy. An essential tenet underlying the psychotherapeutic approach of logotherapy is the objectivity of meanings. The events of our lives have overtones of meaning that give the sense of the richness of life in the way that musical overtones enrich the sound of music. To hear those overtones is to hear the call to manage our lives in accordance with the values that we cherish. The particular meanings that we find in our life’s events can serve as guides to live wisely in this way. Although logotherapy does not assume any particular religious belief, the preparedness to seek and interpret meanings does usually require at least a recognition of the availability of objective meanings. With this inner setting, we view the world with wonder. A sensitive performer may be inspired to play at a higher level when the listening quality of the audience is also high. In the same way, it may be that when we are prepared to see miracles, then the “world” (or God) will perform miracles such as described in this story.

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למאמרים בפילוסופיה קיומית

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Image by 钧 张 from Pixabay

נכתב ע"י ד"ר אריה סיגל

ד"ר אריה סיגל, בעל הסמכת Logotherapy Diplomate ודוקטור בפילוסופיה של הלוגיקה והמטאפיזיקה מאוניברסיטת M.I.T . מתעמק מעל 20 שנים בתכנים מעולם הקבלה על פי הרב יהודה אשלג והיה מתלמידיו של הרב אברהם מרדכי גוטליב. כותב ומרצה בנושאי הפילוסופיה של הקבלה, בנושאי משמעות בחיים ולוגותרפיה ומתרגם מאמרים מאת בעל הסולם. מחבר הספר : Giving: The Essential Teaching of the Kabbalah by Baal Hasulam

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