Before Ya’akov confronted Esav, he declared to God that “I have become diminished by all of the kindness and the truth that you have performed for your servant.” [1] From here, our Sages teach [2] that a person should not place himself in danger, because he cannot rely on God to perform a miracle for him. And even if God does perform a miracle for him, his merits are diminished in the process. This is what Ya’akov meant when he said “I have become diminished (lit. קטונתי).“
Why exactly are one’s merits diminished when he benefits from a miracle? The simple explanation is that Divine providence doesn’t dispense things for free. A miracle must be earned, i.e. paid for through a ‘withdrawal’ from one’s spiritual bank account.
However, there is a deeper explanation to this teaching. We develop spiritually only to the extent that we live an active life in pursuit of the good. God created us to be vigorous and active, and there is no room in Judaism for quietism or passivity. We are meant to earn merit by seizing initiative and applying ourselves to shape the world in accordance with God’s will. A disengagement from the world of action is a retreat from God and brings spiritual diminishment in its wake – as Ya’akov put it, קטונתי.
It may seem counterintuitive that God is meant to be encountered in the natural order (lit. טבע). Isn’t that man’s space to seize initiative, where he undertakes efforts that appear to be his own? The truth, however, is that the natural order reveals God just as much the miraculous. We know this from Yeshaya, who declared to God that “It is you have carried out all of our handiwork.” [3] After all, if טבע is God’s handiwork, to work within the natural order is to partner with God and experience His presence.
But if טבע and the miraculous are both equally Godly, wherein lies the difference between the two? The answer is that the natural order requires man to be proactive. In contrast, a miracle forces its recipient into a passive role, purely on the receiving end of God’s kindness. Because spiritual growth and maturity require action, it follows that miracles are a less than ideal way of encountering God. Instead of a triumph, they are a testament to man’s spiritual smallness, to his inability to experience God by marrying human initiative with the Divinely authored natural order.
We should clarify that this doesn’t mean miracles are bad. Sometimes man is spiritually immature. Sometimes he is defeated by the natural order and requires God to rescue him from his shortcomings. In these moments of failure, God does not expect the impossible and is willing to send a miracle. But the miracle is meant to tide us over until we can mature spiritually, and advance from recipients of Divine kindness to participants who strive to partner in the Divine plan.
Ya’akov experienced this very transformation. After he pleaded with God about being “diminished” by His miraculous kindnesses, Ya’akov wrestled with an angel and received a new name, one purified from any connotations of passivity. “Your name will no longer be called Ya’akov, rather Yisrael will be your name, for you have striven with God and man and prevailed.”
[1] Bereishit 32:11
[2] Gemara Shabbat 30a
[3] Yeshaya 26:12
Commentary
From this teaching of Rav Kook, we can perhaps derive the bold statement that action and initiative are primary values of the religious life, from which all else flows. Religious growth is not about submission and withdrawal, or man’s smallness in his encounter with God. These are all components of the religious experience, but they shouldn’t be its defining characteristic.
Questions for Reflection and Discussion
- Very few of us experience miracles on a regular basis, but the dividing line between passivity and action affects so many areas of our lives. If God wants us to work diligently within the natural order, what does that mean for geulah and the modern State of Israel? For how God wants me to support my family? For decisions about medical treatment?
- What is one area of Jewish life where you could be more active and less passive?
- Many well-meaning Jews are inspired by stories of tzadikim performing miracles or being saved in miraculous ways. Would Rav Kook disagree with them and reject such stories as spiritually irrelevant? Or is there value in these stories even for Rav Kook?
- How can someone participate in the natural order and still remember that God is acting through his handiwork, as Yeshaya puts it? Is this a paradox?
- Where in last week’s parsha does Ya’akov’s passive character manifest itself? Where in this week’s parsha do we see him expressing a more active persona?
- Can you think of an example of a person whose moral and spiritual development was stunted because everything was given to them ‘on a silver platter,’ without working for it?
- If miracles are a less-than-ideal ‘fallback plan’, then why did God make such a big deal of them when He took us out of Egypt?
- Is there anywhere in Parshat Vayishlach that Ya’akov seems disinclined to rely on miracles?
Additional Resources
- A beautiful story from the world of Chabad about putting miracles in their proper perspective.
- A monograph from Rav Elchanan Adler about whether Halacha allows praying for a miracle, and how that relates to Channukah.
- The Rambam in Mishnah Torah about whether we believe in Moshe because of the miracles he performed.
- A slightly different take from the Ramban about the relationship between miracles and the natural order.
About This Piece
Ein Ayah is a commentary on the aggadic portions of the Talmud, specifically Berachot, Shabbat and Seder Zeraim. Rav Kook began writing Ein Ayah when he was a young rav in Lithuania, and continued adding material until the end of his life. Ein Ayah seeks to extract profound and fundamental principles of Torah hashkafa from the world of Aggadah.[*] It is an excellent introduction to Rav Kook’s thought, inasmuch as the pieces tend to be more shorter and self contained and less esoteric than many of Rav Kook’s other worlds. While Ein Ayah has never been translated in its entirety into English, selected excerpts have been published by Betzalel Naor in Of Societies Perfect and Imperfect. An online course from WebYeshiva covering Ein Ayah on Masechet Shabbat is available here.
[*] As opposed to much of the traditional commentary on Aggadah (i.e. Maharsha and the commentaries printed with Ein Ya’akov) which is less systematic and takes a piecemeal approach to connecting Aggadah with major principles of hashkafa.
