Today's Miracles

This week has gone by very quickly so I do not know what to write about. This week has been a normal week. There has not been any excursions or such things, although I am going to the Old City to spend Shabbos with a friend who is studying at Aish. My week has been filled with learning. I am finally getting settled and have a set schedule outside of the Yeshiva's times. I now study mishna berura from 8:30 - 9:15PM and I study Berachos from 10 - 10:30PM from Sunday to Thursday. I also have decided to learn Makkos with Baruch when he has time away from his family and other learning.
One highlight of my week was the shmuze on Monday. Every Monday for half an hour a Rabbi gives a lecture on any topic they want. This week Rabbi Shuster gave an amazing lecture called "Mirrors, Wine, and Miracles: The Secret of the Jewish Woman." If anyone wants to listen to it they can e-mail me and I can send you the audio file. The lecture was about the specialness of a Jewish woman with side notes on the Holcocaust and why religious Jews drink. It was an amazing insight into how the Jewish people can be both sad and happy at once. For instance, many of the prophets in Tanach are told to tell the Jewish people about their horrible sins. These prophets must have been horribly scared but we know that a prophet can only receive prophecy in a state of happiness. Aaron HaCohen received prophecy after his two sons died. Jeremiah received prophecy after the Temple fell. This ability to be both horrified and hopeful at once has carried the Jewish nation through the centuries of darkness, through the pogroms and the Holocaust. The women in Egypt had this quality. These women who knew in their hearts that Hashem would save the Jewish people were able to withstand the horrible treatment by the Egyptians.
In the afternoons I am learning a book called "The Knowing Heart" by the Ramchal. In this book he talks about how Christianity agrees that God chose the Jewish people to be His nation, but then as a result of the Jewish people sinning God was so to speak forced to chose a new nation. This reasoning does not make much sense since Christians also believe that God is unable to go back on his word and there are many times in Tanach that God promises the Jewish nation that they will always survive and always be His chosen nation. The Rabbi leading the discussion pointed out that Jews were swayed by this argument. How is it possible that Jews living then could forget about these verses? The answer is that this happened while the Jews were in Europe. From the year 70 until 1948 the Jewish nation survived in exile with no hope. Even though it is true that God said he would save us, almost 1900 years later people start to question even God.
The miracles happening around us now are so blatantly obvious that it pains me when people do not recognize them. For 1900 years we cried to God to save the Jewish nation and return us to Israel. For 1900 years we were living in exile from our home. In 1948 the state of Israel was established as a Jewish country. The 6-day war was so obviously a miracle that the Prime Minister of Israel during the war, who was completely secular, started wrapping tefillin. The fact that there are still Jews alive in the world is a miracle, and the fact that we are finally living again in our homeland is an even bigger one. We have the undeserved privilege of living at a time in history like none other.
There is a Gemara in Sanhedrin that talks about how man was created on the sixth day. Every hour God did something to bring man into the world. There is also a Gemara that says the 6 days of Creation are a comparison to the 6000 years of the world. The Creation of man parallels the coming of the Messiah. We are now in the year 5767. The Gemara clearly states that the Messiah will come before the year 6000. If you calculate, the year 1740 of the secular calendar is the beginning of the 6th day of Creation. At mid-day the year was 1990. In 1990 Russia fell. The collapse of Russia made the US into the sole power in the world, enabling the Muslim world and the Christian World to start the war they are now in. This is amazing because the Gemara also tells us that the Messiah will not come until Christianity and Islam have a war to end all wars. Unfortuanetly it does not say who will win. Even more amazing is every hour of creation equals 42 years in the secular calendar. This means that 11AM of the 6th day of Creation was 42 years before 1990. That year was 1948. The miracles of today are hidden miracles. They are not as obvious as the Jewish people hearing Hashem speak, the splitting of the sea, or the killing of every firstborn Egyptian, but they are easily perceived when one knows what to look for.