PURIM 2 - MIRACLES AND NON-MIRACLES

One of my favorite “jokes”: A Jewish guy is driving through downtown, looking for a parking spot. After failing for some time to find one, he says, “OK, God. If you hook me up with a parking spot, I’ll give $50 to charity.” He continues searching, but fails to find a spot. “OK, God, fine. I’ll start keeping Shabbat.” No parking spot. “Ok, fine! If you hook me up with a parking spot I’ll stop eating - - - oh, never mind. There’s one.”

Our literature speaks of two kinds of miracles - upper (revealed) miracles and lower (hidden) miracles. Upper miracles are like Pesach - 10 plagues and splitting seas. Hidden miracles are like Purim - nothing overtly miraculous happens in the story, no noticeable departure from the natural flow of things but, looking back, we intuit that Hashem was guiding events.