April 16, 2009

The Passover Haggada is in large part a celebration of the miraculous. It praises God for a series of supernatural acts that bring the Israelites’ foes to their knees and usher the former slaves to freedom.

The text is a challenge for those whose view of the world is humanist and scientific. There is a cottage industry that seeks to find scientific explanations for the miracles described in the Torah. In the on-line magazine Slate, Michael Lukas interviews oceanographers, archaeologists, and even psychologists who say they have found such explanations, from the drug-induced hallucination that caused Moses to see, and speak to, a burning bush, to the marine plankton that may have caused the Nile to run blood red.

The flip side of this biblical debunking are those who seek supernatural explanations for the seemingly miraculous acts of humans. When Navy snipers cleanly dispatched three Somali pirates in pitching seas, some declared it a “miracle.” (Veterans of the Navy Seals say the snipers practice and practice for just these types of “impossible” conditions.) A Jewish columnist recently chided hero pilot “Sully” Sullenberger for failing to acknowledge God after he landed his jet in the Hudson without loss of life. (The writer did allow that Sully “executed tremendous skill.”)

Is there a middle ground between those who see the hand of God in everything, and those who see humankind as the measure of all things? If there is, it lies in a sense of wonder. Religious and secular can find awe in the workings of nature, which includes the creativity of humans and the profound, sometimes unfathomable structures of the universe.

As we come to the end of a period holy to Jews and Christians, at a time of enormous challenges and grim tidings, we must acknowledge our limitations as creatures subject to luck, misfortune, and forces beyond our control, but also rely on our fellow men and women to draw deeply from the wells of human possibility.

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