Day 14 - Every Day Miracles

Sunrise at the Beach

“Do you believe in miracles?!?  Yes!”  Even those who didn’t hear those words know this phrase.  On February 22, 1980, Broadcaster Al Michael’s uttered those famous words at the end of the now famous USA vs USSR Olympics Hockey game in the 1980 Winter Olympics.  

At the time, the Russians had the greatest hockey team in the world, while the United States team was made up of amateur hockey players who were mostly college-aged athletes.  In that game, dubbed the Miracle on Ice, the U.S. team pulled off one of the major upsets in sports history.  But it was larger than sports - it was a battle on the ice between two world superpowers, freedom versus oppression, good versus evil.   

But do we really need to wait every four years to experience miracles? 

There’s a very special prayer that we say every day, actually, three times a day, called the Modim prayer.  It is a prayer of gratitude that we say during the Amidah, and in it, we thank God for the miracles that occur evening, afternoon, and morning, every day.  

The question you might ask is, are there really miracles that happen every day, three times a day?!?  

The High Holy Days, specifically Rosh Hashanah, is the annual anniversary of the creation of the world, but we remember this miracle every day in our liturgy:

הַמֵּאִיר לָאָֽרֶץ וְלַדָּרִים עָלֶֽיהָ בְּרַחֲמִים וּבְטוּבוֹ מְחַדֵּשׁ בְּכָל־יוֹם תָּמִיד מַעֲשֵׂה בְרֵאשִׁית

God illuminates the earth [and provides light] for those who dwell on it, with compassion; and in God's goodness renews every day, continually, the work of creation. 

Every day is an opportunity to recognize the miracles around us. When things go right, we rarely question them. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel famously began a Kol Nidre sermon by exclaiming, "A great miracle occurred today...the sun rose!" Everyone in the service must have been scratching their heads, but he made a powerful point: we must strive to recognize the miraculous in the mundane. When we do this, we become more spiritually aware and we come closer to finding our place in the miracle that is the world. 

Writing Prompt

Recall a mundane experience you had in the last year. What miracles did you find embedded in that experience? Perhaps it was a realization you came to, or, looking back, something miraculous came out of that experience days, weeks or months later.  

10.3.0