The Israel Koschitzky Virtual Beit
MidrashThe Israel Koschitzky Virtual Beit
Midrash
The Purpose of Signs and Miracles
According to the Ramban
By Rav
In his comments on the
commandment of tefillin (Shemot 13:16), the Ramban offers a
general theory of "signs" in Judaism, and, inter alia, a summary of the purpose
of signs and mitzvot in general. In fact, this is a summary of the
purpose of human life and of creation. The two subjects the meaning of "signs"
and the purpose of creation are closely intertwined in the Ramban, as we shall
see.
The Ramban lists a number of theological mistakes common in the world:
those who do not believe in the existence of God, those who do not believe in
His omniscience, and those who do not accept His omnipotence or His providence.
The answer to these heresies, claims the Ramban, is the occurrence of miracles.
The miracle, an exception to the "way of the world and its nature," disproves
publicly those false beliefs, for it proves that the world has a "creator-God,
knowing, supervising, and capable." The Ramban makes the sweeping statement that
the occurrence of a miracle, together with its being predicted in advance by a
prophet (demonstrating the truth of prophecy), serves to "establish the entirety
of the Torah."
However, there is a problem. God will not perform miracles in every
generation. The Ramban does not explicitly explain why not, but the expression
he uses "God will not perform a sign and wonder in every generation in the
eyes of every evildoer and heretic" implies that it is somehow improper,
an affront to the dignity of God for His power to be displayed for the unworthy.
(In his derasha Torat Hashem Temima [p.150], he writes, "The
great public miracles which can confound the weak in faith are not performed for
every generation, for the generations are not worthy of that, or because there
is no need for it to be performed.") In any event, the outcome is that miracles
are a necessary part of the world, in order to demonstrate God's power and
presence, but also a necessarily absent aspect of the world, in light of the
unworthiness of humanity.
The solution to the absence of
miracles, according to the Ramban, is the "sign." We are commanded to make
signs, remembrances, of that which "we" saw with our eyes, so that our children
and all future generations, "to the end of time," should have the experience of
the miracle specifically, the miracles that accompanied the exodus from
In order to fully appreciate the significance of "signs," we have to
examine the importance the Ramban grants to the message of the "signs." Aside
from the fact that error in these matters of theology is common, why is this
area of mitzvot so central? The Ramban points out that a whole slew of
mitzvot are defined in the Torah as being "in remembrance of the exodus,"
and that some of them are strengthened in a drastic manner, carrying the
punishment of "karet" for non-fulfillment. In answering our question, the
Ramban gives a short statement of the central importance of proper belief
concerning God.
Therefore, (the Sages) said: Be
as careful with a minor mitzva as with a major one, for all are very dear and
beloved. For through them a man does every hour confess (or give thanks) to his
God. And the purpose of all the mitzvot is that we should believe in
our God and acknowledge to Him that He has created us. And that is the purpose
of creation itself, for we have no explanation of creation, and the most high
God has no desire in His creatures other than that man know and acknowledge to
his God that He has created him.
The purpose of creation and the fulfillment of human potential is that
Man know God and declare (lehodot - to acknowledge, confess, and
also, to thank) that God is his creator.
This may appear to resemble the goal of human existence defined by the
Rambam (Maimonides) to know God. But there is a crucial
difference, highlighted by the word "created" in the Ramban's definition.
Although the Ramban uses the word "believe" (na'amin) at the beginning of
his definition, he is not really interested in intellectual belief in God's
existence, as the Rambam is. This is even clearer in the second formulation
"that man know and acknowledge/thank his God that He has created him."
Notice not that man know God, but that he know and acknowledge that God is his
creator. Acknowledging God as one's creator is acknowledging a relationship, one
based on the total dependency of man on God.
The Rambam, as is well-known,
strenuously avoided introducing creation into the knowledge of God.
This difference may be illustrated by the different attitudes of the
Ramban and the Rambam to miracles. The Rambam, as is well-known, had an
ambiguous attitude to miracles. In terms of the knowledge of God, miracles were
an impediment, since knowledge of God derived from the contemplation of
the laws of nature, which were themselves an expression of the divine
wisdom. A miracle, even if it were important for the immediate effect it
would have in history, obscures the laws of nature, and therefore cannot be a
subject of divine contemplation. Knowing God, the ultimate goal of human
existence according to the Rambam, relates to God's wisdom, which is
manifest in the rational laws of nature.
For the Ramban, on the other hand, the miracle is the chief vehicle for
the knowledge of God that he is aiming at. Why? Because acknowledgement of God,
the ultimate goal of human existence according to the Ramban, relates to God's
power, not to His wisdom. In other words, the religious man, especially
one who lives a life of mitzvot, lives in a world where God is manifested
by His actions, by His supremacy over nature, where one feels and experiences
the fact that He is the Creator of everything, and especially of man himself.
We now have the key to understanding the special nature of mitzvot
that are "signs" according to the Ramban. They are not merely reminders of facts
that one is likely to forget. After all, despite the Ramban's introductory
history, where he shows that many nations have adopted faulty understandings of
the nature of God and His relationship with the world, the Jews presumably have
a true tradition concerning those matters. The opening chapters of the Torah
spell out explicitly that God is creator; why then is there a need for constant
"reminders" and "signs" of that fact, through the agency of miracles?
The answer is that we are not
seeking intellectual apprehension but rather existential acknowledgement. Man's
relationship with God takes place in a world where God's absolute power and
beneficent providence is evident and manifest to the religious consciousness.
The "signs" are not mere reminders, but living expressions of the miracles they
represent. A person who has tefillin on his arm, a mezuza on his
door, who celebrates Pesach and Sukkot, who twice daily verbalizes
the exodus, and many other mitzvot which can be categorized as signs or
remembrances, is facing the miraculous all-encompassing power of God in his
daily life. He is confronting God, and his life is one of "knowing and
acknowledging to his God that He has created him."
This point, the priority of the acknowledgement of God's creative power
over the knowledge of His metaphysical existence, is made explicit by the Ramban
in a short reference in the middle of his comments on tefillin. When
listing the different "signs," he mentions that we are commanded to "mention
(the exodus from
The Ramban concludes his
exposition of the purpose of Man (which is the need to recognize that God is the
Creator of all) with an explanation of a particular halakhic
practice.
The reason for the raising of
one's voice during prayer, and the reason for synagogues, and the merit of
public prayer is this that people should have a place where they can
congregate and thank (acknowledge) God who has created them and brought them
into existence, and they will publicize this and declare before Him, 'We are
your creatures.' This is the meaning of what (the Sages) said, "'They called to
God mightily' from here we learn that prayer must be out loud; for the brazen
overcome the meek."
This point is sufficiently important for the Ramban to repeat it in
Torat Hashem Temima. I think the Ramban's point is as follows. If prayer
were mainly a means of our expression, there would be no need to pray out loud,
nor to pray with others. God can hear the single lonely soul as easily as the
great mass of people, perhaps even better. But since the purpose of existence is
to acknowledge God's power as Creator, this is expressed as prayer, where we
declare that we are God's creatures. This is an even stronger expression of my
point above. Knowledge of God in the Ramban is not inner apprehension, but
declaration and acknowledgement. Here there is a further step true
acknowledgement should be public, out loud, in order that it be more authentic
and meaningful. It is clear that the purpose of creation, the acknowledgement of
God, is not a moral obligation of man, but is a part of the status of the
created world. The world should reflect the power of God, which is accomplished
in the mouths of men.
We have seen that the Ramban viewed miracles as the
basis for the Jewish belief in God as creator and all-powerful provider. Let us
now examine the end of that same section of the Commentary to the Torah, where
the Ramban explicates his theory of miracles.
From the great and public miracles, one recognizes the
hidden miracles, which are the foundation of the entire Torah, for one
has no part in the Torah of Moshe our teacher unless one believes that all our
things and occurrences are all miracles and have no nature or the way of the
world in them, whether communally or individually; rather, [one must believe
that] if he fulfills the mitzvot, his reward will bring him success, and
if he transgresses them, his punishment will cut him off everything by the
decree of the Most High.
In this very famous section, the Ramban distinguishes
between two types of miracles, the "great, public" miracles, and the "hidden"
miracles. The first category includes the miracles of the exodus, the ten
plagues and the splitting of the sea. The second category includes every other
occurrence that affects the believer, those usually categorized as "natural," as
parts of nature subject to the laws of nature. The important point in the Ramban
is that there is, in fact, no difference at all between the two on the
metaphysical level. Both have the same meaning, namely, that God and not a law
of nature is directly responsible for whatever occurred. The only difference
is psychological: the first is psychologically imposing, forcing its meaning on
the observer. The second can, and usually will, be interpreted incorrectly
as a natural occurrence, whose cause is the chain of natural causation we,
today, call science.
The relationship between the two types of miracles is
educationally causative. The existence of the first, and man's recognition of
what it teaches about God, leads to the recognition of the second and its
implied meaning that everything is to be viewed as a miracle, a direct and
personal intervention of God in the life of the believer.
It is important to notice that the Ramban is not
expressing a metaphysical principle here. He is not saying that "nature" does
not exist, that it is an illusion. He is not rejecting Maimonidean (and
Aristotelian) physics, which grants to each created thing a particular nature,
whose laws it obeys. The Ramban is first of all speaking about the Jewish
people, and not about creation in general. Secondly, he is stating that one must
learn to view the world as part of a miraculous dialogue between oneself and
God, but not that in fact one merits this constant and total providence all the
time.
The two points are interrelated. If the Ramban thought that,
metaphysically, everything that takes place in the world is the result of a
direct miraculous Divine cause, there would be no way to distinguish between
Jews and the rest of the world, nor to allow even the possibility that some
occurrences that affect Jews were in fact the result of natural law.
We will come back to a deeper understanding of what the
Ramban means shortly. But we can already draw certain immediate conclusions,
especially in light of the first part of this comment of the Ramban. The Ramban
places the belief that everything that affects me comes directly from God
as a central belief of Judaism. The extraordinary statement that one who does
not share this belief has "no share in the Torah of Moshe" does not leave a
great deal of room for maneuver. What is so important about this way of viewing
reality?
We have already seen that the Rambans basic religious
attitude is the acknowledgement of God's creative power. The Ramban here greatly
increases the scope of that attitude. It is not a mere belief, nor is it an
acknowledgment of a historical relationship. It is a basic and constant
orientation. It would be fair to say that according to the Ramban, it is what
defines the relationship of the religious individual with God. There is no other
proper attitude towards God, and not having this in the forefront of one's
consciousness is equivalent to losing one's relationship with God altogether.
The Ramban has drawn a three-part path between the
believer and God:
a) the mitzva-remembrance, which points to the
exodus from
b) the great public miracles of the exodus, which point
to "hidden miracles;"
c) the view of everyday life as the hand of
God.
The miracle is not merely the key to true belief;
it is the content of true belief. In fact, I know of no other major
thinker in Judaism who places such a great emphasis on the category of the
miracle. Of course, the Ramban by miracle does not mean the wondrous or the
astonishing. That would be merely a psychological aid in perceiving the true
nature of the miracle, which pervades reality for the believer. The miraculous
means the hand of God, present and close to the believer. The Torah again, I
repeat, the Torah and not reality itself is a system which brings God into
close proximity with the adherent, and places the adherent directly in God's
hand. The purpose of creation is the recognition and acknowledgement by
man of his relationship with the omnipotent Creator; therefore, for a Torah
adherent to not recognize the omnipresent hand of God hovering over his every
occurrence would be for him to miss the central point of Torah existence.
In the Ramban's words, he would have no part in the Torah of
Moshe.
In order to understand this fully, we must have recourse
to the kabbalistic framework which lies behind the scenes of the Ramban's
formulation. Skipping over the details, which are basically unknown, the Ramban
believes that everything in reality is directly tied to different levels of
emanations of God, the sefirot. The natural world and the system of
natural laws which so impressed the Aristotelians, is itself a manifestation of
a particular sefira of God. The acknowledgement of God's creative power
is, on a deeper level, an acknowledgement of the connection between yourself and
the sefirot. If we were subject to the blind operation of natural law,
that would also be a connection with God, but on a much lower level of the
sefirot. The key here is Torah. The Torah itself is a reflection of a
higher sefira, and the people of the Torah, who live according to its
precepts, are therefore connected to a higher level of the sefirot. On a
practical level, that difference is expressed in the difference between being
subject to nature, or being in the hands of God's ethical decisions. Is what
happens to me a result of my interaction with the laws of nature or my
interaction with the laws of the Torah? To the extent that I am existing on the
level of Torah, I am expressing a higher level of existence corresponding to a
higher sefira, and, like all of existence, it is imperative to recognize
and acknowledge that level of existence, i.e., that level of dependence on God's
creative power.
(This corresponds to a different famous distinction in
the Ramban. I have already pointed out that the Ramban is speaking here only of
the Jewish people. The Ramban in several places clams that the rest of the world
is run by angels, i.e., through agency, but that the Jews are
under the direct providence of God. See, for example, his comments to
Bereishit 28:12.)
This explains, I believe, the contradiction found in the
Ramban concerning this point. Although in the section we are examining, the
Ramban is quite clear and unequivocal that "all our occurrences are
all miracles, and have no nature in them at all," in his
commentary to Iyov (36:7) he expresses himself in much more moderate
tones. The Ramban there explicitly states that most people are subject to nature
and accidents, and should therefore take the proper precautions, since they are
not worthy of miracles. Only the perfectly pious are elevated above the
accidents of the natural world. Indeed, the Ramban in our section never implied
that one should ignore the natural world and rely on miracles. On the contrary,
the section began with the assertion that public miracles are rare because the
generations are not worthy. Despite the Ramban's equation of public miracles and
secret ones, he does distinguish between them on the basis of their metaphysical
status. In fact, the Ramban believes that secret miracles the course of what
appears to be nature derive from the sefira of malkhut, majesty,
which is the lowest of the sefirot, whereas public miracles derive
from the sefira of tiferet, the third (of seven). I think the
answer is that the Ramban, as I stated, is not asserting a metaphysical
principle that nature does not exist, but rather a Torah principle, that Torah
can elevate us above nature. The acknowledgement that everything is the actions
of God, and the reality that everything is God's direct miraculous action, are
in fact interwoven. The Torah gives you the ability to live in the hands of God
by acknowledging that that is so. One who psychologically lives in the
hands of God is in reality connected to the higher sefira which is
expressed in a greater degree of Divine presence, and manifested by a greater
degree of the miraculous.
Our section is indeed written in a relatively extreme
and absolute manner, because it is expressing a principle. The purpose of
creation is that man acknowledge the power of God. Acknowledgment and here we
are introducing the Kabbala into our understanding is also the ground for
bringing God in reality into our existence, and hence it elevates man's status
in regards to providence and the miraculous. To the extent that you view the
natural world as your home, you are indeed putting yourself outside the world of
Torah, for the purpose of man is to recognize the creative power of God over
him.
Practically speaking, I think the Ramban is saying that perfect
tzaddikim are protected by public overt miracles, and the rest of the
Jewish nation by private secret ones. The nature of the secret miracles, though,
is not necessarily protective rather, "if he fulfills mitzvot,
his reward will bring him success, and if he transgresses them, his punishment
will cut him off."
The idea that I have just hinted at, that man's actions and beliefs
directly affect the nature of the connection of God to the world and the
operation of the sefirot, is probably the most important kabbalistic idea
found in the Ramban.
On a non-kabbalistic and not particularly philosophic level, what is the
practical difference between the attitude of the Ramban to God's presence in the
world and that of the Rambam, who sees the natural world as a Divine creation of
God's wisdom? We have already seen in the Ramban to Iyov that the average
man should not ignore practical considerations of nature and rely on God's
miraculous intervention. But there is a more basic difference, I think. The
Ramban strives to remove the psychological barrier between Man and God. For the
Ramban, a religious personality is expressed by the feeling of being in God's
hands. Knowing that God has created a wonderful and brilliantly designed
environment for me to live in, as the Rambam believes, is for the Ramban not a
source of religious awareness precisely because it interposes a barrier between
Man and God. The Ramban insists on the immediacy of the religious
experience, and it is in that light that we should understand the signs,
the mitzvot which I surround myself so that the awareness of God's power
and presence be all-encompassing and ever-present. The main difference between
the religious personality of the Ramban and that of the Rambam is
psychological, how you feel about the relationship with God, rather than
metaphysical (but of course, as we saw above, psychology awareness and
acknowledgement is the basis for God's real presence in the world and the goal
of creation). For the Ramban, though, this different mentality is crucial in
defining the religious individual and ultimately his relationship with
God.