The Ramchal's Essay on Fundamentals - Part 18 - Rabbi Yirmiyahu Ullman

so the good we're up to new topic now on 186 and this is the Indian honey singh regarding the nature of miracles okay Meegan a colony voin coulomb lonely you Ella me pinay circuses are at tony's bar all things that exist only do so because God decreed it so can call the hukum Barack volumes lamb looka gooba him LEP a Chicago samosas bar he also knows behem and so to all of the laws and the limitations that govern all things that were created were only decreed because it was God's will that they be this way according to what is appropriate and what is wise in God's eyes Munem commotion Hoka Hoka male burano just as God decreed the laws of nature which govern all things it was all according to his will konechno live at alum so he can certainly nullify them or suspend them with Asha no Simon to change them carrots oh no according to his will the whole s Guzman she would say at any time that he likes so God created the natural world there are natural laws that govern the natural world and that was all fit according to God's wisdom according to the way things should one however of course God certainly reserved for himself the option of nullifying negating or suspending those laws at any time for any way any particular reason Luminum linoleum she had a cheeseburger mobile am shallow Badenoch chicago cattiva the novelties the ways in which God interacts in the world which are different than which um differ from the laws of nature who an acronis that is what we refer to as a ness okay ness now one of the words furnace is banner and just as a banner is held high and it gives you an indication of who's holding that banner who's behind that band or what that Ben represents so to a miracle which in Hebrews Ness is like that it's like a publication this is meant to grab attention yes it's yes it's like I mean it's it's not necessarily meant to grab attention but you but it does it certainly does grab attention yes is it something it stands out stands up and above up on the beyond the normal running of the world like a banner would stand up and above what it represents so to an S now the truth is that God's presence is in all of nature and certainly the natural laws themselves because they're divinely ordained they also have within them the ordained excuse me the divine only we call that ordinary rather than divine because it is the normal way that the de xem runs the world but certainly the the the whole natural world itself is miraculous and think more discusses for example about how a certain rabbi who was very poor did not have enough oil to burn for his Shabbos candles and he asked his wife for his daughter to bring foreign vinegar instead and he asked you know in his to his daughter said we can't light the vinegar we need oil so he said he who commanded the oil to light will command the vinegar tonight as well and that in fact it did can we not do this today we know in order you know you know what we're basically asking for is a miracle which is a mess which means a extension above and beyond the normal running of the world so that generally speaking a job is not going to just change the normal running of things unless there's some special reason yeah for this process oh so you have to say that either the there is an exceptional person or an exceptional reason or sometimes both in this case it was an exceptional person and it was in the honor of shabbos which on his level must have been something it was all held in very great regard and God performed a miracle for this person it was a say to the Talmud Ice Age of Holland yeah I feel like if we reach that level but we truly truly truly one hundred percent believe that that God is in control of nature and that that vinegar could be you know we can make your access oil if we truly truly like we have a slight doubt me if it's like you know if you're great tidy maybe it's like a point zero zero zero one doubt but because that point zero zero one that that's why God I saw them enough right if you have one hundred percent no doubt and you know that God wants everything yeah then then you know like if you truly know that you could do anything yes I guess that's what the sage was it was convening it was communicating yes I'm just thought it was very very many here layout for shabbos came to one you some decided that he went around like waves there go around you respected cetera yeah that's true I don't know how good how the word got out right idol by the way we were speaking about Gomorrah switch seem to indicate the dead are still alive we're talking about how the by so I remember just now to remind me of another scenario i think it was ready the camera says that after Rebbe was niftar he passed away he continued to come to his house every shabbos and make kiddush for his wife worse is it strange think he was that day yeah so the victim or says that one time one time the neighbor the neighbor got wind of the fact that the Rebs wife was being visited by ready after he passed away was being killed for and that point the word got out and he no longer came because the workout out the core discusses there uh-huh how is it that he was able to be monster dick hole that because it's not really alive and the may seem at home Steven of interest there's no obligation among the dead to perform the ritual so how was so they do yes very strange situation yeah I don't know where this little more the commentaries addressed it suggests have any answers how invocation is that he was making you heard the good more of what huh yeah it's very strange with his body it came and materialized in some way which looked like a body at least he was very far out of time it's very far out yeah well what was that somewhat learning was fully spiritual was indeed he wasn't I don't things probably was all physical hell no becomes and mature Liza's and what since today's possible material form we're gonna say gradually had a different obligation to make sure that his wife kiddush made rather than himself having an obligation to make it yeah the halacha regarding kiddush is that even if one has already fulfilled the mitzvot he can still make the kiddush again for somebody who hasn't fulfilled a mitzvah and but but but there has to be at least some basic feel that the person has some basic relationship an obligation he has to the Mitzvah to be able to perform at somebody else and not eat enough that's one of the answers that suggested it's very is very unique very strange one yet have you had that it's very hardly for the dead to communicate with like living people there herring for the dead yeah it's difficult for them so listen to a woman lucky ladies at this daughter of Aqaba lyst she said her father kept come and see it because she kept like she was really wanting it so but and came here and he explained that it's very painful and her cousin that's very hard to leave the spiritual world I mean had a common come he has to go there any yeah i mean i can i can see how it's a i mean it's it's very difficult difficult for the for them for the neshamah to depart from that realm to come into this rock exhibit in terms of like feeling pain or you know that I'm not just communicating I'm not sure you're certainly causing them to go out of their way to big inconvenience to have them go from that realm to their shitty movies they come or do you are yeah yeah by the person is not actually allowed to do anything that would be involved in communicating with the dead in terms of like magical or practices and necromancy but sometimes the departed do appear to a person in the dream you know in a dream and communicate messages that you've not heard that it causes them paying only this idea that it's a foot 7 is it puts them out of their way to have to leave the spiritual realm and and communicate but that the actual feel something akin to pain yeah but but you know you know maybe maybe it's a type of in English being you know dislocated from that realm and coming to this realm maybe that is described as being like a pain you know I never quite thought about it in those terms it's like a deprivation yeah it's like a deprivation discomfort is the there was um someone in our family meaning my wife's family her father appeared to her in a dream and he complained that he was it was it was very it was dark and there was darkness and she you know she felt that her father's soul was experiencing like a great anguish and was you know something having to do with it was with darkness so a relative my wife side of the family so a few days went by and and then the soul came again and again was complaining to her about being in darkness shut off the light this is out of light and darkness or whatever don't exactly never the language it was communicated that was the theme and then it came back like a third time in a month and she was pretty disturbed about the whole thing so she went to the she oh so she she's also she I think she communicated the dream to her brother who lived in another town in their hometown in Israel where the family was really from so the brother was like amazed he couldn't believe it why because the the show where they had donated the eternal light in their father's memory was being renovated and he went to the show and he saw that the light had been turned off the electricity was shut off they were renovating no so this aterna light that was donated in their father's memory went out in the and he came to her daughter his daughter in the dream saying that he was in darkness even though she knew nothing about the synagogue being renovated anything like that she lived in a different town so they they quickly you know turn back the light on and would ever they made sure that whatever they do in terms of renovating the show that they should keep their the ner tamid which was donated in his finish my so they should be lit so after they did that the neshamah came back and was basked in light and was happy and president yeah now the fact that she had that dream is not necessary indicative because she knew that the light had been turned on so she could have imagined it but the first part of the dream was clearly something that she couldn't have really anticipated um one of the lighting the Schule effect oh because the point is that there's such a thing called the there NER Tamid which is the eternal light that was lit in the temple and then once the temple was destroyed it's customary to have in eternal light in in the synagogue as well which is like a miniature base in English like a senate administer temple so the point here is that that light being lit in honor of the synagogue was done in the memory of this person which means that that soul gets benefit from that mitzvah that's the point so it's not like the the soul needs the light in the shoal or it was in darkness because the shoulders drive but the point is this all was darkened be was this mitzvah was extinguished does it work but if a hundred years and from the other shoes no longer that what happened to the soul I'm not sure it's yeah it's like a yard side candle but it's like it's the achar light it's constantly late and the matter first 40 days me was that after no I don't think so nose ears after the person was niftar yeah but the soul was deriving some benefit from the fact that this near tommy was donated in its in its merit and when it went out it it extinguished the that mitzvah for the soul for the time being and it came to to complain as it were yeah so I had a dream once my grandmother of blessed memory she came to me in a dream and she was sitting in a in a large field in the field was was just beautifully green everything I was all green since she was sitting in the middle of the field in this chair and she looked at me and she smiled that was it a few days later I inherited a lot of green I inherited some money uh-huh yeah I don't know if it had anything to do with anything in over it was interesting near-death experiences where people say they were in like a beautiful field and stuff like that like what why would that be it's uh the the soul is kind of explaining I mean like a near-death experience so the person is still really connected to the body to a certain extent the person hasn't actually died yet and therefore the connection to the body conveys messages right to the consciousness which would be similar to the prison's experience in this world so when the soul is at a very pleasant plateau right so what happens is that experience of the soul is transmitted down into ultimately to the mind and conveys into the mind images which are comparable to being in a very very pleasant plane of existence and therefore the mind associate sat in the imagination with like being in a field which is very pleasant and serene and tranquil full of life and so it's not just a hallucination that something it's not a hallucination oh god no it's not a hallucination no no because there's a heart there's a guy who Harvard neurosurgery was a massive atheist in the other near-death experience and he's written books and because of his title like loads of people are like starting to go crazy water and part of his experience was he was in a beautiful field and like all the things he saw like old relatives and stuff like that yeah and into us and it does it did it do anything to a question his issue of favor he's still an atheist he's written loads of books on it he's like the cold air so he's not massive believer oh that right yeah it's caused a lot of waves in the world but yeah harvin know is that right yeah son right and he said like his he's obviously a brain doctors he knows that there's no way a brain he was clinically dead about them right right situated there's not Jewish about that it's very interesting that you know many of the near-death experiences could involve very tragic accidents in the body is a mule it mutilated requires you know critical surgery and attention but the soul when it returns to the body describes the time being away from the body's being in a very pleasant realm and if it were something which if the the experiences that are described by the people have had the near-death experience are really residual experiences of the body or recollections of the body it's hard to explain how the body going through such a critical experience like a car accident and could actually somehow affect the soul in a way other than conveying torment to the soul yet the people described being in a complete state of serenity despite the fact that they see the body mutilated sometimes he said they give they don't even recognize it they're looking at it for bed like a field nobody don't recognize yeah oh that's me yeah yeah you know yeah a little bit yeah George sources documents you know pretty pretty clearly the major points of that are described in India Indy Indy today you know the so our and then the Midrash and the more i'll talk about a lot of these you know these things having to do with and de so getting back to our topic then the the nest is God's raising the banner of his presence yeah god that's what an S is an S a miracle is God's raising the banner of his presence as to say right I am here so God's presence is being elevated and becoming palpably perceptible by people that's the nests the truth is that we started to say that God's presence is equally in nature as well and there's a well-known gamma tree which expresses this idea that the word for in Hebrew for nature nature where the capital n nature is is hot eva poteva hot eva that's nature with a capital N and hot eva is the same camacho as a lo keem the name forgot so it is conveying is even nature activa in its basic common denominator right is is godliness there's godliness in everything that's the point I was making hear that certainly the laws of nature themselves are from God and in fact they are got so what's happening in an S is that God is just elevating his presence within nature above the natural working of things so that that presence becomes more more obviously recognizable and therefore that's a nice LOL oki is the first line of beer in beer she precious brother came less ocean my Bonnie the word so that name was that judgment that's the natural yes I mean with any represented it generally represents God's God's rulership over creation God's control over creation that's what nature is nature is the laws that govern creation the divinely imposed laws of nature which govern the way creation operates york a vodka is the name of creation and they melaquin regulates creation and that those are the laws of nature it's the gotcha of the looky many way hot ever is hey Ted yes hot tempers her nature here's a 5 92 and 70 yeah that's it 86 and that's a that's the same comanche little team yeah so that what is saying is that and that's what the rabbi was conveying he who said that olive oil should light shall have the vinegar light why because it's the same ilocos it's the same divine energy which is in everything and the Divine Presence and everything and the rules about the way the creation operates are all from all divine divinely ordained anyway and therefore God's presence is equally prevalent everywhere only when God decides to change the normal running of things that's what we call an s that's the banner of God being raised above the normal working of things that's the nests that an S is there for God's kind of suspending the natural running of things and indicating his presence in the world in a way which is different than we normally see so we see normal working of the world as being something which is very natural and some exception to that as being a miracle but in truth hot eva is alkene which means we should be viewing nature as a miracle every moment and the truth is that if a person were let's say materialized as an adult in the world as we know it isn't taneously without having any of the gradual experience of becoming condition to the world that a normal person has from infancy through childhood and adolescence and adulthood the person who got his mind yes you know you'd be just all stricken by everything that you see it so yeah babies tend to appear yeah you have that stroke it just as new to it is this yeah yeah yeah yeah see you Miss miracle exactly by the time person you know become by the time three year old three years old right there's nothing particularly you know um or inspiring about the sunrise I mean as the person gets older he might from a subliminal point of view come to appreciate the artistic natural beauty of it but in terms of the actual miraculous aspect of it most people don't relate to the role that way but we really should be thinking every moment about every natural processes of being an extremely sophisticated awe-inspiring miracle and the fact that we even breathe should be something which instills with them as tremendous love of God you know just you breathe in and out in and out all day long whether you're awake or whether you're asleep you don't even have to think about it you and you know it's just a miraculous thing if you had to think about making your heart beat you probably did I'll be dead by now you fall asleep you for you you wouldn't be able to tell your heart to me you'd be dead what's that yeah John your phone or whatever else I don't distress will be distracted from breathing distracted from having a heart when we have the whole autonomic system which just operates like that you know second after second after second I mean after a minute hour after hour day after day week after week month after month year after year decade after decade for every hundred twenty years of person's life tick tick tick tick tick tick tick what makes it go it's a good thing we don't have to make it go because if if it depended on us we'd be gone yeah so all of these wonderful Marta Marta the nervous system let's was that it's hardware into the nerves that's great yeah that's as we have control over and disculpa most yeah smooth muscles in cardiac muscles er yes it's a good thing that it's that way yeah oh yeah I don't know if we're ready as human beings to hardwire person like that but somehow evolution was able to do it I mean yeah I mean it just happened by of course random mutation along the line early in the evolutionary chain there were animals I had to think about their heartbeat there's varying they got distracted we're suddenly selected again exactly that's the point but of course yeah the survival of the fittest determined that those organisms which were you know genetically mutated over a few thousand or ten thousand of years to be able to develop the automatic ordering once that happened then they were able to survive yeah this is a phenomenon I'm being cynical I've astronauts when they go out into space and they look down at her there's something that happens to them that just changes the whole perspective of life and it's through this it's like the ultimate view they don't know why it keeps happening to astronauts but they come to this realization of like how amazing everything hmm who are the Cronus so this is the miracle feigning olive oils generally speaking majority how don't bow who wrote say the comet ever because of the majority of scenarios God the master certainly does want to maintain and sustain the natural laws which he put in place the government creation key Kevin shabu-shabu vaso camacho since God chose these rules to govern his creation but I shared ah hey Jose I'm of harsh a bit funny God certainly considers this to be the most ideal and best way that things should run unum I hope you can however nonetheless lolia dialed me in the shin also saw was man should say he will not refrain from changing these laws when he wants to for whatever reason when God sees that that would be temporarily the best thing to do the timing will deem it slow and this would all be four reasons according to him so basically to summarize therefore and then is that creation exists it exists it exists it was created by God it was god it's governed by laws which means the creator of existence was the creator of those laws that governs that existence these are the laws of nature these are the laws by which God generally these are the laws through which God generally runs the world however certainly God reserved for himself itself the ability to suspend these laws at any time and he can do so for any pardon me I didn't realize he could change the laws yes yes yeah yeah that that's the point here III think no no I thought what you said here when you said that when he's created the laws he created those laws that he could work within those laws oh okay so yeah so before you came in i think we made the point that all that but splitting of the sea even that was that was within the laws of nature they described them with them being split it in 12 different sections for each try yeah i find it just place oh that's just very muddy waters dry pants back yet the it was visual right between the sexually only kosher yes please coach so so that generally speaking god does rule the world through these natural laws however God can suspend or even change those laws for for his purposes according to whatever God seems to be the correct and my thing to do just as the rules were created to maintain a state which God considers to be the ideal state God can manipulate things in order to make for any particular ideal at any particular time these changes in the laws of nature are what we refer to as nest however my point here was just that it's not necessarily a change in nature it is amen it is a different manifestation of God's presence in the natural world it's a difference in the manifestation of God's presence in the world because the bottom line nature actually is based on the Divine Presence so that there's actually nothing less miraculous about the way things normally run then the aberrations to which they run however the difference is the way that we perceive them and maybe this is kind of touching to the point that you're getting at from God's point of view they're all right it's all nature it's all part of the divine way of running things from our perspective there seems to be the difference think I create a natural law so strongly that he couldn't break it of course of course not okay let's end here we'll try and continue massage the notes that we need you