Many wonders

Many Wonders

Ever since my baby was born, a small question had bothered me.  I testified in public on the day of the kiddush that child birth was an open miracle- think Passover, as opposed to Purim.[1] How could a thinking, feeling, and soulful human being simply come out of another human being because a few chemicals were mixed together in the right environment?   And further, even the most secular relative of mine also used the word ‘miracle’ to describe the process of having a baby.  Yet, when I thought about it, the idea of a baby horse, or a baby elephant didn’t strike me as miraculous.  Of course, I find all of nature to be wondrous, mysterious, and an incredible way to approach spirituality, but the word ‘miracle’ did not come to mind.   So why is it that all can agree on the miracle of childbirth, but on the science of animal birth?  I came across an answer this week with the help of the Talmud that expresses some of the wonders of childbirth. 

Here is an excerpt from the Talmud Niddah 31a:

Rav Chanina bar Pappa expounded: What is the meaning of that which is written:

‘Who performs great deeds, beyond comprehension, and wonders beyond number?’[2]  Come and see how different the attributes are of the Holy One as compared to the attributes of flesh and blood.  The attribute of flesh and blood is that when a person places an object in a skin container that is bound and whose mouth faces upward, it is uncertain whether the object will be preserved in it or not, whereas the Holy One, wraps the fetus in the innards of a woman which is open and whose opening faces downward, yet it does not fall out.  Another example:  When a person places his things on the pan of a scale, as the weight increases, the pan descends further. Whereas the Holy one, as the fetus gets heavier it ascends to a higher chamber of the womb.

  Indeed, what are these ‘wonders’ that are beyond number?  The word ‘wonder’ in Hebrew is אלפ which connotes a miracle that is a change in nature, obvious. They are called ‘wonders’, which backwards spells out פלא, ‘aleph’ because they are a testament to the One G-d.  Generally, a real miracle where nature changes is rare, and of those that have happened, namely during the Exodus, they are already documented.  So what are the ‘wonders’ that are beyond number? The Talmud understands that the only thing that is viewed as wondrous on a large scale is childbirth.  And the Maharal[3] elaborates that the Talmud is describing the exact phenomenon I felt: ‘And even though for certain all of scientists can give reasons for all of this (that the Talmud observes), the Talmud is coming to tell us that the creation of man is a wonder in the eyes of man in way that you don’t find with any other creation.  And this is exactly the teaching of the Talmud, that man is a G-dly creation, and therefore his pregnancy is done in a wondrous way even if it can be explained scientifically.’  In other words, there are things that happen during pregnancy that are, technically speaking, within the bounds of nature; nevertheless, they are counterintuitive to the way that things normally work.  Because of this they hint to the G-dly nature of man, namely, that he is able to overcome the natural order of things and rise.  And that G-dly nature, this soulfulness, is exactly why when it comes to human beings, everyone agrees, we call it a miracle.    

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[1] Passover contained the Ten plagues and the splitting of the Red Sea and culminated at the Sinai experience. All of these things are obvious supernatural events.  Purim, on the other hand, was a series of coincidences and it was hard to see a divine hand behind everything.

[2] Job 9:10:  Deeds are things such as nature and wonders are open miracles.

[3] Chiddushei Aggados Niddah