If Only You Believed in Miracles

For no particular reason that I can think of, the legendary figure of Choni the Circle-Drawer came to my mind over the weekend. (That's Choni with that throat-clearing rasp at the beginning rather than the "ch" sound, for you non-Hebrew speakers.)


Choni, we are told, lived in a dry region where drought had prevailed for some years, and the crops continued to fail. Starvation, disease, death. Choni drew a circle in chalk in the main road and said "I will not leave this circle until the rains come."

A light drizzle, little more than a mist, drifted down from the sky.

Choni said "This is not what we need."

A furious downpour plummeted to the earth, drenching everything immediately.

Choni said, "This too will not help us."

Finally, a healthy rain began to fall, and the people were saved.

This is the kind of story we often hear to demonstrate the power of prayer, or of positive thinking, or some such mystical or philosophical point of view. Choni's rabbinic colleagues, however, were not impressed. They said to him, "You teach the people to rely on miracles instead of upon repentance, prayer and charity. From here on in they will not be satisfied with the world God gave them, and will not wish to work or engage with the world; they will wait for a miracle instead."


Why is this a bad thing? I have heard at least two reasons. First, Torah forbids us from relying on miracles, which is reason enough. Second - and I say it as a committed liberal, dedicated to the proposition that government has a responsibility to help those who cannot help themselves - Choni's act infantilizes the people, makes it more difficult for them to rely upon themselves and the gifts that God has given them and promotes laziness and ingratitude.

All very true, and I am indebted to Rabbi Joseph Telushkin for telling me this story many years ago at the Brandeis-Bardin Institute. Another reason for scolding Choni the Circle-Drawer occurs to me now.

His contemporaries warned him against relying on miracles, but we are also taught that everything we see is a miracle. It's a miracle that a tiny grass seed becomes a blade of grass, isn't it? We're even told that beside each blade of grass stands its own individual angel, whispering "Grow! Grow!"

It's a miracle that each and every object on Earth, at least as far as we can tell, obeys the law of gravity. If we dropped a hammer and it fell toward the sky, we might consider that miraculous, but isn't it equally miraculous that the hammer inevitably falls toward the center of the Earth?

Why do we not see the miraculous in all these things? Because, despite their miraculous nature as issuing from the mouth of God, they are predictable. We expect them, and so barely notice them.

Now comes Choni the Circle-Drawer and, with the best intentions in the world, invites us to consider unnatural phenomena like his call for rain to be predictable, too. Before he drew his circle, we might have some ability to appreciate the miracle of the rain; afterwards, why should we consider it so? All we'd have to do is draw a circle and stand in it, and hey presto! Rain!

There's little enough wonder in the world as it is. Perhaps Choni's mistake was in taking away some of that dwindling supply.


Benshlomo says, Stop and smell the roses.