Snow doesn’t melt from the sun; it melts from Hashem’s decree

And He called to Moshe, and Hashem spoke to him…. (Vayikra 1:1)

According to the standard way a pasuk is written, “Hashem” should be written at the beginning of the pasuk, like this: “Hashem called to Moshe and said to him.” Why does it say, “He called to Moshe and Hashem said to him….” Also, why is Vayikra written with a small alef?

To answer these questions we need to understand certain fundamentals. Many people think that snow melts when the sun comes out and the world becomes warm. They say that this is nature. But the pasuk states (Tehillim 147:16-18) “He gives snow like wool… He sends His word and melts them….” The snow doesn’t melt from the sun; it melts from Hashem’s decree. Similarly, everything occurs through Hashem’s Hashgachah. There is no concept of nature acting on its own, chalilah. The rules of nature conceal what is truly happening. (Rav Elimelech Biderman, Torah Wellsprings)

T

his is the time of year when I brush off the dust from my magnum opus and proceed to add the current year’s chapter. I’ve been working on this manuscript for over 20 years, and some years I have more to add than others.

There was the chapter on the year that I suffered from a slipped disc in my back and spent Shabbos Hagadol in the hospital ER. Then there was the time I was in a rush and forced a pressure cooker open before it was ready. I spent Pesach that year with second-degree burns on my hand.

There was the year when my deep freezer didn’t go back on after being cleaned, but we didn’t realize until the next day and had to throw out half the meat and chicken inside.

The Sfas Emes writes in the name of the Saraf that when a person thinks that the reason water extinguishes fire is because Hashem created this nature, he still doesn’t have emunah sheleimah. Rather, emunah sheleimah is to believe that each time water and fire meet, the Creator commands that the water should put out the fire…. Without this command, the fire wouldn’t be extinguished by the water….

We find a similar concept in the Igros Chazon Ish. He writes, “Nature is Hashem’s constant desire.” The difference between miracles and nature is that nature is the standard path with which Hashem leads the world, while miracles are when Hashem chooses, for a short time, to act in a different way. But both are examples of Hashem’s Will.

Then of course are the “normal” years that also include washing machines that go on strike the week of Pesach, and fridges that rebel against being cleaned and throw all the electricity in the house for hours afterward. There’s the wild and the wacky and the plain old frustrating. Each event is recorded in the manuscript and while it’s growing, I’m still grappling with a working title.

Back to our question: The Beis Avraham explains that the small alef tells us that you can read the word both ways, with or without the alef. With the alef, it means calling. Without the alef, it means happening. The pasuk is saying that when things happened to Moshe, he understood that Hashem was speaking to him. He knew that things don’t happen by chance, chalilah.

We must remember that even those matters that appear natural are all Hashem’s Hashgachah pratis. This is the lesson of Pesach: to learn from the revealed miracles that everything that happens to us is miraculous. As the Ramban writes, “From the revealed miracles, a person believes in the concealed miracles, for that is the foundation of the entire Torah. A person doesn’t have a portion in Toras Moshe Rabbeinu until he believes that everything that happens to him is miraculous, without “nature and the way of the world.” This is true for the community and for the individual. Everything is through Hashem’s decree.

Each year, when I finally sit down at Leil HaSeder, I look around at the shining silver, the snowy white tablecloth, and the glinting glassware, and I know that no matter what happened this year, we once again experienced the miracle of making a kosher Pesach. And hey, that’s my title: Don’t Passover the Miracles.

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 986)