We are approaching Passover in a not-so-celebratory mood. The war in Gaza is faltering, and our best sons are falling in battle. The kidnapped are still being held by the cruel monsters. The fighting continues in the north as well. Hundreds of thousands of residents from the Gaza Strip and the north are still unable to return to their homes. International pressures are increasing and intensifying. The situation within us is not encouraging either.
All of this is an analysis of reality through earthly eyes. Indeed, we are required to act with natural tools, weigh rational considerations, conduct accepted diplomatic activity, build military power, and navigate within the boundaries of the world around us.
Even in personal life, a Jew must engage in making a living in natural ways, consult a doctor when he is afflicted with an illness, and so on.
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Two calendars
And yet, in the world of a Jew, both as an individual and as part of the entire Jewish people, there is the surprising and unexpected element - the miracle.
This week we entered the 'first month,' as we read last Shabbat in the month's parsha: "This new month is to you the beginning of new months, the beginning of the year." But isn't the first month the month of Tishrei, in which we celebrated Rosh Hashana?! Rather, it turns out that the Jewish people live within two parallel calendars - one begins in Tishrei and the other in Nisan.
The calendar that begins in Tishrei represents the natural system of life, and the calendar that begins in Nisan represents the miraculous dimension of our lives. At any given moment, we operate on two axes – the natural, human, rational axis; and the supernatural, miraculous, divine axis.
The history of the Jewish people wonderfully reflects this combination. The people of Israel live a mundane life. They engage in a life of livelihood, take care of their needs with human tools, deal with problems and decrees in accepted ways. However, it is clear to everyone that according to the laws of nature, the Jewish people could not survive and exist, because all natural forces stood against them. Alongside natural factors, supernatural forces acted on the Jewish people, giving them strength and the ability to survive where natural conditions would have caused them to become extinct and disappear.
In this point lies the secret of our existence. We appear to be a people like all other peoples, subject to natural forces and global social, demographic and political processes. But at some point it becomes clear again and again that the Jewish people deviate from the rules and evade conventions.
When all the experts predict its disappearance and decline, it suddenly flourishes and rises. There is something elusive about it, something that does not fit into the accepted rational tools.
Nissan Nigel
This is the miraculous element that exists in the people of Israel, an element symbolized by the month of Nisan, in which the Jewish people were born and formed. The birth of the Jewish people and their departure from slavery to freedom were both miraculous and supernatural, and here the people of Israel are given the power to exist on an axis parallel to the natural one - the miraculous axis.
A Jew is required to work for his livelihood in the ways of nature, and yet he knows that "the blessing of the Lord is multiplied" and that "He gives you strength to make an army." The same is true in the life of the state. We must work with earthly tools, and at the same time remember that there are other supernatural powers at our disposal. Even if it seems that we are being pushed into a corner by the ways of nature, we must remember that if we stand our ground according to the will of God, God, blessed be He, will find His own ways to rescue us from the strait.
And the Sages said: "In Nisan they were redeemed, in Nisan they will be redeemed"!
