Do You Believe in Miracles?

The year was 1980, and the Winter Olympics were being held in Lake Placid, NY. The United States’ ice hockey team, comprised primarily of amateur and collegiate players, played in a medal round game against the Soviet Union, who had won every Olympic gold medal in hockey save one since 1956 and whose team was widely considered to be the best hockey team in the world. It was your typical David vs. Goliath situation with the added tension of the Cold War. As in previous games, the Americans fell behind quickly but kept up with the Soviets, never falling more than one goal behind. With ten minutes left in the game, Mike Eruzione was left undefended and managed to get a shot past the Soviet goalie, giving the Americans a 4-3 lead. Jim Craig, the American goalie, withstood a series of Soviet shots to finish the match, and as the clock began to creep closer to the end of the game, the patriotic American crowd, along with Al Michaels, who was calling the game for ABC, was whipped into an unbelievable fervor. With just seconds left in the game, Michaels delivered his famous call, “Do you believe in miracles?”

The American victory over the Soviets, voted the greatest sports moment of the twentieth century by Sports Illustrated, was an amazing, improbable win. But was it, as Michaels stated, a miracle? According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, a miracle is “an extraordinary event manifesting divine intervention in human affairs.” There are plenty of examples of God intervening in the physical world; however it is not clear that the Miracle on the Ice was one such example.

We learn, through the story of Hanukkah, that the word nes is typically translated from the Hebrew to mean “miracle” – the phrase nes gadol haya sham, “a great miracle happened there,” is inscribed on dreidels with the first letter of each word in Hebrew adorning each side, possibly to remind us of God’s intervention in human history on behalf of the Jews. The word nes actually means “sign” or “wonder,” so what, exactly, is a miracle?

The holiday of Hanukkah celebrates two different miracles. The first is that of the cruse of oil, whose contents, enough to realistically last for only one day, burned steadily for eight full days. The other is the improbable victory of the Maccabees over their oppressors – it is actually this miracle referenced in the Rabbinic prayer for Hanukkah, Al HaNisim, which ignores the oil entirely and speaks of a general phenomenon whereby God helps humans bring about miraculous rescues from historical oppressors. The miracle of the oil is the miracle of amazing events happening to humans, while the miracle of the military victory is the miracle of human action with divine influence.

This is not the miracle of a passive people – the Maccabean victory as an exemplar does not undermine human effort but rather causes it to be redoubled.

What does this mean for us today? Perhaps the best piece of advice can be found in the Talmud: “Do not depend on miracles” (Pesachim 64b). It is a teaching that advocates personal responsibility and action – we should not rely solely on a supernatural event to improve our world or situation. While it is quite a stretch to call the 1980 Miracle on the Ice a miracle, it is obvious that the American team did not passively expect their victory to happen for them – they worked hard for what they earned, with or without any divine intervention. Just as we might not know if we will experience a true miracle in our life, so too should we live a life of personal responsibility and action.

Discuss the following with your family:

• During Hanukkah, we celebrate miracles. What is your definition of a miracle?
• Think about a moment that felt miraculous to you and tell the rest of the family about it. What made it feel so special?
• In II Maccabees, we are told to celebrate the victory of the Jews and the recovery of the Temple and Jerusalem – it is only 500 years later, when writing the Talmud, that the Rabbis tell the story of the miracle of the oil – Why would the rabbis want to stress the miracle of oil over the military victory? Why is that story still so popular?
• If we listen to the Talmudic teaching, “Do not depend on miracles,” and look to the military victory in the Hanukkah story as an example, how does this change your view on personal responsibility to the world around us? What are some things you can do to help make miracles happen?