Question
Are miracles all that they are made out to be? If we can split the atom, double the performance of the PC every six months and concoct the Internet, does Moses' parting of the Red Sea seem so miraculous after all?

Answer
Belief that miracles - ancient or modern - do occur is axiomatic in Judaism. Maimonides says that to deny the
People who studied the Bible used to ask why miracles only happened in ancient times and not today.
possibility of miracles is heresy. He rejects both the view of some Arabic theologians who deny the permanence of the law of nature and the argument that nature is so immutable that there is no possibility of Divine interference. However, he recognises a philosophical problem - if nature is permanent, how can it sometimes be suspended? But if nature can sometimes be suspended, how can it be permanent? He gives two answers:

1. It is not only the laws of nature that were established at the time of creation, but also the exceptions to the rules. Nature was constituted in such a way that occasional variations ("miracles") were also Divinely ordained. Thus when God created the animals, He had already planned for Bilaam's ass to open its mouth and speak, which asses do not usually do.

2. The immutability of the laws of nature means that there can be no permanent change in the properties of the universe. But there can be temporary change ("miracles") in some individual instances. Thus, on a temporary, one-off basis the Red Sea parted, but the standard rule with seas is that they do not part.

Our concept of miracles is based on a series of principles:

1. God is active in the world, i.e. the world is not hefker (ownerless).

2. God sometimes works directly and sometimes indirectly.

3. When God works indirectly He sometimes uses the forces of nature and sometimes the forces of history.

People who studied the Bible used to ask why miracles only happened in ancient times and not today. It is not really a valid question, as your references to atoms, PCs and the Internet illustrate. You could have quoted many other, possibly even more impressive examples, including the fact that despite the Holocaust, Jews and Judaism survived; the creation and survival of Israel; the collapse of Communism, apartheid and the Berlin Wall; and so much else. All have an element of the miraculous, all are God working indirectly through the forces of history. It is fruitless to try to assess them and say that one is more and another less miraculous.

The specific examples you quote need, however, additional comment. You and I both agree that they are miraculous, but are they not man-made miracles? I would say no. They are also the work of God, who implanted in us the human mind, capable of stretching and exerting itself to move into new intellectual and scientific territory, and the human heart endowed with the ability to create great works of art, music, literature and other expressions of culture, and to be inspired to perform amazing deeds of love and compassion.

When David Ben-Gurion asked Rabbi Yitzchak Herzog why God did not send a miracle to preserve the new State of Israel, the rabbi replied, "Ben Gurion, I regard you as one of God's miracles!"

Likewise, when people wonder why there are no miracles these days, I am happy to echo your words and say, "I regard great human beings as Divine miracles!"