Do miracles only happen to special or worthy people?
By Rabbi Shalom Landau.
Rabbi Landau answers that “miracles don’t happen to special people. They happen to people who are willing to become the miracle.” They do not belong to the worthy or the lucky, but to those ready to take the first step.
Most people wait for the impossible to become possible, and when it doesn’t, they sadly give up. But “miracles don’t wait for certainty, they wait for movement.” You are not responsible to finish the dream; you are responsible to begin it.
He learns this from the Torah. Hashem took Avram outside and said, “Please look towards the heavens and count the stars, if you can count them,” and then told him, “So will be your children.” Counting the stars is impossible. But Avram was asked to count anyway, not to finish, but to begin.
“Your job isn’t to finish counting the sky,” Rabbi Landau says. “Your job is to lift your eyes, point to the first star and say, ‘I’m in.’”
Related concepts: Inspiration has to become a deed · Giving up is not peace
In A Soul at Peace: Look Up and Count the Stars
Going deeper: Rabbi Landau's teaching, level by level
Surface claim
Miracles do not belong to special or lucky people. They belong to people willing to take the first step.
Fear, vulnerability, or tension
Most people wait for the impossible to become possible and then give up. In A Soul at Peace, Rabbi Landau writes that looking at the whole calculation at once is what freezes a person.
What may be behind it
Miracles wait for movement, not certainty. You are responsible to begin the dream, not to finish it.
Deepest human truth
Your job is not to count the whole sky. It is to lift your eyes, point to the first star, and say, “I'm in.”
More questions from this teaching
More answers: Faith, Providence, and the Jewish Destiny · All questions · Questions about Rabbi Landau and Rivnitz