Should I wait for God to intervene, or take action myself?
By Rabbi Shalom Landau.
Rabbi Landau teaches: “Stop waiting for a heavenly intervention. Start intervening with a heavenly intervention.” You are not a spectator in your own life.
Many people pray as if they are powerless, stuck until God steps in. “But God is not coming from the sky, he’s inside in you.” Rabbi Landau cites the Zohar that a person is a spark of Elokus, of the Divine. “So you’re not waiting for God, you are a part of God that he chose to move the world through.”
Our Sages say, “Tzadik gozer, v’HaKadosh Baruch Hu mekayem,” the righteous person declares and God fulfills. “You speak and he echoes. You move and he clears the path for you, because he’s in you and he wants you to start acting like it.”
“You are not waiting for a miracle,” he concludes, “you are the miracle. Now just move.”
Related concepts: Inspiration has to become a deed · Prayer that starts in the heart
In A Soul at Peace: You Are the Miracle
Going deeper: Rabbi Landau's teaching, level by level
Surface claim
Instead of waiting for God to step in, act, because God works through you.
Fear, vulnerability, or tension
People often pray as if they are helpless, stuck until something changes from above. Rabbi Landau teaches that this forgets who you are.
What may be behind it
The Zohar calls a person a spark of the Divine. In A Soul at Peace, Rabbi Landau writes that the problem is not that Hashem is absent, but that we have forgotten He is inside us.
Deepest human truth
The righteous declare and God fulfills. You are not waiting for a miracle; you are the miracle, and the next step is to move.
More questions from this teaching
More answers: Faith, Providence, and the Jewish Destiny · All questions · Questions about Rabbi Landau and Rivnitz