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A Message for 2023 from Rabbi Bruce Dollin

As 2022 comes to a close, it is worth considering our hopes for the year to come. We learn the following story in the Talmud:

“The Gemara relates that one Shabbat evening, Rabbi Ḥanina ben Dosa saw that his daughter was sad. He said to her: My daughter, why are you sad? She said to him: I confused a vessel of vinegar for a vessel of oil and I lit the Shabbat lamp with vinegar. Soon the lamp will be extinguished, and we will be left in the dark. He said to her: My daughter, what are you concerned about? He Who said to the oil that it should burn can say to the vinegar that it should burn.  [As it turned out,] That lamp burned continuously the entire day, until they brought from it light for havdala.”

Rabbi Hanina was able to teach something profound to his daughter. If it is God who makes oil in such a way that it burns, God can certainly create a miracle and make the vinegar burn as well. Perhaps we might even say that the fact that oil burns at all to give light is a miracle in itself. To go even further, perhaps we can say that almost everything about the natural world is a miracle brought by God.

The Midrashic concept that applies here is “hashgachat peratit,” Divine providence whereby God is intimately involved with the world and its inhabitants at every moment. Accordingly, olive oil is not flammable until God makes it so the moment one puts a flame to it. Our world, our lives, our souls are intimately interconnected with God and God’s miracles this very minute and always.

For me, that is how I hope to see the world in the coming year. I want to see every blessing as a miracle. Everything becomes so vital, interesting, and meaningful when you see miracles everywhere, even in the simple things. We just finished Hanukah, where we stated: nes gadol hayah sham: a great miracle happened there [then]. For 2023, let’s observe the miracles that happen here, every day.

Happy New Year from the family and me.

Shalom,

Rabbi and Tammy Dollin, Yoni Dollin, Shai and Rebecca Dollin, Kivi and Michelle Dollin, Vivi Dollin and (her fiancée) Ryan Fleischer.