Some folks can't get into the miracle thing. Everything has to be attributed to natural causes, or at least, to an extreme extent of probabilities within natural causes. In their books, the Plague of Blood was an ancient version of Lake Erie, the Splitting of the Sea of Reeds could be reproduced on a Hollywood set with big enough air blowers, and the Giving of the Torah was due to mass ingestion of certain fungi that grows at the foot of Mount Sinai. They have relegated the Ultimate Isifier of All Isness to isifying what already is, within the neat parameters of each particular isness. Miracles, they claim, never happened and cannot happen, because miracles are by definition impossible. The impossible doesn't happen, right?

Or does it? Well, how did existence get here? How does nothing become something? As my buddy, Blaise Pascal, put it, "Why is it that there is anything at all and not just nothing?" Your very existence, and the existence of all around you is totally impossible. And yet it's here. If existence can happen (and most of us agree that it does), then anything can happen.

The problem always comes down to a certain syndrome called anthropotheism. That's when G‑d creates us in His divine image and we return Him the favor. Since we can't create something out of nothing, we determine that it's not fair for Him to do that either. We assert that without hardware, software or an upgrade to CS4 Professional Edition, nothing can come into being—so He must have some sort of limitations on creativity when He generates our realm of being. When we create art, beauty, fine literature and KabbalaToons, we are limited to the parameters of our raw materials, human perception, Adobe product limitations (a.k.a. glitches that aren't scheduled to be fixed) and the effects of morning coffee on Pilar Newton. Once we've created it and it's out there and published, the techies won't let us manipulate or change a thing, because, hey they got a schedule to stick to and KToon work is not due until April 14^th of 2013 from 14:15–13:35 hours. Why should He get special dibs?

But the Infinite Light knows no such bounds. If His techies don't have room on their schedule for His latest nifty projects, He just isifies some more time. Or slows time down. Or stops it altogether and lets them do it within an isolated time-stream isified just for that purpose. If the rules of cause and effect don't get Him His desired outcome, He can always rewrite those rules. Or do it anyways, without rewriting the rules. Or decide that these rules will achieve His desired outcome no matter what--after all, whose rules are they anyways?

So at every moment He conjures an entire universe—stars, planets, galaxies, amoebas, broccoli and bosons—out of utter nothingness. And if you're doing that already, what's the big dif if the water stands upright like a wall on occasion? If I'm imagining a flowing, harmonious symphony in my mind, I'm allowed to take a solo whenever I want and improvise a little. If all is consistent and predictable, where is the beauty? Where is the author within his work?

That's all a miracle is, really: The Author making a cameo appearance within His ongoing work.

If you still can't hack the whole thing, you're not alone. The Maharal of Prague writes that the Egyptians also couldn't get into miracles. He goes so far as to say that when Pharaoh and his army stood at the banks of the Sea of Reeds as the Children of Israel passed through on dry land, they saw nothing spectacular. For them, it was a perfectly natural event—why else would they kamikaze the waters? (There is evidence that Pharaoh suffered an extreme obsessive-compulsive disorder, or may have just been a typical adolescent passing through a phase of defiance and exaggerated self-assertion, but this is insufficient to explain the behavior of his army. Unless they were all fourteen years old.)

The Children of Israel were able to not only witness the miracle, but jump in, hands on. Feet on, too. Why? Because they had been crushed by the oppression of their taskmasters. They felt small. And so, they left Egypt with simple faith.

That was the greatness of Moses, as well. Sure, we was a fearless hero, pragmatic leader, wise sage and award-winning teacher. But his greatest quality was his simpleness. "The fool believes everything," writes Solomon the wise, "but the wise understand." Who was the fool? The sages say this was Moses, who believed everything G‑d told him. Before G‑d, we are all fools, so to receive from Him, we must be small and simple.

The more a person relies exclusively on the judgment of his left-brain, order-fixated arrangement of the universe, the less of the universe he can fit inside that hunk of grey matter and the less he can expect miracles. Stand in awe and wonder, make yourself small, and always carry a red cape.