I have heard this story many many times and thought I would try and share it the best I can to get the message across… The story is told of a great sage who lived around 150 years ago, Rabbi Yisrael Lipkin better known as Rav Salanter due to his influence on the town he lived.
A non orthodox Jew in the mid 1800s came to see Rav salanter at his home in Salante Lithuania, questioning the existence of G-d and his performance of miracles. The man said to Rav salanter I would like to prove to you that G-d doesn’t exist and no longer performs miracles. He said ‘’here’s a piece of treife meat… If G-d still performs miracles and still exists I will be struck down the second I take a bite from this piece of meat’’ So the man took a bite of the meat and wasn’t struck down and killed and said to the Rav ‘’see I have just proved G-d’s lack of existence in our world’’. Rav salanter was speechless and couldn’t argue with him… A week or so later the man’s daughter had a celebratory meal in honour of getting her grade 8 piano award everyone in the town was invited including Rav Salanter… after the party the Rav asked to privately speak to the man and his daughter to which the man agreed and so they met.
The Rav first congratulated the man’s daughter on this amazing fete and then asked for a rendition of the piece she played to win the award. The man through his arms up in despair ‘’Rav do you not trust the certificate she has here‘’ he said ‘’8th grade piano at only 8 years old Rav that’s incredible’’ The Rav said back to the man ‘’exactly Mr schottenstein, that’s precisely my point I don’t need to hear her play, she has her certificate and im sure that when she plays behind closed doors she is still the fantastic piano player the certificate says she is T
his is exactly how we see G-d’s Existence, we have many certificates of His ability to Perform miracles we don’t have to ask Him to prove that He exists and that He still performs miracles. The biggest most amazing set of nature defying and mind boggling miracles happened over the pesach time. That is Hashem’s grade 8 certificate do we really need to ask Him to prove himself all the time when right in front of our eyes there are miracles happening even whil I am typing this.
We all know that without Hashem we would not have been saved from Egypt that is our certificate now we have that we have no reason to believe that He doesn’t exist. Hashem is still here and still performing miracles you might say that our Latest Certificate was the time you were born, surely that is proof enough of g-d’s existence!!
