Miracles in our lives

During Hanukkah, I always reflect on the miracles that have happened in my life.

In my book, “Pathfinding,” I share one of those miracles:

“I was in the final stages of producing a television documentary on Positive Aging in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. We were going to end the documentary with an older gentleman who was featured in the closing segment. He had brought photographs he thought would be perfect for the ending. When we disagreed about several of his selections, he became difficult. He finally stormed out of the studio, leaving me without a completed documentary and without very much time to find available talent.

“I sat in the conference room wondering how on earth I was going to fix the broken ending, when the receptionist entered the conference room unannounced. She was carrying a package addressed to me. I was flabbergasted. I only worked in the studio once a month. Any mail addressed to me usually laid in my in-box, awaiting my arrival. This particular package arrived and was delivered to me the day I was there.

“The package contained a national press release from Houston, Texas announcing a senior sports classics competition. One of the people featured was the 102-year-old golfer named Harley Potter. …. He was from – you guessed it – Winston-Salem. I’m sitting in a conference room at the Fox TV affiliate in Winston-Salem approximately twenty minutes away from an octogenarian who would be the perfect closing story for my documentary.

“I called his 75-year-old daughter and she arranged for me to meet them at the local club where he played golf almost daily. The rest, as they say, is history – or should I say miraculous history. When events like this unfold, I believe there has to be a guiding hand that waves some sort of cosmic wand, which transforms ordinary experiences into extraordinary events.”

On aish.com, in Rabbi Hillel Goldberg’s article, “Was There a Hanukkah Miracle?,” he shares a miracle story from Harley A. Rotbart’s book, “Miracles We Have Seen.” After sharing the story, Rabbi Goldberg writes, “I believe that we credit ancient miracles which contradict the laws of nature in direct proportion to the extent that we perceive the supernatural in our own lives.”

He continues, “The supernatural emerges in the world of the everyday…. Sometimes we miss this by expecting the supernatural to be always bright and miraculous. We miss the ways in which the supernatural testifies to the infusion of God in human affairs.

“But if we do not miss the invasion of the supernatural in our affairs, it becomes credible to believe that indeed there was an invasion of the supernatural in a way that contradicted the natural course of human events – as in the Hanukkah miracle.”

PATRICIA RASKIN, owner of Raskin Resources Productions, is a media host, coach and award-winning radio producer and business owner. She is on the board of directors of Temple Emanu-El, in Providence. She is a recipient of the Providence Business News 2020 Leaders and Achievers award