the 248 limbs in the body and the 248 negative commandments derives from precedents in rabbinic literature,36 the invocation of the 365 tendons in connection with the 365 positive commandments is apparently original to this Pietistic source.37
A somewhat more complex use of this type of argumentation appears in Judah’s and Eleazar’s discussions of emotion and cognition. Eleazar, for instance, argues, “The Creator is in everything, and all things derive from Him. And should one’s heart say, ‘How can I believe that there is a God in the world, when no eye has seen Him?’ … The very intellect and thoughts in one’s heart—were one to dissect a person limb from limb, one could not find the intellect. How much more so does the Creator of all exist even though He cannot be seen. Similarly, how connected is a man’s heart when he sees a woman and desires her!”38 The somewhat cryptic final line of this passage is explicable based on a parallel in the writings of Judah: “A man sees a woman from afar, and love is awakened in his heart, even though no ties of love connect her to his heart.”39 Love and desire, the Pietists explain, are invisible forces, like the intellect; nonetheless, they can act at a distance, and still impact the human body physically: “He has created a remembrance of His wonders…. Thought alone can cause a person to fatten or to deteriorate, as it says, ‘Good news fattens one’s bones’ (Prov. 15:30), and depression weakens a person…. These [physical consequences] are dependent on thought, without evidence of any action.”40 Other emotions, too, confirm that invisible forces can have powerfully visible effects: “Laughter and anger are dependent upon thought, and we never see any [physical] thing that brings one to anger or laughter—only thought and reflection and contemplation.”41
Perhaps the clearest articulation of the naturalistic worldview underlying the doctrine of zekher asah le-nifle’otav can be found in Judah’s and Eleazar’s repeated references to the regularity and consistency of phenomena such as the progression of the celestial bodies, or the duration of the reproductive process. Judah, for instance, argues,
He has created a remembrance of His wonders…. “There is nothing new under the sun” (Eccl. 1:9), so that man should never think that something occurs against God’s will, or that maybe a second [divine] power can abrogate the actions of the first one. It is for this reason that [God] set the time and duration of reproduction, each animal and plant species as is customary for it, and the times of planting and harvesting, each in its proper time. And He has never changed and never will change these customs…. This is in order that one not think that there is a second God who can contradict the first God. Thus, our sages have said, “The world follows its customary course” (olam ke-minhago noheg) in all matters.42
The “supernatural” abrogation of the natural order, in this view, would threaten rather than reinforce knowledge of God’s “wonders.”
This privileging of the “customary course” which the world follows has surprising implications for the Pietistic conception of miracles, deviations from the natural order that overturn the regularity imposed by God on the physical world. With few exceptions,43 Pietistic sources minimize both the frequency and theological significance of direct divine interventions in the functioning of the natural order. Thus, Sefer Hasidim cautions that “one should seek to avoid miracles,”44 and that if one does experience a miracle, it should not be publicized to others.45 Similarly, the Pietists express discomfort with apparently miraculous events described in the Bible, and seem more comfortable with figures like Joshua and Samuel, who rarely performed public miracles, than with prophets like Elijah and Elisha, who were constantly the cause or beneficiary of interventions in the natural order.46 Indeed, in contrasting these figures with one another, Judah categorically asserts, “In times of great need, prophets may perform miracles, but only when the desired end cannot come about via non-miraculous means. When it is possible for it to come about by some other means, one must not perform a miracle. And when a minor miracle will suffice, one must not perform a great miracle.”47 Eleazar sums up this approach with a programmatic assertion: “It is not the way of God to effectuate the decrees that He is constantly effectuating through open miracles. Rather, [He brings his decrees about] through guidance of the world.”48
In cases where miracles do prove necessary, Judah emphasizes that God generally chooses to perform them in private, so as not to visibly interfere with the (spiritually resonant) typical workings of the natural order. The destruction of Dagon, the idolatrous god of the Philistines, recounted in I Samuel 5 takes place at night when no witnesses are present, as does the plague of the firstborns in Exodus 12. Even Elisha only resurrects the son of the Shunamite woman in II Kings 4 after first closing the door to his bedroom, ensuring that no one would observe the actual workings of the miraculous event. Judah interprets God’s criticism of Sarah’s laughter in Genesis 18 in this manner as well—laughing upon finding out that she would bear a son in her old age was her way of publicizing the miracle, which God in turn instructed her to avoid.49 The angelic instruction to Lot’s wife not to look upon the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah was an expression of the same desire to keep miracles hidden—her transformation into a pillar of salt was thus a punishment for her having violated the bounds of secrecy.50 The contrast with non-Pietistic interpretations of Psalms 111:4 is here particularly stark—in earlier sources, the pillar of salt into which Lot’s wife was transformed was precisely intended to commemorate and publicize God’s miraculous deeds.51 Discomfort with miraculous intervention also explains the Pietists’ conspicuous attempts to minimize the wondrousness of certain scriptural miracles. For example, the inexplicable blossoming of Aaron’s staff in the Tabernacle during Korah’s rebellion in Numbers 17 is described by the Pietists as rather mundane. In the context of a discussion of the rapidly blossoming trees of the Garden of Eden, Eleazar notes, “You should not be surprised—for Aaron’s staff produced fruit in a single night, without being planted. And truffles and mushrooms [grow] in a single day, without being planted or drawing [sustenance] from the ground. And cabbage produces sprouts, even when not [planted] in the ground.”52 Eleazar here takes an ostensibly miraculous occurrence and diminishes its significance by equating it with commonplace horticultural phenomena.
When it comes to prayer, too, miracles should neither be requested nor invoked as a means of praising God. According to Sefer Hasidim, one is prohibited from praying for miraculous interventions in the natural order53 and should not praise God for performing miracles with impunity: “‘Rejoice, oh righteous, in the Lord’ (Ps. 33:1)—but not in other joys…. This verse does not explain—what ‘joy’ is [accurate with regard to] the Holy One, blessed be He? Truth—one should not speak lies, [such as], ‘The Holy One, blessed be He, makes the heavens into earth, or the earth into the heavens, turns water into wine or honey into wormwood or wormwood into honey.’ Anything that does not usually happen should not be used to praise God.”54 In a similar passage elsewhere, Judah echoes this line of reasoning further, claiming that attributing wondrous miracles to God is not only unseemly, but also untrue. In other words, his commitment to the immutability of the natural order leads him to implicitly place limitations on God’s omnipotence. In addressing the talmudic prohibition on praising God in overly extravagant language,55 he writes: “If one were to ask: Since God is omnipotent … let us praise Him with all manner [of praises]. It is possible to respond that we ought to praise Him for those things he regularly, visibly does for humanity…. For it would not do to say that God can do anything, lest one think of things which are illogical, and thereby blaspheme the Exalted One. For instance, one might think, ‘Since He is omnipotent, why can he not make today precede yesterday, or [tomorrow] precede today?’56 For it is impossible for the past to follow the future [chronologically].”57 It is clear from these passages that both Judah and Eleazar much prefer the regularity, and even constraint, imposed by consistency and predictability over a worldview in which miracles play a destabilizing role. This antipathy toward changing the natural created order is predicated on the belief that that order is hardly haphazard—much less maleficent or antagonistic—but that it rather reflects God’s wisdom and desires.
Indeed,
