Is the Covid Vaccine a Miracle?

miracle : an extraordinary event manifesting divine intervention in human affairs
Miriam Webster

“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”
- (Attributed to) Albert Einstein

Ramban on Hidden Miracles
From the great and public miracles a man recognizes the hidden miracles, which are the foundation of the entire Torah, for a man has no part in the Torah of Moshe our teacher unless he believes that all our things and occurrences are all miracles and have no nature or the way of the world in them, whether communally or individually.......

Yehudah Amichai
From a distance everything looks like a miracle
but up close even a miracle doesn’t look like that.
Even someone who crossed the Red Sea when it split
saw only the sweating back
of the man in front of him
and the swaying of his big thighs,
or at best, in a hasty glance to one side,
fish in a riot of colors inside the wall of water,
as in a marine observatory behind panels of glass.
The real miracles happen at the next table
of a restaurant in Albuquerque:
two women sat there, one with a diagonal
zipper, altogether lovely,
and the other said, “I kept it together
and didn’t cry.”
And after in the red corridors
of the foreign hotel I saw
boys and girls who held in their arms
tiny children born of them,
and they held
sweet little dolls.

From "Sacred Fire" (Aish Kodesh) of Rabbi Kalonymos Kalmish Shapira
Miketz: December 9, 1939
G-d created the world so that His sovereignty should be revealed through it. But since he has created the world to run according to the laws and designs of nature, through cause and effect, there are times when a lengthy delay occurs while a situation evolves and develops before salvation comes and G-'s sovereignty is revealed. An example of this is when G-d's sovereignty and salvation are revealed through his healing of the sick. Since salvation and healing are camouflaged and dressed in causality, they may take the form of a particular medication or particular doctor. The doctor must pay his visit and the medication must be purchased, etc, and the who process develops and evolves. But when, G-d forbid, the sick person is in so much danger that he will not survive while the process takes its time to evolve, the Holy One, blessed be He, says, "Enough" (dai) to development and evolution. Then the salvation and sovereignty of heaven are revealed immediately and straight away.

Wonder is a state of mind in which we do not look at reality through the latticework of our memorized knowledge, in which nothing is taken for granted. Spiritually we cannot live by merely reiterating borrowed or inherited knowledge. Inquire of your soul what does it know, what does it take for granted. It will tell you only no-thing is taken for granted; each thing is a surprise; being is unbelievable. We are amazed at seeing anything at all, amazed not only at particular values and things but at the unexpectedness of being as such, at the fact that there is being at all."
— Abraham Joshua Heschel Man Is Not Alone

Duties of the Heart
As so too, it is not appropriate for a person to put themselves in danger while trusting on the decree of the Creator [that he will live a set time], drinking poisonous drink or going to battle lions or other dangerous animals without necessity, or to cast himself into the sea or into fire, or other similar things that a man is not sure of them and puts his life in danger. And the verse has already warned us in saying "You shall not try God" (Devarim 6:16), because either one of two things will happen.

From Tefilah L’Moshe:Leket Ma‘asiot, Tefilot, Segulot, U‘Refuot. (Jerusalem, Israel: Bet Midrash Or Shalom 1989) Translated by Rabbi Marc Rudolph
Marvels of the Amulet
Great are the Deeds of the Righteous
Many have already been privileged to use this amulet and have seen the great and marvelous miracles that have been wrought by it, in which the ill are healed, barren women concieve, and many saved from all sorts of sorrows and troubles. With God’s help, may he be blessed, these stories will continue to be told. Below, we will tell of a number of wondrous events where we were eye witness to the miraculous power of the amulet and to the merit of the Righteous One, may his virtues stand us in good stead.
…..Who Supports the Fallen
A young girl from Jerusalem, a year and one half, suffered heart contractions every time she had a fever. Notwithstanding the finest treatment, the doctors were unable to prevent her from passing out, a situation that deteriorated so much that she began to pass out a number of times each day. The parents were at their wits end in dealing with the serious condition of their daughter.
When the girl reached three years of age, the doctors threw up their hands in despair, and reported to the parents that they were powerless to help their daughter, that she would certainly become
disabled, and that she had little prospect for living a normal life.
One day I was thrown in with the parents in the hospital waiting room, and they told me about their sick daughter. I advised the parents to use the amulet. Being that the parents were moored to their daughter’s bed at the hospital, I volunteered to bring them the amulet. To tell the truth, even though they described to me the gloomy situation of this child, she looked seven times worse when I saw her than I had imagined; I trembled as I saw her having heart contractions right in her parents’ arms. I took out the amulet from its case and passed it to her father, so that he would place it on the child and recite the formula of the prayer.
However, the father froze in his tracks and was unable to do this, so I read the supplications and prayer, that, through the merit of our Rabbi Mordechai Sharabi, may his virtue stand us in good stead, God would send Refuah Shelmah, complete healing, to the girl immediately. Afterward the parents passed the amulet over their daughter as they fumbled through a prayer that help would come speedily before I went on my way! I told the parents about the strength of my belief in God, May He Be Blessed, and of His saving power which was close at hand.
Indeed, that very day it was noted that the girl took a turn for the better, in that her heart contractions diminished. After a few days, the parents asked me if they could use the amulet for a full night, and thus began a decisive change in the girl’s situation. To the astonishment of the doctors and the medical team, the contractions diminished in intensity until they ceased completely. The girl was released from the hospital and regained her strength, until, after a short period of time, she completely recovered and began nursery school.
It is difficult to find words to describe the joy of the parents when they personally witnessed the great saving power of God on their behalf, through the holy amulet, through the merit of the Light of the Seven Days of Creation, our Rabbi Mordechai Sharabi, of blessed and saintly memory.

Rabbi Shlomo Riskin
Efrat, Israel -- Over the last decade or so the appearance of charismatic religious personalities who claim unusual powers of healing and reveal divine communication which foretell future events have become more and more numerous even here in Israel. These wonder-working rabbis offer instantaneous remedies for a plethora of ills. If anything, the rational world that I grew up in - the "Brisk-Soloveitchik" intellectual vision of a religio-legal system which emphasizes rigorous analysis and individual responsibility and demands an unflinching commitment to serve the Divine - has given way to vials of holy water, special amulets for barren women and the mortally ill, promises of good fortune for those who vote for the proper political party, and the discovery of ways in which the divine can best serve our specific needs. At times it seems that the revelation at Sinai wasn't in the form of a nation struggling to perfect itself and the world with the help of 613 commandments of obligation but rather a mumbo-jumbo catalogue of magic cures, formulas and potions for every conceivable ailment or desire in the world. The snake-oil charmers of yesteryear have found a new public.
With Shavout, the festival of the giving of the Torah at Sinai, upon us, we should be aware that there is more than one way to dance around a golden calf, to succumb to simple, magical solutions for profound and existential problems......
This second view is rooted in the Talmud and provides an added significance to the festival of the Revelation at Sinai. There is a fascinating difference of opinion between Rabbi Eliezer and the Sages as to the purity of a specific type of oven, and - although Rabbi Eliezer's was a lone voice against the majority- he was convinced that his position was the correct one. Frustrated by the refusal of the Sages to accept his opinion, Rabbi Eliezer finally declares: "If the law is in agreement with my opinion, let a voice from heaven prove it!" Immediately a Heavenly Voice (bat-kol) cried out, 'Why do you dispute with Rabbi Eliezer seeing that in all matters the halacha agrees with him.' Nevertheless, the Sages reject Rabbi Eliezer's ruling since "(the law) is not longer in heaven; "The Torah has already been given at Mount Sinai, and so we pay no attention to a Heavenly Voice..." (B.T. Bava Mezia 59b).
The powerful message of this exchange leaves no room for doubt; the festival of Shavout celebrates the moment in time when G-d gave the Torah to the Israelites - and from then on our lives must be conducted based upon a logical and this-worldly interpretation of the sacred text, and not on the basis of heavenly voices or mystical amulets.
file:///G:/Senior%20Project/Ohr%20Torah%20Stone%20-%20Rabbi%20Riskin's%20Shabbat%20Shalom%20-%20Shavuot.htm

From: Kemiah : A Survey of Amulets and Healing from Biblical Times to Modern Israel
Unpublished Manuscript Rabbi Marc Rudolph 2004
The use of amulets continued in societies that were not touched by the Enlightenment -- including the Arabic speaking societies which were the ancient homes of the Jews of the Orient, and the traditional communities of Eastern Europe. They are the heirs of the tradition of the Hida, Hayyim Joseph David Azulai.
Today in modern Israel, many people turn to rabbis in times of crisis. Professor Felix Umansky, head of neurosurgery at Hadassah University Hospital Ein Kerem, notes that 90 percent of his patients, "religious and non-religious; professional and not professional" turn to rabbis for advice about which surgeon to use or simply to get a blessing. “I know some of these mystic, kabbalistic rabbis, who give patients a hamsa [a type of amulet] or special oil or small prayer books to put near the body," he says "They are not so acquainted with medicine. But I think it helps the patients psychologically." Gelford, Lauren. “Second Opinion” Jerusalem Post 29 June 2001 Internet edition www.pqasb.pqarchiver.com/jpost/

From Kemiah op.cit,
Fred Rosner, a professor of medicine at Mt. Sinai School of Medicine, has written extensively on the subject of medicine and religion in contemporary and ancient practice. He writes that “quackery, superstition, sorcery and withcraft are abhorrent practices in Judaism” but that “certain complementary or alternative therapies,” including the use of amulets, are sanctioned by Judaism. From a medical standpoint, he sees no problems with the use of amulets as alternative forms of healing, as long as they take their proper place alongside traditional scientific medicine.^[1] Rosner writes about a case he treated in 1962 of a five year old Sephardic girl with acute lymphoblastic leukemia. She was critically ill and near death. One afternoon, he came to her room and found that she had a little leather tune wrapped in plastic hanging around her neck:
I asked her parents, “What is that?” Somewhat startled, they replied,
“That is a kemiya which the chacham [Sephardic rabbi; literally, “wise
person”] wrote and which she must wear at all times, and it will cure her.”
I skeptically nodded in acquiescence.^[2]
The child survived this critical illness and thrived. Rosner asks a question that we must all wonder about:
Would she have been cured without the amulet? As a scientist, I
would answer that the systemic and intrathecal chemotherapy
produced a long survival. As an orthodox Jew, I wonder how much
of a role, if any, this complementary therapy played in the cure of this girl’s leukemia. The parents firmly believe it played a major role. Yet they complied with all the medical treatments and follow-up.