The Chovos Halevavos gives a mashal of a person who sees a page written with perfectly formed letters, lines that are properly aligned, and words that express a comprehensive message. When he asks who wrote it, he is told, "No one wrote it. Ink spilled, and this is what came out." Who would believe that?
Or, let's say you ask, "Who built this table?" and you are told, "No one built it. There was a lot of wood in this room. A strong wind blew, and the pieces came together and formed this table." Once again, no one would believe that.
A third example is if you ask your fellow man where he bought his eyeglasses. He replies, "My cat ran into an optical store and ran over the frames and lenses. The storeowner couldn’t chase the cat out of the store. By the time I got there, the pieces the cat stirred up formed this pair of eyeglasses. The storeowner was so surprised that it was so well put together that he let me keep the glasses for free." Once again, we don’t believe him. Eyeglasses won't be formed by running over metal frames and glass pieces.
The world is much more complex and even more detailed than the first example we gave. So why is it hard for people to recognize that Hashem created the world and didn’t happen by chance? It should be obvious that Hashem created the world!
Rebbe Bunim of Peshischa zt'l (מנחם צמח) answers that creation has two miracles: One miracle is the wonders of creation. The second miracle of Creation is that people see these wonders all the time, and they don’t recognize them. And even if they realize the wonders, they have a blind spot that prevents them from connecting the dots and recognizing that the world was created by Hashem. They find endless wisdom, beauty, design, and order wherever they look. It is mindboggling, and even more mindboggling, that they don't recognize the obvious- there is a Creator.
Rebbe Bunim says the second miracle is an even greater wonder than the first. That people can live in the world and not recognize Hashem is a more incredible wonder than the wonders of creation.
It states (Tehillim 92), עמקו מאוד ,'ה מעשיך גדלו מה מחשבותיך, Creation is great, wonderful, fascinating, and yet, יבין לא וכסיל ידע לא בער איש זאת את the fools see all of this, and they don’t recognize Hashem! And that is the greatest wonder.
To grasp the extent of this miracle, we'll talk about a person walking through a very busy construction site. Powerful drills are cutting through a mountain, and monstrous tractors lift the stones hewn from the mountain and pour them into large trucks. Cement trucks are also at other parts of the site, pouring the foundation. Giant cranes are laying the prefabricated apartments. Many builders are at the site, and everyone is busy doing his job.
The person walking through the site is deep in thought. Perhaps he is thinking about money or maybe even about Torah. He is totally oblivious to what is going on. He doesn't see the tractors or the workers... Fortunately, he doesn’t fall into one of the many pits, and he isn’t harmed by the construction.
When he reaches the other side, someone asks him, "What do you say to all the construction? It is quite amazing. There is so much noise; so many things are happening at once..." He replies, "What construction site? I didn’t see any construction." "That doesn’t sound right. How did you walk through without seeing and without hearing what's going on? It’s amazing." It is even more amazing to be in this world and not recognize Hashem's wonders.
Reb Shmuel Tchuliner zt'l (a student of Reb Moshe of Kobrin zt'l) once enjoyed a certain chesed from Hashem, and he didn’t stop speaking about it. He would tell whoever came to his house, "Did you hear what happened to me?" and he repeated the miracle and kindness that Hashem did for him. After a while, his family asked him why he kept talking about this same miracle. Reb Shmuel Tchuliner replied, “The Or HaChaim says, 'The yetzer hara's first ploy is to cause a person to forget Hashem’s kindness,' and therefore I’m constantly repeating it to myself so that I shouldn’t forget."
Many people say this Midrash as a segulah to find something they lost. The truth is that it isn't just a segulah. The awareness that you can't see anything without Hashem's help increases your merits, and due to this awareness, Hashem will show you what you need to find.
But that is one of the miracles of creation: that people can be in this wondrous world and have free choice to deny what they are seeing.
This lesson also applies to Hashem's hashgachah. Hashem's hashgachah is wherever we look. Hashem sends us parnassah, arranges shidduchim, guards our health, directs us in all aspects of our lives, and we take it for granted. We don’t see the wonders that happen before our eyes every day, every second. As it states (Devarim 8:17), בלבבך ואמרת הזה החיל את לי עשה ידי ועוצם כוחי, "You say in your heart, 'My strength and the might of my arm earned me my wealth.'"
Tzaddikim said that ידי עוצם hints at this problem, as עוצם alludes to עינים עצימת, closing the eyes. Because the yetzer hara closes people's eyes until they think they succeed on their own. Hashem performs miracles for them all the time; they are blind and don’t notice.
How can they be so blind? The miracles of Hashem's hashgachah are clearly revealed. But the answer is as Rebbe Bunim of Peshischa taught us, one of the miracles of creation, actually the greatest miracle, that people can close their eyes and not see what is so obvious.
