As we approach the middle of Exodus, we read about one miracle after another. Last week, it was the plagues and the redemption from Egypt. This week it is the crossing of the sea. And as Exodus continues, we will read about even greater miracles – the miracle of the infinite God talking to us at Sinai, and of the possibility that through kindness, through caring, we can create a place where God can dwell.

What does it mean to believe in miracles? Perhaps, it’s a willingness to look back on our lives and to say, “How did I get so lucky?”

The crossing of the sea was an epic event – unique in all of history. It’s easy to imagine the Israelites arriving at the far shore and wondering “How did I get here? How did I manage to survive?”

But as a cancer survivor, I can ask myself the same question. How did I manage to survive? How is it that I managed to find the right doctors, that I was born in an age where medical technology is so advanced?

And anyone who’s met their intended, who’s been present at a wedding or the birth of a baby can ask the same thing. How did I get so lucky?

The crossing of the sea, the birth of a child, the ability to stand, all of these are miracles beyond our ability to imagine.

The Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Chassidism, taught that miracles are all around us. But we take our little hand and cover our eyes, and we do not see. And Chaim Stern, the author of the old Reform prayer book wrote:

Days pass and years vanish, and we walk sightless among miracles. “God, fill our eyes with seeing and our minds with knowing; Let there be moments when Your Presence, like bolts of lightning, illuminates the darkness in which we walk. Help us to see that wherever we gaze, that the bush burns unconsumed. And we, clay touched by God, will reach out for holiness, and exclaim in wonder: How filled with awe is this place and we did not know it!

How do we find the miracles? Perhaps, we find them by doing what Moses did – by turning aside to look, by wondering why the bush burns unconsumed.

And perhaps, it’s by being honest with ourselves, by admitting that we are not so strong as we imagine ourselves to be. As Americans, we love the image of the self-made man.

But none of us are really self-made. We all have people who give us a tip and steer us in the right direction. And all have people who love us, who comfort us and support us through life’s storms. And perhaps, this is the greatest miracle of all – that we’re able to find people who care about us, people who will help us.

To be a Jew is to face the true difficulty of life, to know that life is never easy. And from that place of honesty, from that place of vulnerability, there’s only one thing we can say: “It’s a miracle to be alive.”

This is the grace that Judaism teaches us – the grace to know that none of us get through this world alone. We are all helped by people who love us, and we are all helped by unseen forces – by our communities, by Torah, and by the unseen force we call God.

And in grace, in honesty, and in vulnerability, we can begin to see the miracles around us. And all of us can say l’chaim, to life.