First Blessing 14: Providence Part 3

“Elokainu vei’lokei avoteinu” Continued:

General Providence and Individual Providence:

When I pray my Amidah, I am not coming from within a vacuum, all by myself. I am part of an almost infinite Creation. Definitely from my perspective, Creation is infinite. All the number of different permutations of life are almost beyond human comprehension. Cells, atoms, whatever it is. It’s even larger than a googol. And it is so important to understand that I’m not alone; I’m part of this much larger Creation. Lest I feel I am getting lost, we stress Elokainu – Individual Providence. The only way General Providence is complete is if I am whole as an individual. That is the whole balance that we are attempting to strike in the first bracha of Amidah, which is the blessing of Avot – ancestry. We are addressing this broad landscape of the Jewish people, not only as we live now, but also the ancestry of the Jewish people. We bond with the past and our very great history.