Siman Tov: Making Sense of the Coincidental and Beyond

Transcript Siman Tov: Making Sense of the Coincidental and Beyond Rabbi Andrew Kaplan Mandel | Parashat Bereshit | October 9, 2026 For those of you with me on Rosh Hashanah, yes, I still have my ring, and yes, I have another true story for you. I spent the morning after Yom Kippur at the Botanical Garden in the Bronx. When I exited, I saw some Citi Bikes, so I decided to take one toward Manhattan. On my ride, I looked up and saw a sign that said Fairmount Place, and I realized my Grandma Shirlee, zichrona livracha , grew up there. I had never been, nor even knew where in the Bronx it was. When I consulted my Ancestry app, I saw her apartment was a block and a half up the hill. To get there, I rode past a modest community park called the Miracle Garden. As I did, I recalled that I made a big to-do this summer of finding my other grandmother’s birthplace in Montreal. How curiously serendipitous to find myself at this important address. Next stop on my adventure: the Museum of the City of New York. I was exploring an exhibit on the third floor when I felt something tickle my neck. I moved suddenly to watch a monarch butterfly flutter its way to the wall. Odd, but I continued to peruse this indoor exhibit when a security guard approached me. “Is that your butterfly?” he asked. “What?” “Does that butterfly belong to you? I saw you come in with it on your shirt.” “I had no idea. No, it’s not mine.” He said, “Okay, well, I’ll take care of it,” before disappearing. Something in his tone made me uneasy. So I made a beeline for the butterfly. I held out a finger. I had to capture evidence, and no, this is not AI. I placed it back on my shirt, and it remained there for the rest of the visit. I decided to take it outside, eventually finding a nice leaf on a branch across the street. When I got back to Central, I spoke separately with two different colleagues who were each having a hard day and with whom I felt drawn to share my story. The first was preparing for a hospital visit and told me that, after her uncle died, the music in his home inexplicably turned on, playing a song about a butterfly. The family has associated butterflies with him ever since. The second colleague told me she had been missing her mother of blessed memory, and I said that we should have dinner the next day. But I also took a leap and asked her if, by chance, butterflies meant anything to her. She started crying and pulled from under her shirt collar a necklace of a butterfly, which she bought to honor her mom. That moment together felt otherworldly. Then, on that Shabbat morning, I was talking with a congregant about remembering loved ones when she told me about a friend whose death prompted the tattoo she has on her ankle. Under her sock, I shook my head to discover, was a butterfly. This Torah we are beginning tonight is full of signs and wonders. In just two weeks, Abraham will hear a voice that calls out “Lech Lecha.” Soon, Joseph will interpret dreams. Later, Moses will notice a burning bush. Our ancestors passed down this scroll in large part to share with us their remarkable encounters with the Eternal But today, how do we relate to phenomena difficult to explain, what some call coincidences but can definitely feel like communication from beyond? When I told my museum story to some friends, a few asked if I had sugar in my pocket, or wondered if the butterfly had been with me since the Botanical Garden. I understand the impulse to seek rational explanations for strange events. On the other hand, about a month ago, I just so happened to be reading a book called Signs by a medium, who is certain that those who have died send messages of peace and reassurance to us, and we can become attuned to that spiritual language. Where do Jewish sources stand on the question of supernatural messages? Well, we are taught to be open to the wonders of the world whose creation we celebrate tonight. A midrash states it was during twilight on the sixth day, right before the first Shabbat, that G-d created wonders such as the rainbow, the manna that would sustain the Israelites, and Miriam’s traveling well. This teaching suggests that G-d embedded miracles in the universe from the start, just waiting for their moment to appear. Even after the time of the biblical prophets who spoke with G-d, the rabbis still described hearing the bat kol , literally “the daughter of a voice,” an echo of divine speech. Perhaps those echoes take the form of dreams or unusual experiences. We may need to listen harder than our ancestors did, but we may be receptive to the reverberations of revelation. At the same time, we are told to hold our interpretations lightly. The Talmud calls dreams “one-sixtieth of prophecy.” We can recognize there’s something special we’re experiencing without thinking we possess the whole truth. That may be a good rule of thumb for signs as well. If I had simply decided that the butterfly was my grandma and she wanted me to know she was always by my side, I might never have asked whether the butterfly meant something to anyone else, and I might have missed connecting so deeply with others. Better to remain open to multiple possibilities. Moreover, we should be very discerning about the action we take as a result of an encounter. The Talmud cautions against the moment when interpretation becomes divination, when a sign begins making choices for us. If a ferry that we were going to board anyway arrives unexpectedly, that’s something the Talmud calls a siman - as in a siman tov , a good sign. We might take it to mean we are surrounded by providence. But if I let a butterfly make my life decisions, I run the risk of surrendering responsibility for what happens next. That trip to Vegas was the former caterpillar’s fault! Instead, we can simply see the sign itself as the gift. I know people who keep seeing a particular number associated with someone they have lost, and it helps them feel connected. They don’t always stop to decide whether the person sent it, or whether love has made them especially alert to it. They simply say, “Thank you.” Receiving a sign with gratitude is one kosher response. But what other meanings might we derive? Pirkei Avot describes a bat kol calling us back to Torah every day. Perhaps that gives us a way to discern: Does our interpretation draw us toward Torah’s values? If it leads us to appreciate our lives, to care for our fellow humans, to honor our grandmother, we’re on solid ground. The way we study Torah can also train us to approach our own extraordinary experiences: attentive to patterns and irregularities, open to more than one interpretation, in dialogue with others, and listening for what calls us to live with greater love. That attention might help us identify with Jacob in six weeks, when he awakens from a dream and says: “G-d is in this place, and I did not know it.” So let’s keep our eyes open for a sign like Fairmount Place, our hearts open for a butterfly looking for a place to rest, and our minds open to what it all might mean. Whether we call it coincidence or a G-d wink, may what we encounter become a siman tov in this Miracle Garden of Creation.