Even as we express wonder at the Miracle of Chanukah, people may wonder: why don’t we see miracles today?

So let’s start with children. They have it made, as their parents serve them like royalty. When hungry, he or she is immediately fed. When hurt, a parent is right there with a kiss to make it better. Kids are lovingly tucked to sleep at night and dressed in the morning.

However, this comfortable life doesn't last forever. The parents’ hand gradually withdraws as the child grows. For babies to become toddlers, they must learn to stand and walk on their own two feet, feed themselves, and look after some of their needs. Soon they go off to school without their parents.

Kids turn into teenagers who always know better, asserting their independence and dismissing parental advice to find their own way.

This rebellion is part of the maturation process, and parents must, to some extent, let go and allow the teenager to learn from his own mistakes. Only then can a child become a fully developed individual. But while not interfering directly, the parent never really withdraws his love and attention, continuing to oversee his child’s every move, subtly influencing his direction, albeit from the sidelines.
It’s not just teenager stuff; all of humanity has experienced a similar maturation. In the early Biblical times, G-d acted as the loving parent providing our needs. He instructed us how to live, showered us with Manna from Heaven, and miraculously shielded us from harm. The wicked were punished, and the righteous were rewarded.

That was in our infancy, when we had yet to develop the spiritual tools to relate to G-d in a more mature way, so He spoon-fed us with outright miracles.

But as we developed, G-d seemed to withdraw. Like a parent gradually allowing a child more freedom, G-d concealed his involvement in worldly affairs.

G-d is just as present now as He was then, pulling the strings of history and human destiny in a less obvious way. Rather than performing dramatic miracles, He hides behind the coincidences, twists and turns of life that seem random and arbitrary, but on reflection, are actually the Hand of G-d.

Humanity went through adolescence, throwing off the yoke of our Heavenly Parent. Belief in G-d was dismissed as a childish crutch and a myth. But having learnt from our adolescent mistakes, we are maturing to realize that our Parent's values are not suppressive but liberating. We seek to reconnect with G-d and yearn for Moshiach - not as children who need miracles to convince us, but as spiritual adults who discern the magic in the everyday, and the Divine within the mundane.

We’re finally coming of age, and perhaps this is the greatest miracle of all.