All special natural phenomena such as earthquakes, comets, meteorites, thunder and lightning are more than the mere “natural forces” that we might see them as. When I was not much more than a toddler I recall my parents asking if their house insurance covered damage through “acts of God”, such as hurricanes that were prevalent (and still are) on the eastern coast of the US. If these are “acts of God” I would think they happen for a special reason and are not just mere random acts of nature.
We humans tend to seek natural explanations for all that happens in the world. We’re taught it in school and we read it in books: Everything can be explained by the science of cause and effect. From time to time, God reminds us that nature does not work on its own; as we say in our daily prayers “in His goodness, God, every day, recreates and renews Creation.” The trauma of a huge meteorite hitting earth or the occurrence of any unusual and awesome “natural” phenomenon reminds us that there is a God who created nature and who controls nature.
The explosion of the meteorite shocked us back into the realization that it is God who runs the world. This is the reason why we are taught to say special blessings when we hear thunder and see lightning and experience special powerful events in the natural world. These blessings attest to our belief that God is the One who constantly renews and perpetuates created existence, and it is His power that fills the world. A Jew experiences the unexpected events of nature, be it a meteorite shower, an earthquake, or thunder, as a wake-up call. When the walls quiver and the floor shakes beneath his feet, a Jew doesn’t think about the meteorological or the geological explanation of these events that he learned in school. He thinks: “God is speaking to me”.
