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Following happened to me: I took randomly a book on the last Shabbat and started read. I've read there an explanation of a certain pasuk which I saw for the first time. Leaving out many details but after Shabbat I happened to listen to a shiur and the Rabbi started to speak off topic and told exact the words which I read in the book a few hours before.

Is there a mention of such a phenomenon in our sfarim? It happened already a few times to me that I learned the same thing in between a few hours from two different sources. I would like to see some sources which may explain what the exact message is, that Hashem is sending me.

Danny Schoemann
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yosef
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    I often experience it to. I help out on a parashah sheet. It is very often that a thought I hadn't heard before shows up in multiple handouts and then again in the rabbi's speech Shabbo morning.

    There is a second reason why such things happen... common cause. This wouldn't explain your book, unless it's a new book, but it could be that something happened this past year that cause a number of people to think in the same direction.

     – Micha Berger Feb 01 '16 at 12:01

2 Answers2

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This is called the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon. It happens when you notice something new or unique and then it seems like it keeps on coming up. It's just a psychological phenomenon and it's well known. What basically happens is that you notice something ordinary once, and after that happens you are kind of tuned in to see it happen other times when you wouldn't have otherwise paid much attention. Like when you notice how many of a particular car there are on the road after you get that same car, but on a different scale. The phenomenon itself is named after someone heard the name Baader-Meinhof twice within 24 hours, which seemed odd. So for you, you come across a unique passage among countless unique passages, and if you happen to come across one of those passages again, you notice.

Another way to look at it: There are lots of new things you come across over time, and once in a while, statistically, there will be a coincidence where you see the same thing twice. This happens by itself. It happens in statistical simulations. It happens to people of all religions. And it doesn't necessarily need any supernatural message behind it. If it never ever happened, that would actually be weird.

Our brains are not well suited for intuiting these kinds of statistical events, whereas they are basically pattern-seeking machines. Sometimes we can notice a pattern that isn't even there. That's what happens here. Since the statistics are normal but we notice as being uncanny, that's why it's a psychological phenomenon.

You may be interested in asking a different, more general question though, about reading into things from everyday life as signs or messages.

A L
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    I know that you can explain it that way. Basically you can explain almost everything naturally and thats the source of free will. I was asking explicitly for a source from our holy sfarim,because I want to know if there might be a message from hashem in that situation as we believe that even nature is completly governed by hashem, may his name be blessed ( teva is gematria elokim), – yosef Jan 31 '16 at 22:09
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    @yosef I understand what you mean. But people often suffer the fallacy of disproportionally reading into something simply because they don't understand it. Did you know about Baader-Meinhof before hand? My point is that as this is as a natural phenomenon as anything, you shouldn't assume there is more behind it than anything else, unless you have other details to add to your question that would give provide reason to say otherwise. – A L Jan 31 '16 at 23:03
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    @yosef Having said that, my answer doesn't preclude, and it would be an interesting addition to see, someone else bringing a source of Rabbis discussing this. I personally am not familiar with any sources discussing such an "I noticed this thing twice" sort of thing. I have seen related things in the Gemara, though, that discuss meanings of signs in dreams and such. – A L Jan 31 '16 at 23:16
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    @yosef The point is you can ask two questions: "why is the natural world of form X" and "why does this deviate from the natural order". Your question conflates the two, by asking what to learn from a specific occurrence of a natural phenomenon. You don't learn anything from that, other than God didn't want to wrought a miracle for you at that moment. What you might consider asking about next is why God created the world such that this is the way things work. – Double AA Feb 01 '16 at 01:14
  • The B.-M. phenomenon is not relevant to the case of the questioner. It explains how someone would notice something that's frequently in his surroundings after having noticed it once. A Mazda-3 is frequently in his surroundings; a particular pshat in a particular pasuk is not. He may never hear that pshat ever again. For this to be explained by the B.-M. phenomenon, he'd have to begin noticing that pshat subsequently again and again, which often is not the case. All you're really answering is that it's a coincidence; the B.-M. phenomenon is irrelevant here. – Jay Aug 08 '16 at 04:04
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    @Jay I'm not sure that's true, or at least it's not the main part. After all the phanamanon is named after a person hearing the name Baader-Meinhof just twice in 24 hours. Whether you see a particular car 20 times after you notice it, hear a particular song 5 times after you first hear it, or read a Halacha 1 or 2 times after you first notice it, the phenomenon is the same, just with a different scale. The important aspect is that once you notice something once, you are more prone to notice that specific thing next time it comes up. – A L Aug 08 '16 at 04:53
  • @AL - If that's all it is, it's the equivalent of saying, 'if you meet someone and then see him the next day, you will recognize him'. Obviously, for this we don't need a specially named phenomenon. No, the way it is defined in the source he brought it refers to the feeling that you are suddenly seeing it more frequently. Wikipedia calls it "The illusion in which a word, a name, or other thing that has recently come to one's attention suddenly seems to appear with improbable frequency shortly afterwards.... Colloquially, this illusion is known as the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon". – Jay Aug 08 '16 at 14:36
  • @AL - In addition, even if you were right that it refers even to an unusual event that only occurs one more time - it wouldn't answer anything - the questioner already knows why he noticed it the 2nd time, that's not what he finds strange - it's the unlikeliness of immediately encountering something so unusual again. This phenomenon does not address this. – Jay Aug 08 '16 at 14:46
  • @Jay So I think you're saying that it just describes when someone starts noticing something crop up more than it should, and that this doesn't really even answer why it crops up in the first place. And it's really no different than just being able to notice someone after you meet them. So in response, I would say that it's sort of related. This is different from just recognizing someone after you see them once in normal way. It's more like randomly coming across that person totally unexpectedly somewhere else shortly after you met them, to the point you think it's uncanny. – A L Aug 08 '16 at 17:59
  • @Jay Regarding frequency, I would say that what is considered an unusual frequency depends on the situation. Sometimes it is uncanny after seeing something once, sometimes after 20 times. That really isn't what's important. – A L Aug 08 '16 at 18:00
  • @Jay And regarding the cause: Though I only touched on it in my answer, the cause is just statistics. This sort of thing will happen to most people one way or another or multiple times. I encourage you to calculate the odds of a person every day hears three unique names, so unique that you wouldn't expect to hear that name more than once per year on average. Over three years, he's heard 1095 strange names, a large number of them duplicates 2-4 times spread out over those three years. – A L Aug 08 '16 at 18:00
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    @Jay If you were to randomly shuffle the placement of those 1095 names, you have high odds that two names would show up near each other in that list at least once. If it happens in a simulation, you shouldn't be surprised when it happens in reality. The phenomenon is just that people are surprised when it happens, and the explanation is that our brains aren't well equipt to understand these statistics. – A L Aug 08 '16 at 18:01
  • @Jay So the point is, these things do happen, and when it happens people have a psychological tendency to consider it uncanny even though there's no basis to justify that. And it happens to everyone, not just because Jesus and Vishnu are also giving messages to their believers, it's because it just happens. When it happens, that is by itself no reason to think something supernatural is going on to give him a message. It's how the world works. As I've said earlier, if he wants to ask a broader question about reading into coincidences in general or different things in the world, he can. – A L Aug 08 '16 at 18:01
  • @Jay And about our brains not being equipt to deal with these sorts of statistics: What our brains are built to do is to notice patterns. Sometimes we notice them when they aren't even there. Which makes it more likely to take note of coming across the same thing twice. There is a lot of science on these things if you want to look into it, but there's really nothing unusual going on in this person's question. – A L Aug 08 '16 at 18:08
  • @AL - Thank you for the lengthy reply. Yes, I understood the 'coincidence/statistical' part of your answer and I am not arguing with it. My main point is that the questioner wasn't wondering, "Why was I prone to notice the pshat again", but rather, "Why did I encounter it a second time so soon?" - and the B.-M. phenomenon doesn't speak to this at all, hence it's irrelevant to this particular question. The 'coincidence' part of your answer does speak to it, but it is not dependent on the B.-M. phenomenon. – Jay Aug 08 '16 at 18:29
  • @Jay Okay, good I was able to clarify. I guess to your last point I would just say that noticing this specific type of coincidence within this short period of time is simply what B.-M. describes. You could just say coincidence and leave it at that, this just describes this specific sort of coincidence, so since the questioner was asking about this specifically, I brought it up. – A L Aug 08 '16 at 18:44
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My Rebbe likes to call this sort of thing a "mistaya l'milsa," a support for the thing. (Not sure where he got it from, but there you go.) He would specifically apply it to pesukim from the weekly parshah that appeared in whatever sugya we would happen to be learning, but I don't see why the term couldn't be extended. He'd say it's like a subtle(ish) wink from Hashem that you're doing something right.

DonielF
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  • How does he know that? Has he established a statistical relationship between the week's parsha and how often verses he comes across are from it? Not to diminish what you're saying, but it kind of reminds me of people who believe in astrology, that their horoscope really applies to them... Until studies show that they apply equally well to people of any zodiac sign. So when I hear this kind of thing, I always want to know how they can distinguish between a supernatural correlation and things just being that way. – A L Aug 09 '16 at 02:07