A couple of weeks ago I attended the Israel rally in Ottawa. The afternoon on Parliament Hill was set to be a day of hope, commemoration, unity, and…. cold. The first of the major snowfalls was set to hit both Ottawa and Montreal the night before the rally and so we were gearing up not only in mind and spirit but also in attire.
When we arrived for the 1:30 PM start time, the snow had finished falling and the temperature was normal (well, “Canadian normal”). Flags were raised high, songs were being sung, and the snow under our feet seemed to be melting. About halfway through the program, the temperature started to shift. The sky started to turn a thick white and the snow started falling. Not just light snow, but huge beautiful snowflakes. The temperature was also starting to drop and people were increasingly starting to shuffle their legs for warmth. It was around that time that the whisperings began. People in hushed voices commenting to one another about the snowflakes. Specifically, the shape of the snowflakes, which had appeared to take on the form of the Magen David, the Jewish Star of David. “Could it be?”, we all wondered both during the rally and then afterward, as the photos circulated amongst many a text thread. These were not the usual snowflakes that we regularly see in our Winter days… Was it possible that the words of hope and prayers from the speakers were miraculously being heard and these Magen David snowflakes were a sign from above?
That had to be it. After all, we saw it with our own eyes.
The term is called “wishful seeing”, and it is one type of “motivated perception”, which refers to seeing things that we want to see. Where our desire to see something is so strong that it influences the way we see it. It can also be considered a type of “synchronicity”, a concept first introduced by Carl Jung that refers to one’s subjective experience making meaningful connections between coincidences even when, to the outside world, they are causally unrelated to one another. As human beings, we tend to do this as a means of interpreting information in a way that suits our needs and protects us. Over time, this process has evolved to keep us safe; yet in some instances, it can also work against us, as it allows us to only see and take in the information that we want to interpret.
“Confirmation Bias and “Selective Perception” are other types of “motivated perception”, with the former being the one that we hear most about these days describing the way people tend to seek out information that supports their preconceived notions instead of allowing themselves to also consider contradictory information that might challenge their already-formed ideas. “Selective perception” is the process by which humans, consciously or unconsciously, select, categorize, and analyze stimuli from the environment. It can be extremely useful in daily functioning, as it allows people to focus on one task at hand, but it can also be limiting as it lends itself to selectively take in only the information that aligns with one’s existing beliefs and goals.
But let’s get back to that “wishful seeing” of those Star of David snowflakes at the rally.
There is no arguing the fact that the snowflakes people observed most certainly took on the shape of the Star of David, but this phenomenon was caused by the atmospheric conditions in which the flakes had fallen. Every snowflake has 6 sides. As a snowflake grows, parts form off the side depending on the temperature and the water that’s available within the atmosphere. These atmospheric conditions therefore cause the different types of complex shapes that result from the bonding between the hydrogen and oxygen molecules within the water itself as it freezes. The 6-pointed Star of David snowflakes were not miraculous, but rather due to a result of the atmospheric conditions at the time. What was also unique to this snowfall was that these snowflakes remained separated from each other after falling, which made it easy to see their exact shape.
Now, with that being said, perhaps the snowflakes themselves were not miraculous, but something could be said for the fact that both the temperature and atmospheric conditions were the perfect combination to allow these snowflakes to take on the shape of the Star of David.
