Even insignificant aspects of life may carry profound messages. Once in a while, we catch a glimpse of the deeper meaning behind a seemingly mundane object or event. A new dimension opens, revealing a richness and depth we never suspected.

As a young child, I developed a fascination with an obscure aquatic creature known as the mako shark. Why the mako shark, was always a mystery to me. To the few who appreciate it, the mako is uniquely powerful, sleek and fast. Ernest Hemingway and Zane Grey wrote about the mako with abundant praise; but after all, it is just a fish.

Many other interests came and went - airplanes, cars, rock music, and so on, each interest rising, peaking, then waning and disappearing, to be replaced by some new fancy. For some reason, my interest in the mako remained.

I was raised in an extremely assimilated family, with no acknowledgement of our Jewish identity. It was a mobile and rootless culture, typical of the South Florida suburbia where I grew up, with little real connection to time or place. This lack of depth was perhaps normal for young children, whose lives are largely focused on the immediate. As time went by, however, the rootlessness was expressed as a superficiality and lack of stability in maturing adolescents. Children with little sense of time or place developed into adults with little sense of time or place; lacking depth, responsibility or commitment.

Well into my twenties, I was introduced to Judaism, and connected with my roots. I gradually developed a strong connection to time and place, and eventually moved to Israel.

Many of my pre-Jewish interests, some of them major interests I had invested in as intended career paths, lost their sparkle. Yet my fascination in the mako shark remained.

Recently, in a moment of reflection, I had a flash of insight.

According to the secular-western belief system I grew up with, the mako shark represented something both very ancient and very advanced - something timeless. The mako shark is at the top of the marine food chain, and is arguably the fastest, most perfectly adapted, most functionally beautiful fish in the sea. While countless species of marine animals have died out or evolved into new species, the mako remained the same. The mako embodies such intrinsic excellence in form and function that it is practically beyond change.

I relate this on a metaphoric level to the Jewish people. We've been a distinct people for 3,500 years. We've outlived every other civilization, yet we're not relegated to the obsolesence. We're probably about as prominent and successful today as we've ever been, far from the bottom of the heap. Countless other groups have sprung up with their own religions, cultures, values and beliefs, and then disappeared - swallowed up into another group with its new religion, culture, values and beliefs. Although exiled all over the world, we’ve maintained our integrity; same people with the same Torah, values and beliefs.

We've outlasted "advanced" civilizations. Virtually every "progressive" society in western history, while at the peak of their power and glory, had close association with the "backward" Jews. Consider the ancient Egyptians, Babylonians, Greeks, and Romans as starters. Some Jews "bet on the wrong horse" and assimilated into the alien cultures. Where are the descendants of these former Jews today? They may be farmers in Egypt, grocers in Iraq, Greek fishermen or Italian wine merchants - cut off from the roots that keep us alive as a people with a special mission, with our future still ahead of us.

The mako allows me to see deeper meanings behind mundane interests and events, and the hidden providence that guides our lives, even when we are least aware of it.