Waiting for the Miracle

Rav Pappa said to Abaye: Why did miracles occur for the earlier generation and not for us?

It's not as if they knew more Torah than we do.

In the time of Rav Yehuda, nobody studied anything except for Nezikin, and we study all six tractates of the Mishna.

And when Rav Yehuda taught the following Mishna from Uktzin, "If a woman is preserving a vegetable in a pot" (Taharot 2:1, and some say that Rav Pappa actually invoked the Mishna "Olives that are pressed together with their leaves are tahor", Uktzin 2:1), he would say, "This material is more confusing than all of the disputes of Rav and Shmuel put togther!"  We, on the other hand, study Uktzin in 13 different yeshivas.

But when there was a drought, all Rav Yehuda had to do was remove one shoe, and God brought the rain; but we afflict ourselves and cry out, and nothing happens.

Abbaye replied: They sacrificed themselves to sanctify the Holy Name; we do not sacrifice ourselves to sanctify the Holy Name.

(Brachot 20a)