The Dispute at the Rock
Author: Eli Ehrman, Av 5764/Aug 2004We are told in Numbers ch.19 ff, the weekly portion of the Bible known as Chukkat that Moshe was punished by HKBH (Hakadosh Baruch Hu – The Holy One, Blessed be He) in that he was not allowed to enter Eretz Yisrael. We are told that this punishment is given for his actions during the incident at Mei Merivah. HKBH told Moshe to speak in order to make it produce water before the whole congregation of Bnei Yisrael. Instead of speaking to the rock, Moshe struck it and water came forth. Moshe is described as being in a significantly angry state at the time and his anger is also expressed in the words he uses to address the assembled people. It would be natural to assume that it is not the anger or the words Moshe uses that occasion the punishment but simply the act of striking the rock instead of speaking to it.
A number of questions arise. One of the most commonly asked questions is why striking the rock should be a deed so terrible that Moshe should deserve never to see the land. Moshe had spent his life energy on bringing the people to this land. Is this truly a rebellion? Did he question the ways of HKBH as Korach had (Numbers ch.16)? Did he despise the land as the spies had (Numbers ch 13)? That is the type of deed that had caused others to forfeit the Divine promise. The behaviour of Moses falls far short of those sins.
Another question arises from the fact that Aharon is also punished for this incident. What did he do? If Moshe in a fit of anger disobeyed HKBH, did Aharon have time to stop him? Yet a few words later, HKBH informs Moshe that it is time for Aharon to die precisely because of this incident.
In a later passage (Deuteronomy ch 1), Moshe gives an entirely different explanation for his not being allowed into the land. He retells the story of the spies in ספר דברים, recalling how all the people were punished for their lack of faith by being forced to wander in the desert for forty years until the adult generation had all died. However, there he says that HKBH was angry at him too on their account and that he too would not enter the land. So what was the cause of the punishment, the behavior of Moshe in the incident of the spies or the incident of the rock?
Finally, in yet another passage in Devarim, (Deuteronomy ch.3) we are told how Moshe begged HKBH to allow him to enter the land. We are told that HKBH refused this request "for the sake of the people". How could it possibly have been in the interest of the people that Moshe was not allowed in? Moreover, even if it is in the interest of the people, how does this relate to the other explanation of punishment? Do we have a third explanation here?
Let us take a careful look at the story and try to answer these question.
The Silence of HKBH
From the beginning of the book of Shemot (Exodus) until the end of the Torah we are told the story of the exodus of Bnei Yisrael from Egypt and their travels in the desert. This story represents just over forty years of history. However the text does not divide equally across this period. All the text, from Exodus ch.12 up to this point, Numbers ch.19, Parashat Hukat, describes a period of less than two years after the Exodus. It ends with the story of the spies and the decree that the desert period will last forty years instead of the people entering the land immediately. We then have one passage with no specific chronological position regarding the inexplicable law of Parah Adumah (Purification through the ashes of the Red Heifer). Then suddenly we have the story of the death of Miryam, the sudden loss of the provision of water that presumably was related to Miryam, and the incident of the rock. That story occurs at the very end of the period in the desert. All the passages from this point on occur after this incident. We have, then, a period of some thirty-eight years in the desert which we know nothing about. What happened during this period? We know that it is during this period that the generation that witnessed the miracles in Egypt as adults died and the next generation grew up or were born. What was this "silent period" like? Did the new generation indeed grow up without the problems that were so inherent in their parents?
Our Sages tell us that throughout this period Moshe did not receive any Prophecy. In fact Maimonides proposes that Moses was not able to receive the Divine Word because a minimum level of Joy is required for this to be possible and the effect of the Divine Decree delaying entry into the land prevented him from feeling such an emotion throughout this period.
This paints a grim picture indeed of this period. For decades the people wander around and around in a desert guided only by the Annanei Hakavod (The Clouds of Glory). The voice of HKBH that had brought them out and guided their every step at first had simply gone silent. It is as if you set off on a journey with a working radio or GPS and suddenly it ceases to work. Imagine then that your journey continues – seemingly fruitlessly – for thirty-eight more years! Perhaps some people started to wonder if, in fact, the clouds that they were following were an unexplained but natural phenomenon moving around and around randomly. Perhaps HKBH had deserted them to their fate here in the desert, ח"ו.
As one by one all the older generation dies, the three leaders are getting old. Then, one day, Miryam dies of old age. It seems clear that it is only a matter of time before the man connected with all the wonders, the instrument of communication with HKBH in the original period will die too. There will be nothing left. The process will have run to ground and the people will end a cruel fate there in the desert. Miracles have been protecting them from the impossible conditions in the desert but, who knows, perhaps they too will cease.
The New Generation
Then, immediately following the death of Miryam, exactly that seems to happen. They are left without water and face mass dehydration. Now, for the first time we hear the voice of the new generation that we had hoped would represent an entirely new voice of faith and trust. The words are astoundingly familiar. "Why did you bring us here to die in the desert?" The generation that had never known Egypt as adults proclaim that it would have been better had they never left Egypt . What a huge disappointment this must have been for Moshe and Aharon! These are exactly the complaints of their parents. Nothing seems to have changed.
If anything, the situation is worse. If you look carefully at the words you will see that the two leaders run into the Ohel Moed (The Tabernacle), from the people. In other words, they are fleeing from the people, presumably in real physical danger to their lives. We are not far from a tragic situation where the people murder their last hope of extricating themselves from the desert. We are at the bottom of the bottom, moments away from a point of no return where there will be nothing left to save.
"And HKBH spoke to Moshe, saying"
It is at that terrible moment that we finally have the words "And HKBH spoke to Moshe saying". This phrase is possibly the most frequently repeated phrase in the Torah. We often treat is as just background "noise", paying it very little attention. However, to do so this time would be even less correct than at the other times. Nothing could be more momentous. The silence of thirty-eight years has finally been broken. The mechanism for guidance and communication between HKBH and His people is operational after all.
Our tradition has it that HKBH will save his people in one of three situations. Either the time has come for the Geulah (Divine Redemption) or the people are so worthy that they bring it upon themselves immediately or, unfortunately, the situation is so desperate that if the Geulah does not come immediately there will be nothing to save. According to our Sages, that is what happened in Egypt.. The exile was supposed to last for four hundred years. However, it did not. It lasted only two hundred and ten years. One important explanation given for this is that the people had sunk so deep in the hopelessness of Egypt that one second later would have been one second too late; and so the exile was shortened.
I propose that the same happened here after the death of Miryam. It had been hoped that the new generation that would be born and grow up in the desert would leave behind the problems of their parents, but it was not so. Moreover, remember the explanation of Maimonides that what prevented Moshe from receiving Prophecy was the incompatibility of Joy to the current situation. It would be starkly impossible to accept that in the moments following his sister's death, chased by the people who had so bitterly disappointed the whole intent of the long sojourn in the desert, that Joy would finally come to Moshe. We must conclude that the reason for Geulah here was the last of the three options. There was no choice but that HKBH appear and speak to Moshe.
Miracles
In order to understand the response of Moshe to this new situation we must digress for a moment on the topic of miracles. There are two kinds of miracles. One kind surrounds us every day although we often do not recognize them as such. These are miracles "through nature". Even extreme examples of such miracles can still be denied as miracles by the obstinate naturalist. For example, the establishments of the State of Israel or the Six Day War are clearly miracles to us but they occurred "through" nature and there will always be those who will claim they can be explained entirely through natural causes.
There is another kind of miracle. When the waters stand upright and form walls to let Bnei Yisrael pass through the sea or when every one of the people hears the words of HKBH directly at Mount Sinai and all can concur afterwards that the same words were revealed to each of them, these are miracles of a different type. They are not through nature. The skeptic can only choose to deny the existence of the event itself – not its interpretation. It can be argued that the distinction need not be black and white but that there are events in the grey area. Nevertheless the miracles attending the exodus from Egypt and the initial period in the desert clearly belong to the second category.
I suggest that the two alternatives for making water come from the rock represent these two categories. Seeing Moshe strike the rock with sufficient force, a determined skeptic might argue that Moshe knew that the rock was blocking an underground flow of water. Assuming that the rock was not too large Moshe might just have dislodged it and thus allowed the flow to start. Thus this miracle can be said to have been a natural one. However, had Moshe merely spoken to the rock and water had flowed on that demand, we would have had a miracle before millions of people similar to the waters of the Red Sea standing upright
Now when HKBH tells Moshe at the incident of the spies that they must now wander in the desert until the present generation dies off, he explicitly states that the people who must die are the people who saw the wonders and miracles that HKBH created in Egypt before their eyes. These are the people who "knew" the power of HKBH and yet rebelled. There is a law of "super nature" here. The closer you are to the power of HKBH the greater the requirement there is upon you to act according to His Will. "It is among those that are close to Me that I will be sanctified" (Leviticus, ch.10). The first generation of the Exodus failed to live up to this lofty requirement. They were saved from Egypt because they had sunk so low that there was no longer a choice and the direct contact with the Power of HKBH was not enough for them to live up to its requirements.
Now HKBH was willing to start the process anew with the second generation and to bring them into the land with the same level of miracles, here 'speaking to the rock'. However, Moshe and Aharon seem to have come to the opinion that it needed to be otherwise. Perhaps they were not confident that they would live long enough to be present in order to intercede whenever the people failed the challenge. Perhaps they simply saw that the human "raw material" here was again insufficient and would not rise to the task.
Moshe does not strike the rock because he had lost control in a fit of anger. He has decided, together with Aharon, to transform the miracle from the category of "beyond nature" to one "through nature". How could they do this? Because they understood that the course of human history takes the form of a dialogue between man and HKBH. HKBH has chosen to create His Universe in such a way that humanity is a partner in deciding its course. People can participate either through their תפילה – talking directly to HKBH or through their actions. They have the power to request that the nature of Divine guidance or intervention in the world be otherwise than it is. In this case, HKBH accepts, perhaps in "anger", the course Moshe wants ultimately for the sake of the people.
The two leaders have contradicted His instructions and therefore require punishment. However, there is an aspect beyond mere punishment here. Before the decree of the spies, Moshe was only eighty-two years old; we view a full natural life as being one hundred and twenty years old. It would have been natural at eighty-two for Moshe to live on and participate in the entry into the land of Israel . Now Moshe is one hundred and twenty. Perhaps despite this HKBH would have had him live on a few more decades to lead a miracle-filled entrance into the land. However, if the entrance is to be one of only natural miracles there is no need to extend the life span of Moshe. Moreover, the last verses of the Torah informs us that it is the distinction of the unique level of Prophecy that Moshe achieved that is the reason that miracles of the type that occurred in Egypt could happen before the eyes of all Yisrael. Moshe has argued his way out of the job of leading the people into the land.
Conclusion
We see here in this story some of the principles that the Torah wishes to teach us. We see that the wonders that HKBH bestows upon our society create an obligation to make that society live according to His Will. We see the power of a man, Moshe, through prayer or action to direct the course of Jewish and World history and the חסד of HKBH, His grace, in that He is willing to make the will of this man become the Divine Will.
Finally even if one believes that the current events are leading inevitably to the Geulah, it makes a critical difference exactly what state Bnei Yisrael are at the time of the Geulah. In the case we have looked at, Moshe was terribly concerned about another Geulah that comes about as a result of the depth and desperate nature of a terrible situation. To avoid that, we are required to improve, of our own accord, the state of our people in advance of the Geulah which we believe is imminent.
This Shiur was prepared for delivery to Kehillat Hagivah on Parashat Hukat, 5764 by Eli Ehrman.
Why Are There Tsunamis in G-D’s Creation?
Author: Eli Ehrman, Shevat 5765/Feb 2005I would like to address a question that is not new. It is as old as man's belief in one G-D, the source of all morality and good. However, every now and then the question tragically imposes itself upon us as if new. How could the Creator of the world, the One who brought each human being into existence, the one about whom it says "G-D is good to all and His Mercy is upon all His creations", have allowed, or worse instigated, that over a hundred thousand human beings should lose their lives? Did they do something bad? Are the fifty thousand or so estimated children who died guilty of something? Are the countless orphans who were created in the tragedy somehow responsible? I want to ask the question of natural evil tonight, to ask about the kind of evil that cannot be blamed on man. I am not asking about why there can exist a Holocaust or a Rwanda or a Sudan, but why there are Tsunamis and cancer.
I want to apologize to you all. I know that everybody here has by now heard countless "responses" to the tragedy from people who have been given positions that actually entitle them to address the issue. However, I have heard many beautiful answers but none satisfactory.
It was my original intention to speak on a totally different subject. I wanted to discuss the Perek Tehillim we know as Ashrei. I wanted to speak about David Hamelech's view of Creation full of Hadar – majestic beauty – because the artifice created has to reflect the nature of its Creator. However, I came across a response from Rav Aharon Lichtenstien that expressed a problem I was having. It is neither possible nor correct to continue along your daily life as if nothing had happened. You simply may not let your life move forward unchanged. This issue is entirely separate from the requirement to actually help the victims. The act of identification, even if it of no material help to those who suffer is a basic human duty. I feel compelled to turn aside and address this issue instead.
I quoted the response of Rav Lichtenstien and I would like to add that it was the most impressive I have seen. However, I would like to take issue with another point made there that is common to many of the responses. This response says: We cannot answer the question posed by the tragedy because we do not begin to fathom G-D's reasons for His actions. We are not G-D's scorekeepers. There is a moral problem of arrogance or extreme lack of humility on the part of the ridiculously limited man in questioning the Divine.
There is not only a moral problem with lack of humility in this regard. There is an epistemic; an intellectual problem. It is not morally wrong to be unaware of the limitations of human reason, of knowledge or of the sheer lack of evidence; of hard facts. It is simply the path of the fool. Nevertheless, I have a problem with the "what can we know response". Why? That response is appropriate but it is correct only as the response of man when already standing in the presence of the Divine. It is the response demanded by G-D when He has already appeared to Iyyov from within the storm. However, G-D does not appear in a storm to people every day. It is not the appropriate response when searching for evidence of G-D in Creation.
Why should a person believe that the Universe that he is a part of was created in its entirety by an omnipotent G-D as an act of Hesed (Mercy)? The answer must be because the balance of evidence available to a person suggests that this is true. Such a proposition is rational because there is no other reasonable explanation for the Universe in which we live. A judge has no immediate access to knowledge regarding a case before him, but nevertheless decides that the truth lies one way or the other on the basis of the evidence. He will not know for certain – his goal is to believe his conclusion beyond reasonable doubt. Similarly a scientist believes one theory rather than an other because the one explains the facts well and the other does not.
There is a very wide range of reasons to believe that there is a Divine Designer behind the universe we know. However, one very important subset of evidence is the beauty and good in human life. The problem with the response "what can we know" is that it fails to try and make sense of the Universe. It leaves the field to the Atheist who is free to say: "see, this is an evil universe, either random and miserable or else guided by a malicious force. Your belief is irrational, the evidence is against your concept of G-D".
I am not talking about an exercise in public relations. I also reject the idea that these questions need answers only for the needs of those who are "weak of faith". To be blind, unthinking and refuse to question is no merit, it places you closer to the animals than to the Divine. All beliefs are subject to the danger of being rubbish. You must search to base your opinions on good, sound judgment.
There is another reason to pursue some explanation. Like all good questions, if you find some answer to your question, you have not returned to square one, you have not arrived back where you were before you asked your question. You have advanced. Your understanding is greater. You have furthered the goal of Venihyeh Kulanu Yode'ei Shemechah (And let us all be ones who know Your Name). It is a commandment from G-D that we make sense of His Creation.
What can we do in a situation where there is clearly no access to a full understanding? The atheist, if he is reasonable, knows that he cannot prove that it is impossible that there is some reason for the Universe as it is. On the other hand we cannot show that the Universe has to be the way it is, that no alternative is possible or better. What then is open to us? What is possible, is to lay out a reasonable, believable set of assumptions that, if true, would explain why the Universe would have to be the way it is. We cannot and need not provide details that show exactly how there could be no better alternative. We simply need to show how it is likely and understandable that such a set of circumstances lead to the world being the way it is. We are even allowed to speculate - if the final result helps put some more of the pieces of the puzzle of our existence into order.
I present arguments about whose truth I cannot be certain. I am not G-D's scorekeeper and I do not have access to His knowledge or deliberations. However, I must enter the field. Saying nothing is not an option. I say what seems reasonable. I presume that these outlines, if logical, come closer to the Divine truth than sullen silence.
I propose the following: There are at least four elements that must be given to human beings: freedom, joy rather than suffering, meaning and access to truth. To deny humanity any of these four elements is to create a life unbearable. Better that we were not born than to be missing any one of these elements. We are told that G-D created the Universe as an act of חסד to the Created. If these four elements are as critical as I claim, then His goal must have included to provide these four elements to humanity. Failing the possibility of achieving these four, the decision would have been not to create at all. These four elements are:
Freedom. Significant Freedom. We often express this as Bechirah Chofshit - Free Will. However, on the one hand free choice does not mean the freedom to do anything we please. We cannot fly. Our freedom is limited by the freedom of others. On the other hand the freedom to choose whether to scratch the left ear or the right ear is not meaningful. We cannot be talking about the freedom of a rat in his cage. Between these two we are left with the requirement that the freedom be significant. The choices we make must significantly make a difference to the lives we end up leading. While boundless freedom is neither necessary nor meaningful, there must be the freedom to ultimately decide what kind of future there will be – what kind of world we will live in. This does not mean that such decisions are the at the whim of any individual but that the power is available to shift the momentum to a chosen direction.
The second requirement for human life to be worth creating is that their lives contain joy and lack of suffering. On the one hand a life worth living is one that experiences pleasure in that life, that is filled with love and beauty. On the other hand it cannot have suffering, pain, destitution, shame and enslavement.
The third requirement is that life be meaningful and understood to be such. Imagine a world with freedom and joy as described but lacking in meaning for those involved. This too is a sham and not worth the bother. I do appreciate that this category is seriously linked to the previous two – meaning depends on freedom and it is a component of the joy – I do not deny that the categorizations can be chosen differently. The content is the point here.
The fourth requirement is that man have access to the truth. It must be possible to have a significant ability to get closer and closer to an understanding of reality as it truly is. Again, if it was somehow possible to populate a world with people having freedom, joy and meaning but entirely fooled and misled regarding their situation, that too would be a revolting state of affairs. (Perhaps this requirement reflects my own bias but I, personally would rather have nothing than a world of lies.)
There may be other requirements. Indeed, from what G-D reveals to us in his Torah, there are others. There is a requirement, for example, that man not focus all his attention on his plow and his personal honor but rather acknowledge and worship the Creator. He should speak the words of The Living G-D. However, the reason I will not include these is because I leave the discussion at present on the plane of the facts available without revelation.
So why didn't G-D just go right ahead and create a world with all the requirements I have described? The answer is that such a world cannot be created by fiat, right from the start. It is only a world that can be achieved, eventually and then only if the partners to that creation seriously want it too.
Why can such a world not be created by decree? Because the requirements contradict each other. It is not possible for the different requirements to exist at the same time – at least not by decree. I am not capable of showing in detail that such a world cannot be created – no person has the knowledge of the details available. However I can illustrate the contradictions involved if I reduce the complexity a little:
Instead of six billion imagine just two people. Lets try and implement just two of the requirements that I just laid out: free will and joy or at least lack of suffering. Lets imagine G-D puts these two individuals on a small island. Now clearly if He prevents one of them from causing pain to the other, then He has not given that person any significant free will – at least not regarding morality. That means that He must allow one of the two to cause suffering to the other. He must even allow the one to remove the freedom of the other through enslavement. If he does not make this possible he has not given freedom, He has given up on one of the requirements from the start.. G-D can appear to both people and make known His demand from them not to hurt the other – such a revelation does not remove their free will. However, He will not force them to respect each other's freedom for that would be self-defeating.
To use engineering terminology, I am trying to maximize the function of freedom and lack of suffering for these two individuals. It turns out that there is only one way of achieving a maximal value for these goals. That would happen only of they both, freely choose not to hurt each other. That can be hoped for, it cannot be guaranteed. There is no guarantee of a maximum to the function, the is only the hope of one.
Thus if we visit this island and find that unfortunately one of them is suffering or has had his freedom removed, it is not because G-D did not wish good for them. We saw that there is no other way to make it worth putting them on the island in the first place. It could have been better – it might yet be better but this can only depend on the people themselves.
My point in this illustration in that the different requirements create contradictions. These contradictions are resolvable but they cannot be necessarily or immediately resolvable. The different requirements can create inherent contradictions. However, they are requirements. If we decide up front that we must do without any one of them permanently – it would be better not to have Creation at all.
These contradictions are not only created by juxtaposing different requirements. Take the requirement of joy in human life. Assume that for joy to be appreciated, to be noticed and therefore to cause the pleasure intended it must be dynamic; it must change; ebb and flow; new beings come into our lives to love while others leave us. Because of the intensity of the joy and pleasure of these facets of life, we find it unbearable that the flip-side of the dynamism of this joy, the loss and bereavement, should exist. Thus there cannot even be joy without pain.
Now I would like to explain the central concept in my presentation tonight. Why natural disasters on such scales are possible: We made the requirement that life must involve significant freedom. Significant freedom requires control. We must have the power to shape and form our environment. In order to create, in order to plan, our environment must be predictable. There must be laws of nature. The good that G-D bestows on us must be expressible as permanent rules. For example, He does not just take away our sicknesses, there is an unbelievably intricate immune system capable of adapting and creating new solutions to the problems it faces. Food does not appear, there is instead the biology of life. Immense forces of nature obey rules that are discoverable by man. Once these rules are understood, these immense forces create possibilities for immense projects that can shape our destiny. Weak forces would limit us to building huts at most.
Thus the נאמנות, the loyalty of G-D to a world powered through the laws of nature, is how He bestows on us a freedom that is significant. The freedom granted is the freedom to create the destiny of mankind and perhaps the universe. The freedom derives from the fact that Creation is a set of predictable rules. A rule-based world is a world we can make meaningful choices in, a world we can modify and shape. Rule-based forces are forces that can be harnessed.
We are a life-form whose stunning design is embodied in a system that adapts by changing its own software – its own programming – often in random ways - through mutation. A rigid system would fail or require arbitrary intervention continuously. There are no good mutations without bad mutations. Thus there babies born with defects. The laws of the system require that there are beneficial as well as harmful multiplications of cellular systems. Thus there is cancer. The system that makes our freedom significant is the system that took away my sister.
Though we do not realize it often, it is a wonder, in the literal sense that there are planets at all. All the constants of physics have to be tuned to exactly one set of values in order that the universe should not be composed of useless hydrogen atoms randomly distributed. A planet holds together immense matter under unimaginable forces. Take two boulders and squeeze them in a tight vice and they will continuously shift. Such shifts in the matter of our planets is what we know as earthquakes. Even 15 on the Richter scale is possible logically. The world has just experienced and earthquake of magnitude 9. If what we just experienced had been 11 on the Richter scale, 1000 times the energy would have been released! Those would be waves that cover the mountains and flood the significant parts of world.
The Tsunami is a consequence of a world functioning according to laws of nature. If there is gravity on a planetary scale there must be earthquakes on a planetary scale. The size of the forces and the system of laws are the gift of life and the gift of freedom. The existence of these forces give us life. The fact that they take the shape of predictable laws gives us the power to create a world as we choose.
These laws entail huge suffering. However, they also entail the solution to the suffering. We have the intelligence and the capability of harnessing these forces themselves. We can create a world where there is no cancer. We can create a world where not one person dies from earthquakes. We have been given a world that we have the power to make into Gan Eden. We need to care enough to want it. We need to strive hard enough to make it happen. We also need the help of G-D to make it happen – more on that last in a moment.
So one day we might make a perfect world. Why, then, did not G-D choose to make the world perfect in the first place? Why not start with the world perfect and leave mankind the choice whether to preserve it? This is not an option because such a scenario does not entail significant freedom. Freedom means that we choose what kind of good world there will be. What kind of meaning or freedom would there be in our lives if the perfect world has already been created and we are bound only to preserve it. Man would say to G-D: "Preserve it yourself".
I suggest that the world had to be created as a tabula rasa; a blank sheet of paper with immense raw forces upon which we must choose to create our destiny. The world starts off highly imperfect, full of hunger, danger, suffering and overpowering limitations. It is populated by beings who are free to choose, and that freedom entails the possibility that they will choose to increase the suffering even more. Paradoxically, this horrid state of affairs is the only Universe worth creating. It is a testament to the faith G-D has in humanity that he did create it. He, at least, believes that we are capable of creating a Gan Eden out of the world He gave to us or He wouldn't have created it in the first place.
The vision I present of the interaction of G-D with humanity is not only consistent with the facts of the world around us. It is also continuously presented as such in the Torah. G-D gives humanity the choice as to how the world should be. Even the choice not to begin our existence from a state of Gan Eden was made by mankind. G-D lets Avraham present the case for how G-D Himself should interact with people and even how He should punish them. In every case from Moshe to Yirmiyahu, the prophets are given missions and yet they must struggle endlessly with the people. Not even tasks demanded by G-D and for the sake of G-D are guaranteed to succeed. Quite the opposite.
There is one important point that has to be made before I close. I have spoken about what seems to be limitations on the options that G-D has. He cannot give significant freedom without the possibility of suffering, for example, because that would be logically inconsistent. However, the understanding I present of the Divine is not one of powerless empathy with the suffering of mankind.
One step removed from the atheists of today, there are those who make a god out of the principle of goodness and caring in the universe. Their god cannot help the fact that there is suffering, he can only empathize and will man onwards to create a better world. This god is nothing but a powerless, whining kvetch.
First of all, G-D is capable of creating any world. The limitations presented here are of His own choosing. It is only because of His Hesed (Mercy) that He created a universe in which all four requirements listed jostle for expression. The limitations that are exhibited in Creation are there only so that our lives be worth living. It is He who created the world, it does not exist separately while He does his best to make it better. He brings it into being every second and is the Melech (King).
Besides being the Ground of Existence, the power of our G-D is expressed in the world too. He splits the sea at His whim. He reveals Himself when He chooses. If evil crosses certain boundaries, He punishes furiously. It is even consistent with our understanding of Free Will that He limit Pharaoh's choices.
We have defined freedom not as boundless, infinite choice. That is absurd. We have defined it as the ability to make significant choices. When G-D reveals Himself to us, we know more about what is demanded of us but it is still for us to choose how to act. Even the generation that saw the splitting of Yam Suf (the Red Sea) was capable of building the Egel (Golden Calf) right after the Revelation at Har Sinai. There is no need or requirement for G-D to remove Himself from active participation in the world in order to maintain the requirements described here. On the other hand there is a need for a self-imposition of balance in order to maintain the goals He desires for us. His power is revealed only at specific moments in time and place.
The view as presented by the Torah is neither a limited G-D nor a powerful but self-removed force. The concept is rather one of a partnership between G-D and humanity. The partnership maintains the freedom and meaningfulness of the human side of the partnership while allowing the involvement of G-D without which there is no hope that the project will ever achieve success. Even when it is G-D who brings about some change, but He does so at our request, as an answer to our Tephillot, this is an expression of our freedom rather than a limitation of it.
I suggest that the balance that we are taught exists is actually logically necessary. It is the only way good can be achieved. Even if we not told that this was the state of affairs, consistent rational analysis would require that this be the way it should be.
I am also not saying that this is the best of all possible worlds. It is indeed a far worse world than it could be. It is the starting conditions, the Creation of the world, that is the best of all possible. Very, very sadly, our human choices have made the world we actually live in, far worse than it might have been.
In summary, the suffering and evil we see in this world is not a means to an end, it is one consequence of the nature of the universe. Other consequences of the initial conditions would also have been possible. The nature of the universe is the way we observe it to be because it is what makes our lives worth living.
The world must be created initially as a kind of tabula rasa. It must have predictable laws of nature rather than arbitrary behavior, Only that kind of a world is a world that humanity can make significant choice regarding what to make of it; what kind of good world it is to be. Such is the world that was actually created. Indeed man was placed in such as world. In addition, G-D reveals Himself to man in order to inform him of His demand to create a good existence for himself as well as for all. This is the only arrangement that creates the possibility of bringing all four necessary requirements: freedom, joy, meaning and understanding. Such is a world without death from cancer or Tsunamis and without Holocausts. That is the life worth living for all – the Gan Eden. However these condition cannot pertain ab initio and these cannot only pertain if we really care and seriously desire them too.
The Tsunami is part of no plan for a better a world. It is an inescapable evil without which humanity would have no significant freedom. It did not happen so that the consequence of the event would be a better world. It was not designed to have good consequences. It happened because we haven't yet made it not happen. Making it not happen requires caring that it will not happen and in objective terms succeeding in making it not happen.
To end, I would like to tell you about some informal, unscientific and anecdotal research I have been conducting. I ask kids in the advanced grades of the Dati Leumi (National Religious) educational system the following simple question: Did it happen in your class that one child raised his or her hand and asked "How it could be possible that the Almighty and Good G-D could have allowed a quarter of a million people to die in the Tsunami?" I teach in two different high schools and had access to most of the classes there and my children represent a few more schools. I also got feedback from a number of other schools besides this. So far, I have not heard of one class where such an event happened.
I know that many Rabbanim and teachers addressed this issue on their own initiative. I am also certain that there were some classes in our educational system where one child asked such a question, but there weren't enough so that it got reported in my informal survey. I also know that often this kind of consciousness develops after high school or at least at the very end of it. Nevertheless, I think my findings are remarkable and horrendous. I know that there are good reasons. I know that we all live in a generation in the shadow of the Holocaust and that no new question is raised by the recent disaster. I know that many kids feel sure that they will get no answer and so feel no reason to ask a question that will only stump their teacher. I know that in some cases there might be a stigma in being the one to ask the question. I know that our media dealt with the event as if the only people hurt by the disaster were a handful of Israelis. Nevertheless, I expect that there is always some child who bucks all the trends and needs to ask the question. I would like to have believed that there is at least one such character in every class, almost.
I knew one such child once. That child was my sister Etta. There isn't even a tiny chance that she wouldn't have been asking the question in every class if this had happened while she was in high school. Every teacher of hers could attest to the trouble they had from that child even on lesser matters.
I have a challenge, therefore, for us and for our educational system. There has to be many more such kids. The classes simply have to full of children who in response to such a world event, especially if it involves no Jews or Israelis, cannot rest until they have some reasonable answer that makes sense. When that day comes, it will only be a very short time till people stop dying in such disasters. That is a critical component of the Geulah that should come in Bimherah Beyamenu.
This talk was written in order to deliver at the Etta Kossowsky Yahrtzeit Lecture 5765 by Eli Ehrman.
Who is a Jew and if so, what is Judaism?
Author: Eli Ehrman, Adar 5767/Feb 2007To mark the thirtieth Yahrzeit of Rabbi Dr A Zvi Ehrman, z.l., his son Eli gave a talk on the problematic connection between being a Jew and the term Judaism.
There are various understandings of what is meant by being a Jew. Some come from within the Jewish religion and some are external and/or secular. You could say that a Jew is a member of a race defined by blood lines, racial and physically measurable characteristics. You could say that a Jew is a member of a nation or culture group. In that case a Jew is defined by language, absorbed cultural assets or attitudes and perhaps national characteristics such as being greedy, ambitious or benevolent. You could say that a Jew is defined as a person who adheres to specific beliefs. In that case if you could define the set of Jewish beliefs, anybody who adheres to these or at least most of these would be defined as a Jew. A Jew would thus be a category similar to Liberal, Communist or Pacifist. Some would define Christians or Muslims in that way but the defining set of beliefs for these is easier to specify than with Jews. Confusingly, historical Jewish sources and indeed Halachah might be interpreted as giving support to elements of all three of these perspectives.
Your definition of Judaism will be closely related to your definition of a Jew. If Jews are a race, Judaism is anything any Jew does, writes or says. If Jews are a nation, then anything culturally rooted in Jewish sources, religious or secular is Judaism. If Jews are defined by belief, Judaism is the defining set of beliefs. Why is it so important to determine what Judaism is? Because one of the most powerful forces acting upon the soul of the individual is the drive to belong, to be loyal to your tribe and to support and defend that which you represent. This is particularly true for a Jew who is aware of unbroken chains of generations going back thousands of years, many of whom had to sacrifice everything to propagate the chain. The weight of that task makes it critical to answer the question: what exactly is the chain; what is Judaism? The intense struggles that try to de-legitimize alternative definitions of Judaism are a battle for the flag of Jewish identity. Everybody wants to defend and support Judaism. If 'my' definition is correct then everybody's energy will be devoted to 'my' cause.
I propose an alternative definition for being a Jew. There is a contract between God and the Jewish people. The Jews are those people bound by that covenant. Anybody born of Jewish mother is bound by that covenant and so is anybody who chooses to join the Jewish people and commits himself/herself through the accepted initiation rituals. A Jew is not someone who just believes that there is such a contract or that he/she is bound by it. It is a fact-based definition similar to "all people born in this locale". In legal terms there is no difficulty in defining the set of people defined by a specific contract. The perceived difficulty only arises because the fact of the contract is itself in dispute. Nevertheless the definition stands, for if there was never a contract, by this definition there would simply be no Jews. Fact-based categorization takes the fact as a given.
Secondly, the search for a definition of Judaism should be totally de-emphasized. It is in a post-modern context where all beliefs are treated as relative narratives that it is important for me to believe Jewish beliefs. However, an orthodox Jew does not study the Torah or the Rambam because it is the Jewish truth. He/she sees the quest as one for truth, not for Judaism. We seek to understand the Torah and we seek truth in absolute and not relative terms. Our search should not be for Judaism but for the truth. The understanding being that the intellect in general and the Torah in particular provide the path towards the truth.