[Avodah] undeserved punishment?

[Mordechai Torczyner]

From: Micha Berger -
> No one claims to really know tzadiq vera lo, rasha vetov lo. That's also 
> a maamar Chazal. 

Worth noting: The maamar chazal is that Moshe doesn't understand it, and indeed asks HKBH about it. That's hardly a statement that "no one really claims to know."

> I posted here in the past (way back) an idea from R' Jack Love (a 
> rebbe in a yeshivah gedolah and a local dayan). Why are there so many 
> reasons given for the death of Nadav vaAvihu, or for what Moshe did 
> that warranted not entering EY, or for churban bayis rishon, or sheini? 
> Because they realized the problem is unsolvable, but against that still 
> needed to fight to find meaning. 

Maybe (and someone makes that point in an article in the most recent Tradition, on Kol Dodi Dofek) - but there is another way to look at, when we see the different approaches of Chazal on Tzaddik v'Ra Lo. One could note that not every answer handles every case. Sometimes it really is bad mazal (per Netziv on "mipi elyon"), sometimes it's bittul torah, sometimes it's cheit hatzibbur, sometimes it's hayah b'yadam lmichos, sometimes it's yisurin shel ahavah, sometimes it's avon nedarim, etc.
 

> In this case, I would go further and invoke RYBS's advice in Qol Dodi 
> Dofeiq -- any attempt to explain tragedy will be emotionally sterile or 
> intellectually simplistic, and quite probably both. 
...
> I think asserting these maamarei Chazal as though they provided 
> definitive ways of understanding tragic events does come across as RYBS 
> describes. 

I, too, am in favor of following the counsel in Kol Dodi Dofek - but discussing the approaches of Chazal, and pitting them against each other, is hardly declaring any of them to be definitive. It's legitimate to ask why one Tanna or Amora didn't take into consideration the answer of another.

Be well,
Mordechai

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