[Avodah] proofs of G-d

[Daniel Eidensohn]

R' Eli Turkel wrote:
> I wrote:<<You have brought no evidence that the sources I have cited are limited
> to an individual blaming himself for his own suffering. Furthermore if
> you want to claim that only a prophet can say such a thing than you need
> to justify why chazal make such statements all over Shas e.g.,  why was
> the Temple destroyed. In addition it seems to be a common practice
> throught the ages - as you yourself note with disapproval.>>
>
> First with regard to RYBS I strongly suggest reading "Out of the Whirlwind".
> He in fact strongly condemns those who attribute the Holocaust to sins
> of the people
> as trivializing the actions of the Nazis. 
Did he ever condemn making attributions to specific actions as causing 
sins or did he just insist that particular attributions being made were 
wrong?

> More basically finite man
> has no hope of
> understanding an infinite G-d and his ways. Hence, man can only use tragedy to
> improve his future but can never understand it.
>   
I was not talking about understanding tragedy but rather using it to do 
teshuva by publicly asserting causal  linkage.

> Chazal has ruach hakodesh which modern day gedolim do not have. 
Where do you see that assignment of a cause to tragedy requires nevuah 
or ruach hakodesh? Again the purpose is to motivate teshuva. It is 
possible that the attribution is incorrect - but if it brings about 
positive change the only legitimate objection possile is that you would 
want a different attribution made.


Bottom line is that you have apparently totally misunderstood what I 
have written. The sources I cited note that it is important to maintain 
the belief that good and bad are the consequences of one's behavior. 
Consequently these sources say that when something good or bad happens 
one should make the attribution to particular behavior. In addition the 
attributions are not just concerned with what happens to you as an 
individual but what happens to your community. The Kuzari acknowledges 
that we don't really know for sure what the causal relationships are. 
Nevertheless these rishonim [not chazal] assert that it is important to 
view causality between the actions of the individual and community and 
positive or negative results.

You haven't brought a single source  which says don't make attributions 
for bad happenings. At most Rav Soloveitchik is saying that the 
attributions proposed are not helpful or are clearly wrong. It is 
totally legitimate to assert that the proposed causal links others 
propose are wrong or are counterproductive. That doesn't mean that the  
approach is wrong.

If people said that the Holocaust resulted from people being judgmental 
or insensitive to others or being more obsessed with chumras than avodas 
hashem - would you have a problem with that?

Daniel Eidensohn