[Avodah] Giving Reasons for God's Actions

[Micha Berger]

On Wed, Mar 16, 2011 at 03:49:33PM -0400, R David Cohen wrote:
: Joseph Kaplan wrote:
:> We can have faith because we DON'T know why God does things

: I absolutely agree with the above.
: However, that doesn't mean that we should not take a lesson from tragedies
: of this nature. It should remind us that stuff like this doesn't always and
: only happen to "others".  It should remind us to take stock of our lives and
: our relationships...

On Wed, Mar 16, 2011 at 03:12:43PM -0400, Joseph C. Kaplan wrote:
: You can quote any aggadata you want including references to God's
: anthropomorphic "tears in the ocean." But I still believe it's a grave
: error, and without any real basis, to link these symbolic tears to any
: particular earthquake, especially one that resulted in the deaths of
: thousands of men, women and children.

>From Qol Dodi Dofeiq by RYBS:
    The well-known metaphysical problem arises yet again and the
    sufferer asks: "Why dost thou show me iniquity and beholdest
    mischief? ..." ... (Habakkuk 1:3-4) However, as we emphasized earlier
    God does not address Himself to this question, and man receives no
    reply concerning it. The question remains obscure and sealed, outside
    the domain of logical thought. "For "Thou canst not see My face,
    for man shall not see Me and live" (Exodus 33:2). ... If we wish
    to probe deeply, to question profoundly during a period of nitmarish
    terrors, then we have to pose the question in a halakhic form and ask:
    What is the obligation incumbent upon the sufferer deriving from the
    suffering itself? What commanding voice, what normatice principle
    arises out of the afflictions themselves? Such a question, as we
    stated above, has an answer which finds its expression in a clear
    halakhic ruling. We need not engate in metaphysical speculation in
    order to clarify the law of the rectification of evil. "It is not
    in heaven" (Deuteronomy 30:12). If we should succeed in formulating
    this teaching without getting involved in the question of cause and
    telos, then we will obtain complete redemption...

RDC is in good company... Taking lesson from something does not need to
imply that the old we are abandoning was the sin behind some punishment,
("... without getting involved in the question of cause") nor that
Hashem performed or allowed people to perform the tragic in order to
evince that change ("... or telos").

To repeat from what I quoted before of RAShafran's description of the
CC's response to the Japanese earthquake in 1923:
    Informed of the mass deaths in Japan, the 85-year-old rabbinic leader
    was visibly shaken, immediately undertook to fast and insisted that
    the news should spur all Jews to repentance.

    Yes, Jews to repentance. Jewish religious sources maintain that
    catastrophes, even when they do not directly affect Jews, are
    nevertheless messages for them, wake-up calls to change for the
    better. Insurers call such occurrences "Acts of G-d." For Jews, the
    phrase is apt, and every such lamentable event demands a personal
    response.

(Again, I don't know if this was the CC's intent, or if he spoke about
Jews doing teshuvah because that's his audience. Had the local Lithuanians
asked him, I do not know if the CC wouldn't have said that it was
a wakeup call to them to. I would appreciate a primary source, with
checkable wording.)

And:
    That is the secret of how we can create a better world and vanquish
    evil -- the source of all tragedy -- at its very roots.

    For when we do such things, the seeming tiny quanta of our collective
    merits can combine and swell, no less than drops of water that make
    up an ocean, into a tidal wave of goodness, ushering in the day when,
    as the prophet Isaiah (11:9) foretold, "the earth will be filled
    with knowledge of G-d, like the water that covers the oceans."

Note that the CC too is described as taking a lesson, without exploring
"cause or telos". He didn't say that HQBH punished the Japanese for
the Jews' sins, or even that He did so for the purpose of sending us
a message. Just that when events shake us out of our rut, it's a good
time to do teshuvah. A response to "rectify evil", not a "metaphysical
speculation".

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Like a bird, man can reach undreamed-of
micha at aishdas.org        heights as long as he works his wings.
http://www.aishdas.org   But if he relaxes them for but one minute,
Fax: (270) 514-1507      he plummets downward.   - Rav Yisrael Salanter