<html><head></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><meta charset="utf-8" style="font-size: 22px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; ">R' Micha wrote: </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; "><p style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.25in; margin-top: 3pt; display: inline !important; ">An earlier example is when Hashem saved Lot and his family from the destruction of Sodom. There too Lot was saved primarily in Avraham's merit, that Avraham should be spared the pain of losing his nephew.</p><div><br></div><div>If the above is true -- that God saved Lot in order that Avraham should be spared the pain of losing his nephew, it seems pretty paradoxical that God would not have spared Aharon the pain of losing his two sons. Obviously it the </div><div>merit of Moshe could have been legitimate and certainly Aharon was greater than Lot. This logic does not hold.</div></span><meta charset="utf-8" style="font-size: 22px; "><div style="font-size: 21px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 17px; "><br></span></div><div style="font-size: 21px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; ">R' Micha also wrote: ...we are told not to gaze at a rainbow because it's a sign of Divine Anger, that G-d is telling us that it's only his promise to Noach that keeps Him from again flooding the world. (Chagiga 16a)</span></div><div style="font-size: 21px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 17px; ">I have always been bothered by the rationality of this promise for two reasons: First, there are at least a dozen other means of destroying the world. So what's the greatness of not destroying mankind with water.</span></div><div style="font-size: 21px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 17px; ">Frankly, I'd rather die by drowning than by fire. The second thing is: Does it bring any comfort to all those people who have been devastated by floods (such as what just happened in Mississippi) to tell them that</span></div><div style="font-size: 21px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 17px; ">not to worry -- it's just them and their families that will be destroyed by flooding but not the whole world?</span></div></body></html>