Theodicy And the Problem of Evil - Part 1 by Rabbi Anthony Manning

okay we are in a series of shim it will take us through to yam Kiper maybe even one sh Beyond yam Kiper and last week we gave a kind of warm-up Prelude by talking about the issue of Free Will and God's omniscience and God's knowledge and we'll come back to the issue of Free Will as we get through this next topic which is a difficult topic it's a topic that I've always resisted taking on um but my wife told me I can't resist it anymore more and I need to deal with it which is the question of the problem of suffering of sadic valalo why do such terrible sufferings happen to people who we cannot on any level understand how they could deserve it and I'm sure you know in advanc that I'm not going to be able to give you a single glib simple answer to this and you wouldn't want one either uh and what we're going to do is we're going to try and break it up into four or five segments and look at the way that class classic sources traditional sources respond to this topic some of these responses you might relate to some of them you might feel you know a little bit of tension with you might great they might great with you that's okay you don't have to accept every single one as as the best one for you but hopefully between the the possible approaches there'll be something that you find uh at least interesting engaging uh and if not then you'll remain with a question which at the end of the day is perhaps the most important lesson to take out of this as we'll see soon so let's just put the problem very simply classic theistic theology which is you know monotheistic religions Judaism let's assume Christianity Islam Etc assume that there is a God who is all- knowing all powerful and all loving and we'll see our sources are very clear on this and yet people suffer how can those things go together because if God is all knowing you can't say well God didn't realized if he'd have realized then he would have done something about it and you if God is omnipotent you can't say well God did know but there's nothing he could do about it and if God is om Omni benevolent God is a loving God you can't say well God knew about it and God could have changed it but God just doesn't care we'll see EOB goes through all of those different kind of reactions um and on that basis we have to try and find an answer I brought you some initial sources you'll see and I I don't apologize for this because a lot of the sources are more recent today but a lot of them are in English um and we'll see a lot of the the the paragraphs I've brought you from responses to the Holocaust now again no two Jewish tragedies tragedies are are the same and we've had many over the Millennia and certainly I wouldn't compare anything that we're undergoing today to anything remotely uh like the Holocaust but nevertheless the thinking and the analysis is the same analysis because at the end of the day if one innocent person dies a terrible death or suffers horribly the question is is very strong perhaps not the same kind of question as if thousands or even Millions did um therefore we'll see some of the Holocaust responses coming up but let's start with some basic sources from number one God God you are your advice is great and your your Deeds are massive you are all powerful and your eyes are opened on everything that goes on in the world so there we are God is omnipotent R ala God is omnicient and God is fair number two from which is my Barra coming up soon you rock your actions are perfect there is no imperfection everything you do is fair God you are faithful the there is no iniquity in you you couldn't say it in more clear in clearer language God is sad God is etc etc and God loves us how do we know God loves us we talk a lot about the love that we have for hasem or forem but theim inim talk frequently about the love that God has for the Jewish people and by extension for the whole world and I'll tell you what I mean by that in a minute if you look at number three and it's good for us to hear these again you are special to God okay God chose you the Jewish people God didn't choose you because you're a mighty powerful numerous Nation because you are a small tiny Nation it's because God says mosha loves you the Jewish people and he wants to keep the promise he made to your fathers The Exodus from Egypt Etc and then again it says in meaning God wants to give us blessing to our families to our parosa to our businesses Etc and we are the B we are the first born we are called that the first born of the world which means that we are one of the many siblings and God is the parent the mother and the father and loves all of the children but we just have a special role as the Bor the Bor is there to bridge the generation gap because the Bor is the firstborn they connect with the parents more and they can they can speak to the siblings the SI kids never want to hear it from their parents the parents are weird and out of touch and they don't really understand us uh but the sibling does so the Bor has that kind of bridge bridging role so to we uh can bridge the gap the much bigger Gap the generation Plus+ plus gap between God and the and the rest of humanity and we can act uh to help his other children and therefore God loves the world this is very very clear so I'm just bringing you these sources in case you were and there are many more I could have brought to see that this is the this is the case uh said again and again and yet the suffering is undeniable couple of sources from ra salvic we'll see a lot today from ra salvic number four evil is an undeniable fact there is evil there is suffering there are hellish torments in this world whoever wishes to delude himself by diverting his attention from the deep Fisher in reality by romanticizing human existence is not but a fool and a fantasy IST you cannot deny suffering it that itself is a SIN number five Judaism with its realistic approach to human existence understands that the reality of evil cannot be altered and concealed and any attempt to reduce the religious contradictions of Evil's existence will not help a person at an inner calm or an understanding of the existential secret evil is a reality that cannot be denied so he says ignoring the problem is not an answer you may address the problem and decide you don't have a good answer but you need to address the problem everybody does otherwise we're just in denial and by the way to use a rather bad P the Reason God took us out of Egypt so we wouldn't be in denial anymore sorry I could I couldn't I couldn't I couldn't resist that it just can't you can scrub that from the recording if you feel that's uh not not worthy of my there are two claims that are made in this theological iCal hashkafic tension the first claim is that the existence of evil is just logically inconsistent with the god that you're describing it can't be it's an incoherent position God cannot be all knowing allseeing all loving and yet this suffering exist therefore there cannot be a God foran that's one approach a second approach is more an evidential approach okay you know suffering there can be suffering but so much suffering so Terri so undeserved how can that possibly be true it makes it very probable that God cannot be the kind of God that you think God is how could that work I'm not saying it's impossible but it's highly improbable they are the two positions either that's logically incoherent that therefore there cannot be a God or that the what we see in the world makes it highly improbable that your kind of God as a theist religion exists now I would just mention that pagans like I said last week had no problem with this they didn't they didn't believe in one all powerful all knowing all loving God they believe they believed in a spiritual world that was fighting itself and fighting the world and and and gods which were you know uh um almost sadistic gods playing with humankind and therefore the fact that was suffering was perfectly reasonable of course there is nothing makes any sense it's all meant to be one great tragedy uh in the Greek sense and therefore they didn't have this problem but we do have this problem there is also a distinction we'll see between natural suffering and human induced suffering that's an important distinction we need to think through because which is more of a question in this sadik valalo debate is it like a tsunami that kills hundreds of thousands of people in a few minutes without any warning or a nation which chooses to you know adopt an evil path and Destroy other people because of its own philosophy of hate which is more of a question on God the natur the natural causes because you could always turn around to the human suffering and say it's caused by human beings and human beings have free will and therefore we need to come back to that is that a is that an adequate defense is that an adequate justification in order to preserve Free Will does there really have to be so much suffering couldn't you just have a little bit of suffering and then oh yeah they had free will there has to be a holocaust and all the other things that the human race has suffered so we'll get back to that but that's not going to be today but drawing that distinction is impossible few um is important sorry a few initial comments from Rabbi lamb we're also going to hear from Rabbi Norman lamb Rabbi Dr Norman lamb uh very important thinker and he wrote a lot about the Holocaust look at number six and seven the problem of theodicy and that's the technical word for justifying the ways of God to man it comes from the Greek Theos meaning God and dekay meaning Justice justifying God the problems of theoy offering rational explanations and philosophical for the ethical and philosophical dilemas presented by the disjoint edness and in appositeness of conducts and circumstances the quality of one's moral life and his fortunes or Misfortune has a long and honorable history but and this is important for us to begin with there is no one theodicy in Judaism from job who we'll see in a minute e of to the sages of the talud from myones to Lua as the Aral to the bes the Bal there is only one constant and that is the question of sadic valalo the righteous who is Afflicted with evil the number of answers depends varies with the number of interpreters no one approaches official authoritative dogmatic sanction in Judaism although each has something of value to contribute and the question remains the question of questions for Judaism as it does for every thinking believing human being so there doesn't have to be one answer but there is one overarching question number seven when theological questions are asked says Rabbi Lam students must be told that the greatest questions in the world simply have no answers maybe they will discover them when they grow up likely is not the questions will remain suspended Between Heaven and Earth for all eternity we are only human we are not Divine more of that soon we cannot answer all questions job taught us that what we can do is take the suffering and the grief and the anguish and the agony and try to use them to lead us a Step Beyond where we are now that is what I mean by Chua studying what happened must not get us hung up on the question of why but Propel us into responding to the question what then it must lead us to affirm our allegiance to Israel here I don't think he means the the geographical Israel but the people of Israel and both I'm sure he would say our commitments are studying the Torah and our devotion to the almighty and he's hinting that as something that we will come back to which is RAV salvic and Rabbi saak which we're not going to see today were very strong on what we call anti theodicy that not only am I not going to try and answer why but I object to the question it's the wrong question the wrong question is why did this happen it's a question that will just bug you down into into uh a sort of Frozen position the question that you should be asking says R salvation we'll see the sources in Rabbi saaks as well is I don't I don't want to ask why this happened but I want to ask how should I respond what should I do now what is required of me now it's an anti theodicy the why question is a bad question not just an impossible question but a bad question and we'll see that that comes up a lot um um and it's a very very interesting approach which in my mind is actually maybe the most uh authentic approach it's the only one that will take us anywhere positive but more of that to come now just very briefly before we get into the uh approach that we're looking at today there are basically four approaches to this question the first one which we'll look at later today is what's called skeptical theism it basically means as follows I believe in God and I believe in the all- knowing all powerful and all loving God and the reason that I don't know the answer to the question question of suffering is because I'm not God if I could understand God then I would be God and therefore why is it surprising that I can't understand how those two things go together it's not surprising I can't understand it you'd be a fool to think you could U and therefore uh it's that's if you like the resolution to your conflict and that by the way leads to an anti theodicy which is okay so if I can't answer that then what now what should I do now how should I respond we'll see a lot of very strong support for this skeptical theism today then are theodes which we'll see different kinds which try to resolve the problem or Justify the suffering we'll see there in a minute then there's anti theodes which we saw now don't ask why ask what shall we do and then which is in many ways the most interesting of all which we'll get to I think just after sukat is well maybe we're making the wrong assumptions maybe we're all walking around with a simplistic 12 a third grade understanding of hash that everything that happens to everybody is a direct result of God's involvement in the World maybe that's not true maybe there's a lot of stuff that just happens because there are bigger systems that work there's a a work maybe there needs to be a tectonic shift of the land masses which is going to cause a tsunami which kills hundreds of thousands of people because if that shift doesn't happen then in 300,000 years from now some amazing civilization that is needed for the world will not be able to develop because they need the land masses to look like this and not look like that I mean you know I don't know the answer to that question but maybe we're just too focused on on the the the hashak proest ideas and hashak proes is a complicating thing we're going to talk about it because there are sources that say everybody even if they bang their thumb that is coming directly from Hashem but it's not so simple it's not so simple let me just throw out to you a um an obvious example of why it's not simple um let's take 911 there were some amazing hash Pro stories that came out of 9/11 when people who were late going to work because they were daving SOS and they go to a longer minion to D more SOS and the SOS meant they didn't get to work and the fact they didn't get to work meant that they didn't get killed okay that's great is that a hash Pro story if it happened to me then I for sure would feel personally that was a hashak pro story but what about the people who ran into the buildings to do the biggest Mitzvah you can possibly do which is to save another human being and the buildings fell on top of them they died because they did a mitzvah is that is that hash you can't have your cake and eat it you can't say that well for the people that were saved it's hash Pro but for the people that were killed oh you know we don't have that answer yeah you can't do that's fudging it you have to think a little bit more solidly than that and what about the guy who was true story who was having an affair and he was in Midtown in a hotel room and about half an hour after the whole thing happened his wife calls him he was meant to be on the 90th floor or whatever she says where are where are you where are you and he's in a hotel room he's clueless he said um I'm at work so she said if you're a work there is no work I didn't have a clear what she was talking about now is that a hash APR story this guy was saved because he cheated on his wife okay this guy's married before before you before you take a simplistic attitude toh proes you got to put all the points together and we're going to have to look at that because it could be that we're asking a question which assumes a simplistic understanding of the way that God runs the world uh and maybe when we make a little bit have a deeper understanding of that some of the questions will not go away but they may it may take some of the the pointedness out of them H now let's look at theodism and we'll get into today's if we don't finish today's sheet then we'll continue next time but I think we will'll try we're not going to read every Source there are four different kinds basically of theodes meaning justification of God's actions in our um in our classic sources one of them is punishment theodes these people suffered because they needed to be a punishment for sin now we'll see this is not one with we relate to very well today and we'll see next time when we get into this but it might not necessarily be for their Aus it might be for the generations Aus and we'll see well do we believe in that does that sound a bit Christian that they died to save the rest of the world okay maybe there's an Hab angle going on here and we'll see how that works into it when we get there that's one kind of theodes then there's a second kind of theodicy which is called a soul making theodicy which is this looks like suffering but what doesn't kill you makes you stronger think how much stronger you are for having gone through this it's actually created you as a person having gone through this and developed resilience we'll see there's a lot of sources for that too then there's a Divine intimacy theodicy which is God didn't want to punish this person this is a wonderful person it's a sadic but the suffer offering will draw them closer to God it will be a Divine uh intimate experience and we'll see the ramban is very unhappy about this this is what we call punishments of love and the rambam rejects this and says this is not a Jewish response but other sources say clearly is it's in the gamorra and then we'll have to talk about Free Will which is if people do bad things does is that coming from God or is that not coming from God someone picks up a gun and shoots another person did that person deserve to die do we say yes they deserve to die but this person shouldn't have killed them or do we say no they didn't deserve to die God did not want this person to die this person was killed by the evil acts of another person and now that's happened the whole universe will need to be rearranged and the future and and the world etc etc we'll see when we get there not so straightforward and we'll see that there's some interesting discussion about ysf and why they threw him in the pit and more about that quick question anything automatic pilot is it possible that like an airplane some of the world God is just putting it on a switch Yeah that's what we said before that's haskis as opposed to Hash prus some of it's running the system is running and that's a hash and it's not focused on anyone in particular it's a bigger system and therefore you're just the product of the system now we'll see what the balance is and who gets what and when you mean God just took a break or something no do take a break God when if I lift if I lift this up and drop it okay knew that would happen then do you say that God pushed it onto the floor or do you say that God created gravity and gravity does what gravity does so two a lot of things that happen to in this world there are systems if you don't look where you're going when you cross the road and then the car knocks into you then don't say oh you know why did I suffer so maybe you can say that on a bigger scale we'll get to that but not today let's go on page number three humility how important it is and how often we don't always hear this from rabbis in particular to be humble on this issue and to say you know something I don't have a hot L to God have a look here at some sources and we'll see Rin comes into this as well number nine a person should always learn to say less in front of God you know keep your mouth closed sometimes is the right answer by the way for shom bias as well I mean that's like for sure you know shom B is created more from what you don't say than what you do say that's everyone I think knows that but there the same is true of these theological issues and it brings a POS from don't get your mouth all worked up don't just blurt out with things that you haven't thought through in front of God because God is in the heavens says and you're in a very different place and therefore just say less don't always say what you think and uh and maybe uh the uh it comes up a little bit later but I'll read it now you don't need to turn the page yet where Aron solic and this was quoted I heard in a share I gave you the footnote said the following he said those who approach the Holocaust from a secular point of view end up spouting heresy and those who approach the Holocaust from a religious point of view end up spouting stupidity strong words because people are too quick to say things when they should just keep quiet sometimes very important God read our yes okay we'll talk about that but yes absolutely number 10 Rabbi shatz sometimes the answer Professor D David shatz um sometimes a person's Phil philosophizing is just so inappropriate and we all know this number 10 intellectual exitement is one source of My Love For My Religion another is the inspired lives of my religion's devotees recently I attended a talk given by an orthodox woman who's been bound to a wheelchair from childhood she's married to a blind man and remarkably they're raising a family she spoke about the Jewish concept that this too is for the good which we'll get to at the end of the Shar please God she explained how life had done her good turns by means of ostensible coincidences which in truth she felt were signs of God's intervention by means of her theology she had turned adversity into inner strength and Advantage if the thought of contesting her invisible hand interpretation with philosophical arguments seemed so offend ensive as to be Unthinkable anyone who would impune her perspective would only be reflecting their own lack of spirit if that evening someone had furnished me on the spot with a dazzling philosophical solution to the problem of evil that would have done less for me as a person than this simple autobiographical expression which from a philosophical standpoint seems so simplistic philosophy has its place among the truly enjoyable challenging and edifying Endeavors in our culture and Professor shatz is one of the world's leading philosophers but it is not the Arbiter of all we think and all we do what we do in our study and what we do in the rest of our lives are often not commensurate because the study is the smaller room of Life very nicely put you know no one goes to a shiver house and philosophizes about the meaning of evil and the reason for suffering it's offensive it's it's it's terrible and therefore we have to Al always know when we can have these kind of discussions are we are we removed enough maybe we're not even yet removed enough from a lot of the suffering but maybe we can try but we need to we need to really have this uh in mind all the time let's just skip RAB L for a second in number 11 and look at Rabbi lonstein and then we'll get into the book of IO in a minute Rabbi lonstein says and I I also feel this a lot number 12 regardless of what issues moral theological textual or historical vex me I was confident that they had been raised by Masters far sharper and wiser than myself and if they had remained impregnably um steadfast in their commitment so should and could I I intuited that his categorical formulations and Imperial certitude notwithstanding RAV hutner had surely confronted whatever questions occurred to me later I felt virtually certain the rav had so that the depth and intensity of their service to God was doubly reassuring and I think this is very important and it's not just blind the fact that people who are greater and with more expansive Minds that we could even imagine have thought through these questions and nevertheless got up the next morning to D shakes if they can do it then we can do it and that's a very important Point um I never forget when I was at University so there was a reform Rabbi that used to come to our uh you know meals from times time actually he wasn't a rabbi but he was whatever he was a very much part of the reformed community and a very very nice man um and at one point he said I object to you saying he said because that's ridiculous look at all the suffering in the world what do you mean Laur e I've never seen a sadic suffering this is stupidity he says I'm not saying it and even then as a 19 year-old I thought do you think they never thought of that the people who wrote this do you think they didn't realize that really really the whole Tanakh which is constantly dealing with the suffering of the innocent they never thought that through they were simplistic people it just doesn't ring true and that's what Rin is saying that a great many people have thought about these things and moved on and not let the question bug them down there's an apocryphal story about a young guy in Yeshiva that goes to the rav and says I'm struggling with this particular issue and I cannot sleep over this particular you know lus issue and so the rap said no it's a good question look at this toast first and this one and this one and this one and this one and this one and he looks at them and they all seem completely unrelated and nothing to do with the question he asked and he went back to the rav and he said I don't understand how that answers my question you look at them again still didn't understand and the r says no you got it wrong the end of every one of these toast veres says sor I don't I don't know the answer says to but we need to look at it more but next to it doesn't say and then that's the end that was the end of the commentary because the minute they hit that it needs more depth of thought they said okay we're going home and doing something else instead no that's not how it works and then I brought you um RAV uh Rin speaking quite sharply which I'll just mention right now look at number 13 he was uh interviewed uh after the withdrawal from uh the the uh expulsion of the Jews from from Gaza and now obviously we have very strong feelings about that I'm sure as well but he was asked why he didn't come out unequivocably and say clearly this was right this was wrong he wouldn't Express a clear religious opinion on this particular thing he was asked why so he was asked unlike many Zionist rabbis you refrain from expressing an opinion on the withdrawal from the Gaza Strip why so he says to express a position is a fine thing when you have a position when things are clear unequivocal when you have the sense that you understand not just the intricacies the political moves but also what God would want I didn't feel I had the tools or ability to express position I don't have God's phone number the way that some others seem to have I was raised on the words of the talmud about bilum he claimed to have knowledge of the will of the Supreme he couldn't even tell what his own Beast wanted and he claims to know the will of the Supreme the only person in Tanakh who is who says that they really understand God is Bam who can't even get their own donkey to walk in a straight line please have a little humility not the fake kind but the kind that rises from a person's understanding of who the almighty is and who man is a base ignominious creature I understand that there were people for whom it was clear where the disengagement was leading and go God wanted but that's not how I grew up humility is not an expression of religious awe but an only an expression of religious awe but an expression of wisdom then he says I don't have to insinuate anything it's no secret that there are large self-confidence segments of the public that can have the sense that you could take a chapter of the book of Isaiah Mali and find a perfect match between the text and what's happening before our eyes I'm not comfortable with that he says I'm uncomfortable with that also from a religious perspective it's true he says that those of us within the religious Zionist Camp after for years continued to March forward spiritually economically socially with trust in God without that belief it's doubtful that religious Zionism would have come into existence to begin with it began out of belief and hope out of the feeling that mankind has a role to play in history but the difference between that and the sense that I can explain exactly why a bus explodes and kills 22 children is enormous it's religious arrogance it also smacks of people overstepping their limitations I think uh leaving aside the issue of Gaza um I think that's something that we can all uh relate to um I brought you in number 16 before we just go into eov um also from Rabbi Josh UTA there he says it's all very well having your positions but you can't impose your positions on God and you can't impose your positions on other people people either and this whole exercise by the way and it goes without saying but needs to be said why suffering affects people can only ever be focused on ourselves we can't ever address this on anyone else and say you know I'll tell you why you're suffering and we'll get to the book of eov which deals with that in great detail because that's not how it works it's a question for us on us not to impose on other people so with all of that as a kind of long introduction let us get into the book of eov now the Book of Job is very daunting it's 42 chapters of which the middle 3839 of very very dense poetry of extremely difficult Hebrew however you can read it through in English in in an hour or so and I recommend you do um it's interesting that the Hebrew of iov is so complex that the Ian Ezra even says on the book of EO that I think it was originally written in a different language and translated into Hebrew which is quite an interesting statement there's no uh there's no clear indication in E of that if was Jewish we'll see in a minute or we'll see next week there are at least 12 different opinions as to when he lived and where he lived whether he lived at all also interesting is 10% of the heex Lea meaning words that only appear once ever in the all of tanak and therefore you can't work that account what they mean from anywhere else 10% of all those words in tanak are in the Book of Job so it's a difficult book but I brought you in page five I'm not going to read this through um a very nice um uh summary of exactly how it works I'll set it out very very quickly basically uh iov is a very successful man he has a lovely family he has lots of money he has a very religiously Pious life he brings lots of sacrifices even when um there's a concern someone in his family may have done something wrong he brings you know proactive sacrifices to do Chua he's ahead of the curve he's right on top of his spirituality and there is a Heavenly uh convention the word not convention is what I'm looking for convocation and God says to the crowd there to the spiritual forces have you seen my servant iov he is the best of the best look look at his life he's such a Pious person and the Satan who is very interestingly appears and takes a front line role here says yeah because he's so successful he just assumes that if you do Mitzvah you get reward and that's why he keeps doing it if you take that away from him you'll see what he does so he says okay you can take away everything but you can't touch him personally so then there's this almost this bizarre episode which is almost comical in a certain way but it's not meant to be comical where things start going wrong and all of a sudden a servant runs in and says to him there was a a fire lightning Came From Heaven destroyed the bars and all your animals have died and while he was still speaking someone else came in and says all your money has been stolen and taken away and then someone else comes in and says and the building fell down and all your children were together and they all were killed and you know elizel said you know why didn't job respond like like is this a joke is somebody is somebody like pulling a prank on me what is this interestingly he doesn't say that but it's this this almost like extreme version you have this man who has the least possible reason for suffering as far as we can see and suffers the worst possible suffering for the least possible reason because they're having a bet in shamayim as to whether he'll still remain Pious or not it it seems a very extreme case and in the end um all everything that is his is taken away but he doesn't reject God so they have a new convocation and and the Satan says yeah but if you afflict him personally you'll see what happens so God says okay but you can't kill him so he afflicts him personally has the most terrible terrible illnesses and and eventually he basically loses it he says okay this is completely undeserved I'm innocent why is this happening this is terrible there's no reason why this should be happening to me and then we see these three friends elifas um soar SAR and bildad which by the way are interesting they're ad doine names and as we know as an Edom name from the end of but the other ones as well and there's a yav by the way this is very similar to there's a yav there in the Edom names so they come in and they and they give him this sort of response and it starts off quite gentle where they say things like oh come on iO you are always so supporting of other people you always such a Gamul Lova kind of person why don't you try and do that for yourself you'll be okay everything will come through and he says no that's ridiculous and they get more and more as time goes on and they're like they have three rounds of conversations so they're basically telling him you obviously are a sinner and God doesn't punish people for no reason and and just get get a grips with it and you're clearly not the person you thought you were Etc now then um arrives this young man Eli who and says I didn't want to say anything because who am I I'm a young kid but I've been listening to what these three comforters have been saying and it's like it's it's Madness what you're saying to I and also iov you're also wrong and he gives his own perspective which is a different perspective and then we see uh God kicks in and says why he uh what he reacts how he reacts to I I admits his his error and then the book ends in a in a happy way as it were I mean he doesn't take away the loss but he he gets his money back he has a new family etc etc etc interestingly at no point did he lose his wife she was always there to kind of help him through it um which is an interesting thing everything is gone but barash his wife is not okay that's another that's another question um I assume that wasn't part of the suffering that was imposed on him but like that that's that's uh that that depends on how you look at it um by the way look at number 18 the book of iov is very unclear who was right who was wrong so it says at the end in 18 after God said these things to he says to the comforters you are wrong I'm angry with you with your two fellow comforters because you didn't speak properly like my servant I spoke he he was said it how it should be said but which bit of eov when did God justify the eo's statement which statement does he say was proper because I says many different kind of things for example at the beginning beginning you have I of the pious when he first loses in a terrible way number [Music] 19 he gets up and he tears his clothes cuz he's in a he pulls his hair which is interesting was he meant to do that was he Jewish he's not Jewish number 19 he bows on the floor by and he says famous words I came out naked from my mother's womb and I will go back naked when I die which we're very familiar with from funerals when we have a levia this is what they say so is that what God is praising he spoke he spoke the right way or is it this in the middle when E is at his at his Wit's End and he can't take it anymore he screams out in number 20 I am innocent I have no rest I I hate my life I want to die I'm suicidal I can't take it anymore it's all one one thing seems to happen to everybody the the the the wicked get killed the sad gets killed everybody it's all one thing everybody's just destroyed everyone's suffering and then he says an unbelievable thing if if the if the if the staff suddenly kills he's laughing he's just laughing at the suffering of the people who are hurt Who's Laughing Who's Laughing is is he saying that God's laughing at us is he saying the laughing you see look at the commentators on that posic everyone's tearing themselves in knots CU it sounds like IO is screaming God's just sadistic he's punishing us we're innocent and he's laughing at us is is that what God says I is right when he says that it's not clear with the response of I is very very very varied and and in a sense the it's it's the the the turmoil of eov which is Justified and understood and we'll see when we get more into that that the different the's kick in there um look at Rabbi saaks very quickly number 21 in the end it is not job's comforters who blamed his misfortunes on his sins who were Vindicated by heaven but job himself who consistently Channel challenged God in Judaism Judaism faith lies in the question and not the answer so whatever it was that IO said right Rabbi sax understands it was his questioning it was his challenging that we're going through this okay so let's have a look at a few different ways of understanding skeptical theism in the 20 minutes that we have we'll skip around here uh I defined it here in 22 and 23 more philosophically you can look at that yourself I brought a nice oneliner non-jewish Source number 24 if God was small enough to be understood he would not be big enough to be worshiped it's a nice line yeah it's a nice line um but we're told all the all the time we cannot understand God that is a legitimate approach logical and legitimate number 25 says God I don't think the way you think your ways are not my ways and we saw last week that the myones the rambam says this is not just saying God runs the world but the whole way God thinks you can't even get your head around there's no way you can understand it it's it's just totally um light years away from any understanding you could have and that's what God responds to EO skeptical theism gets a solid reading in IO number 26 God says to God answers I from the turmoil from the storm what storm the storm going on inside his head he can't take it anymore he's bursting with anguish and anxiety God says to him who do I hear darkening counsel meaning giving talking nonsense words without understanding man up he says to him basically G your loins like a man I'm going to ask you some questions you tell me what the answers are to these questions where were you when I created the world dat do you understand anything about the world the universe and at the end he is forced to say you know something you're right I I didn't understand anything and therefore the idea of skeptical theism as a response is that the universe is not homocentric the universe is not focused on mankind it's focused on God and getting that through to EO is a very painful lesson why would you not suffer suffer it's not just about you it's about a much bigger scheme that you'll never understand R salich number 27 as long as job philosophies like a slave of Fates regarding the cause of and reason for suffering as long as he demanded of God that he revealed to him the nature of evil as long as he continued to question and complain asking why and wherefore act afflictions before man God answered him forcefully and caustically posing to him the very powerful and pointed questions do you know it said ET Etc last line he says if you do not even know the ABC of creation how can you so arrogantly presume to ask so many questions regarding the governance of the cosmos again in cic if you've read I'm sure you have cic it's about moving from fate to destiny fate is when you feel that you're being Just buffeted Around by the suffering of the world and Destiny is where you manage to kind of focus that forwards on an action to create a future for yourself and the Jewish people 28 only if man only if man could grasp the world as a whole would he be able to gain a perspective on the essential nature of evil however as long as man's apprehension is limited and distorted as long as he be perceives only isolated fragments of the co Cosmic drama and the mighty epic of History he remains unable to penetrate into the secret lay of suffering and evil to what may the matter be compared to a person gazing at a beautiful rug a true word of art work of art one in which an Exquisite design has been woven but looking at it from the reversed side take a gorgeous tapestry turn it around and see what it looks like a big balagan what you've worked for six months to make this look at it it's awful no no you're looking at it the wrong way around don't look at the back look at the front can such a viewing give rise to a Sublime aesthetic experience we are last view the world from its reverse side we are therefore unable to grasp the all-encompassing framework of being and it's only within that framework that it's possible to discern the divine plan the essential nature of the Divine actions we don't know the past we don't know the future we don't know how all other 7 billion people on the planet play into this we don't see the world to come we don't see Gil gulim we we just don't see we just don't see and therefore says you don't see that's the answer because you can't see p 29 re we have no way of understanding why the wicked seem to prosper why the righteous suffer and um the Rea bring there very important POS from yumia where he says fine I I I don't understand it but I will continue to ask I need to ask and that's an important Point as right saak said you need to ask the question you need to pose the question because if you don't ask the question you'll just accept it and and in the video I mentioned which I really recommend you watch I can hardly still watch it without crying r r sax he's he's asked on a video Zoom call by a young woman like you know what have you had any more insights into why bad things happen to good people and he responds he says yes I have and the reason is because if we accepted if we understood why the suffering happens we wouldn't intervene to try and change it we wouldn't create medicines to heal people we wouldn't create social justice programs to help people we just say you know something who am I to interfere with God's grand plan we can't know we must know because if we did know and didn't ask the question we would accept it it's a very powerful video I recommend strongly that you watch it Abraham 31 what a way to speak to God he says this is terrible this is this is a terrible disaster you're going to kill all these people Russia you're going to kill with in stone all the same MB the question is legit nobody ever questions abam for how can you speak like that to God no the question is a good question it's a legitimate question and we don't know the answer number 32 look look in bras says first of all three questions God mosha asked at the top of Hari in the closest moment of connection to God and he was answered on three and one of them was he asked you know let me see your ways and he was told say why do I not see Justice in the world bad people prosper and good people suffer so he tells him I'm Al according to we'll see this next week someone a sadic who suffers obviously they're not a complete sadic there's something they're doing wrong and the point I want to make here is that's R yosi's opinion that he was given some kind of an answer says no he asks these two questions that sorry two three questions and two were answered to him but but one was he was told no no I'm sorry M there is no answer I will give I will have mercy on anyone who I choose even though you don't think it's fair and I will have I will be kind to those who I choose even though for your from your perspective it can't possibly be right and according to rebbi Maya he's told he can't answer that question he's not going to give an answer you won't understand the answer a very pointed Exchange number 33 I'm doing this quite quickly but they're not difficult sources but you put them all together and they they give a good picture MOS says to God when he shows him's Godless in Torah 33 you there's a there's a person like this and you're giving Torah to me give Torah to him God says to himu which is quite harsh you don't you wouldn't speak to your children that way this is my intention these are my thoughts you don't know my thoughts I want you to have the Torah so says okay fine you show me his greatness and Torah show me his reward for being such a great says turn around that requires a new scene you know end of Acts scene two open Scene Three you know and what where is he now they he saw the Romans peeling the Flesh of RAB aka's body with metal rods this is the reward you get for being such ack silence you don't know my thoughts I know my thoughts I have my reasons very very interesting so again this idea that we don't know we can't know is a very logical and legitimate response ra amital now raal speaks a lot about this raal was a holocaust Survivor and he went on to of course become the rash inan one of the rash Shiva he says number 34 no worldly attainment can compensate for the murder of those Millions all the claims about the establishment of the state of Israel serving as compensation for the Holocaust are Hollow neither the state of Israel that exists in reality that fights bloody wars for its existence from time to time nor the ideal state of Israel as in the vision of every man under his Vine and under his victory can justify even partially what the nation of Israel went through during the Holocaust years there is no EST religious response without this plea you would be in the right oh Lord if I were to contend with you then nevertheless I will reason these points of Justice with you that's the posan Yan he says no you can't justify the Holocaust based on the state of Israel he says that's that's a disgrace to say that on the other hand you won't get the answer to the question 35 I like this the rambam and even yesah mayum never imagined that a day would come when there would be no longer any answers not only are there no answers he says about the great question of the Holocaust they cannot be answers the question is so unfathomable that no answer in the world could suffice as Ellie weasel just remarked nothing in the world can justify the cruel murders of hundreds of thousands of children nothing could justify it not the state of Israel not the coming of Messiah not the mass repentance of the Jewish people Nothing the rambam says that there will be an answer to every question but to this question there is no answer I want the rambam to know that we have lived through questions of the sort that are unanswerable once I met ABA kovner the famous poet and leader of the V of the vetto Revolt he asked me as a believing Jew how do you deal with what you live through in the Holocaust and I answered him in typical Jewish fashion how do you deal with it I believe in God said raal who I don't pretend to understand but you believe in man can you still believe in man after the Shah he didn't speak as elizel does about the Cen in man he believed abak kov in the greatness of the goodness of man so I added your problem is greater than mine for me the ways of God are hidden well then said R aova each of us has a problem okay a very a very interesting response let's skip a little bit um let's go through to the top of page nine and I want to talk about a couple of other things let's go to the issue or the hasic issue ofanim and then the halakic issue of response part of this answer that the question is is illogical that how can you expect to know God's mind is expressed in the itself when it talks about that there will be a hiddenness of the face of God number 41 you're going to die now this is right at the end of and there will the people will rise up in the future they'll go off the other gods coming into this nation they'll see all these I and they will abandon me and they will break my Covenant and I will abandon them and I will turn away from my my face from them they will they will come to eat rabot and and they will have these terrible terrible tragedies for sarot okay say on that day God is obviously not here there is God is not present and that's why these terrible things have come to pass I will surely hide my face what's the double we'll see that in a minute because they turned to other gods and the uh Rabbi lamb talks a little bit about what Hester panim is let's have a look at this in number 42 all the Bible is the record of the dialogue between God and Israel now the fortunes of this dialogue are described by two terms The Hiding of the face and the lifting of the face when two people love each other they face each other they look adoringly each other like the this mutuality in love is the essence of the dialogue whatever words flow from it whether nor narrative or normative are significant but secondary but but when one party is disloyal to the other when he sins against the other then that other turns his face away he refuses to gaze at the one who wrongfully injured him as a consequence the party who first sin two turns his face away everybody's turning away their face their relationship does sustains a blow should they feel a need or desire to reestablish relations of old then one of them will slowly lift up and turn his face to the other and await the reciprocal turning of the others face as a gesture of reconciliation clip to the last paragraph here this spirit ual consequence ofanim is not one bit less devastating than its physical impacts on man indeed it prevents man from properly interpreting his condition under it confounds his self- understanding the best thus interprets the key phrase in tanim I will surely hide my face the double ver is normally interpreted as an intensive form surely hide my face but for the Balto a far deeper layer of meaning is uncovered as he takes the double verb quite literally I will hide The Hiding of my face from you the H panim itself is in hiding it's a double level hiding a second order hiding the obscurity itself is obscured man suffers from H upon him and he doesn't even know that God is turning his face from him you it's like those family bruses where people have falling out with each other and and no one even remembers anymore why they all fall fell out with each other we just know we don't talk to those cousins and they don't talk to us and we just don't talk to each other and we even forgotten what's really going on here he says that's what's going on one somebody has to turn around and say this is going to be a response and then the face can turn back and therefore I think it's important to understand what everything we've said today in this idea that we cannot understand what God does because we're not God in the context of H panim and I brought you on page 10 a whole page for you to read on your own I brought you um Rabbi YZ Greenberg who talks about it very powerfully as well um sh I brought the a kodesh also on this idea which there there's lots to say here I can't possibly read everything Ela burwitz who spoke a lot about the Holocaust very very important this idea of H panim and how this works but let's just finish with something halic just to sum up because we've done a lot today and there's a lot of material here which I'm not going to go through that's fine because you can look at it yourself what do we do as a response so this is in number 50 very interesting I'm always nervous when sources get to the number 15 but don't worry we've done very well today we' got three or four more minutes says the a person has to make a on both suffering and on the good and the come finishes that and says whatever measure you get in life whether you suffer God forbid whether you have whichever it is you have to be grateful you have to understand you have to say you know you have to say a br to hasem for that and in 51 it says well what's the BR we can't say what are we going to say thank you God it was marvelous in in in the future maybe we can and that was the source I brought you at the end of the page in Pim that in the future we'll be able to say because we'll see more context we'll understand more but right now the best we can say is but that itself is a which is saying if I understood it then I'd be God and I'm not God so I don't understand it and therefore that is a legitimate response have a look in number 52 for theack in a person says has to be able to make a on the bad stuff with a full heart with a with a willing soul just like you make a it's very difficult say this is what we need to Aspire to because to a real EV okay if it looks bad it is bad it feels bad but this is part of God's plan and that's part of my this is a person is able to make this BR and again you don't have to be happy when you make the BR you can be sad and still serve God B Because B here means that I'm in the place I need to be this is the right response I'm dealing with it appropriately of course I feel devastated individually but that doesn't mean that I'm cutting off the relationship that is also part of and therefore that's the if you like the the halakic response and I brought you at the very end of the sheet Gam you know R Who Says gam gam gamov and if you read that story carefully it's not a happy story it ends up with an entire town being taken away as hostages by evil enemies and Raba sees that and he knows that and he understands that and yet he's able to say in the context of that whole story you know something I don't get why all of this happened why I was saved even though my candle blew out and my cat got eaten my chi got eaten by a cat and my donkey got eaten by by by a lion and at the time it was the most like frustrating I'm having the worst day I ever and I survived but they died I don't there's an answer to it maybe he said both bras on him and on them but the point is that skeptical theism is a legitimate response and to my mind I think is one of the most it speaks to me one of the most um next week we'll move on next week we'll talk about punishment theodes which great on our sensitivities a little bit but we'll see how kazal deal with them and then we'll move on from there uh I hope it wasn't too much for one session please take it away read it answer me write me questions and we'll we'll continue next week to be [Music]