November 1st: Noach
THIS WEEK IN THE TORAH
Rabbi David E. Ostrich
(This week, we share Rabbi Ostrich’s Rosh Hashanah Evening D’var Torah, Judaism’s Chorus of Voices.)
One of the most useful phrases I have learned in recent years is often heard at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem. Explaining the many different opinions among Jews, the phrase speaks of Judaism being a chorus of voices. Rather than seeing divergent views as contradictions or problems, it encourages us to see them as a part of a process where different people try to understand God and what God wants of us. This multiplicity of opinions goes all the way back to Genesis where many of the Torah stories have variant versions. For an example, look at the first two chapters in Genesis. Chapter 1 tells of the Six Days of Creation, but starting in Chapter 2.4, it is as though the entire first chapter did not exist. God begins to create the world, and without a timeline or number of days, does things in a very different order. The man and woman in Chapter 1 are nowhere to be seen, so God has to “form man from the dust of the earth,” and, later, when no animal proves to be a suitable companion, God takes a rib from the man and creates woman. From the very beginning, our Tradition presents us with more than one opinion.
This was the point of my teacher, the late Ellis Rivkin of the Hebrew Union College, who used to joke that he was a Biblical literalist. Definitely not a Biblical literalist, he used to say that he believed every single word in the Bible—but, that since the Bible has multiple opinions about most subjects, he got to pick and choose what seemed right to him.
I like the Hartman notion of a chorus of voices because it graciously helps us to feel a part of a process rather than being in the middle of a conflict. We are all in this together, trying to understand the un-understandable, trying to make sense of a very complex and often chaotic world. Our divergent opinions represent a community of sacred questing—and we Jews have been at it for quite a while.
Among the most important subjects addressed is the question of good and evil, and reward and punishment, or, as Rabbi Harold Kushner puts it, Why Bad Things Happen to Good People. A subject with which we are all familiar, one can see our ancestors in the Bible and Talmud struggling with the challenges of life. Our chorus of voices has been “singing” for many, many years.
One view, known as Deuteronomic Theology, is presented in several places in the final book of the Torah. A familiar iteration is Deuteronomy 11.13-21—which is found in traditional prayer books as the second paragraph of the Shema. וְהָיָה אִם־שָׁמֹעַ תִּשְׁמְעוּ אֶל־מִצְוֹתַי
If we obey God’s mitzvot, we will be blessed with all manner of good things in this life:
“I will grant the rain for your land in season, the early rain and the late rain. You shall gather in your new grain and wine and oil; I will also provide grass in the fields for your cattle, and thus you shall eat your fill.”
However, הִשָּֽׁמְר֣וּ לָכֶ֔ם פֶּן־יִפְתֶּ֖ה לְבַבְכֶ֑ם...
if we disobey, we will be punished—also in this life:
“The Lord’s anger will flare up against you, and God will shut up the skies so that there will be no rain, and the ground will not yield its produce; and you will soon perish from the good land that the Lord assigns you.”
(Though our Biblical ancestors believed in an afterlife, She’ol, it was not a place of reward or punishment. It is just where the dead people went.)
The problem with this Deuteronomic Theology is that experience and observation prove it wrong. Too often, the evil prosper, and the righteous suffer. If only things worked like the Torah assures.
Another voice in our sacred chorus may help explain. In the second of the Ten Commandments, after prohibiting idolatry, God adds:
כִּי אָנֹכִי יְיָ אֱלֹהֶיךָ אֵל קַנָּא פֹּקֵד עֲוֹן אָבוֹת עַל־בָּנִים וְעַל־שִׁלֵּשִׁים וְעַל־רִבֵּעִים לְשֹׂנְאָי:
וְעֹשֶׂה חֶסֶד לַאֲלָפִים לְאֹהֲבַי וּלְשֹׁמְרֵי מִצְוֹתָו [מִצְוֹתָי] :
“For I the Lord your God am an impassioned God, visiting the guilt of the parents upon the children, upon the third and fourth generation of those who reject Me, but showing kindness to the thousandth generation of those who love Me and keep My commandments.” (Deuteronomy 5.9-10, Exodus 20.5-6)
Could it be that the bad things happening to good people are the result of the sins of their ancestors? Could the good things happening to evil people be the result of the virtues of their ancestors? Hmmm.
A contradictory opinion comes in Deuteronomy 24.16 where a very different principle is stated:
לֹא־יוּמְתוּ אָבוֹת עַל־בָּנִים וּבָנִים לֹא־יוּמְתוּ עַל־אָבוֹת אִישׁ בְּחֶטְאוֹ יוּמָתוּ:
“Parents shall not be put to death for the crimes of their children; neither shall children be put to death for the crimes of their parents; a person shall be put to death only for his/her own crime.”
Though this passage speaks about the death penalty, it certainly argues against the Second Commandment’s thinking.
We are not the only ones to notice how the Torah is of several minds on this subject, and thus does the Book of Job enter our theological tug of war. Though it is presented as a historical story, it takes the form of a Greek play, and many scholars think that it is a fictional though realistic attempt to wrestle with this moral and theological problem—a problem philosophers call Theodicy. The Biblical writer presents Job as a perfect human being who nonetheless suffers grievously. He maintains his faith but desperately wants to understand God’s mysterious ways. Finally, he realizes that God’s ways are beyond human understanding.
עַל־כֵּן אֶמְאַס וְנִחַמְתִּי עַל־עָפָר וָאֵפֶר:
“Therefore I recant and relent (any questions), being nothing but dust and ashes.” (Job 42.6)
Job’s conclusion is that what may appear to be unjust may actually be just, and what appears to be unfair may actually be fair. Though we do not understand, we have no choice but to trust in God no matter what.
Some people are satisfied with this answer—and it does make some philosophical sense. Given the humility we ought to have in re God’s infinity, there is no way that we limited and mortal creatures can possibly fathom or judge the Infinite One. We just need to trust God, whatever may come. However, there were plenty of people who did not find this blind trust helpful, and the Pharisees and Sages of the Talmudic Age pondered the problem and derived a very different answer.
It is not that they did not trust God. However, their trust in God led them down a different path. If God is ultimately just—if the righteous will be rewarded and the evil punished, and if these rewards or punishments do not occur in this life, then God must have arranged something after this life—a time when, as Torah promises, the scales of justice will be well and truly balanced.
In other words, if justice is not done in this life, then it must be done in an afterlife where the truth of Deuteronomy is fulfilled. The just will receive their rewards, and the evil will receive their punishment. Just not in this life.
This belief is not spelled out in the Bible—which is why the Sadducees opposed it vigorously, but the ancient Rabbis based their conclusion on intuition. Inasmuch as God is just, there must be an Olam Haba, a World to Come. Our faith in God and God’s justice demands this truth. It is the only way that God can ultimately right the scales of justice. It is as we sing in Yidgal,
גּוֹמֵל לְאִישׁ חֶֽסֶד כְּמִפְעָלוֹ, נוֹתֵן לְרָשָׁע רָע כְּרִשְׁעָתוֹ:
“God deals kindly with those who merit kindness and brings upon the wicked the consequences of their evil.”
Yigdal, by the way, is from the 15th Century liturgist Daniel ben Judah Dayyan of Rome and is his poetic presentation of Rabbi Moses Maimonides’ Thirteen Principles of the Jewish Faith. This belief in God’s ultimate justice is central to what our Tradition understands and believes.
The question of Theodicy—why bad things happen to good people—is one of the great conundrums of life. We like to think that our choices and deeds matter—and they often do, but often we seem to be victims of forces beyond us. We feel confused and caught—suffering or prospering—and not really knowing why. We yearn to understand, but no one really knows. We try to dredge wisdom from our sacred texts and Sages, but, ultimately, this is just a matter beyond us.
What we see in our Tradition—in its chorus of voices—is the attempt of our people to fathom the unfathomable and make sense out of infinity. Are there all the answers we need? No. But is there value in our thinking? Without a doubt! We seek, as our prayer book puts it, “to endow our fleeting days with abiding worth,” and our Tradition’s chorus of voices reflects our grappling and wrestling with God. We are, after all, בְּנֵי יִשׂרָאֵל the Children of Israel—the children of a man who wrestled with God and would not let go.