Vayeshev: free will, divine providence and human suffering

The chapters of Judaism Reclaimed which relate to parashat Vayeshev take their lead from the episode of Yosef’s incarceration at the conclusion of the parashah. Yosef is clearly no ordinary detainee; the Torah attests to the fact that God inspires popularity and ensures success for him even within the prison walls. Nevertheless, the closing comment of Rashi on the parashah cites a perplexing midrash that criticizes Yosef for his attempt to secure freedom through the intercession of Pharaoh’s newly-freed butler rather than relying on God -- an attempt which would cost him an extra two years behind bars.

The Chazon Ish (Emunah uBitachon) suggests that Yosef’s fault lay in seeking an escape route which offered only a remote prospect of success, given the unsavoury nature of the butler’s character. Yosef’s reliance on the butler’s willingness to stand up before the royal court and petition Pharaoh on his behalf thus represented desperation, an act of someone who is panicking and who will resort even to far-fetched attempts to escape his troubles.

If we judge Yosef’s request to the butler to be an act of panic and desperation, however, we then face a further question: Since Yosef’s success in prison demonstrated that he was the beneficiary of significant Divine assistance, was it not reasonable for him to anticipate that God would influence the butler to speak up for him before the royal household? This question leads into a broader exploration of the respective roles and potential conflict between the doctrines of free will and Divine Providence.

We note Rambam’s statement in Hilchot Teshuvah that the functioning of human free will is so fundamental that it is considered a “pillar of the Torah” that, if God decreed human action ,“what use would the entire Torah be?” Divine Providence more typically takes the form of inspiring or fortifying the individual concerned, rather than interfering with the free will of any protagonist.

Two examples of this can be found in the Or HaChaim’s commentary to the episode of Yosef and his brothers. When Yosef imprisons the brothers, they do not initially attribute this to Divine censure, considering instead that it may be the result of God permitting the operation of the viceroy’s free will. Even more explicit is the interpretation by several commentators of the brothers’ decision to cast Yosef into a pit – which could allow Divine Providence to determine his fate - rather than to kill him directly. Had the brothers succeeded in murdering Yosef this could not have been seen as proof of his guilt (“Let us see what will be of his dreams”) since, to quote Netziv, “human free will is more powerful than Higher Providence”.

These explanations may make it easier to understand why it may have been unreasonable for Yosef to expect that God would influence the free will of the butler to speak up before Pharaoh.

Finally, we use the paramount importance of allowing the functioning of human free will in order to address an age-old problem: why does God permit evil and suffering to exist?

Rambam proposes that all evil in the world belongs to one of three categories. The first is the disintegration of physicality. God chose to construct a world which could operate by itself through perpetual, dynamic, and self-regulating rules of nature [we examine in a later chapter why God may have opted for this over miraculous micro-management]. Within these parameters of God’s will the world, including human bodies, necessarily contains an element of disintegration and decay which causes suffering. The majority of suffering however can be attributed to the free functioning of human free will as discussed above and, lastly, to unwise and unhealthy lifestyle choices.

These three categories are necessary consequences of the implementation of God’s plan for a physical world in which humans have free will. Nevertheless, this suffering can sometimes be mitigated through Hashgachah Pratit (individual Providence), which a person can attain by developing a connection to God.

A fuller analysis of how Rambam approaches the concept of Providence appears in the following chapter.

First posted on Facebook 18 December 2019, here.

Heaven or She'ol: what sort of afterlife does the Torah envisage?

When Ya’akov is confronted with news of the apparent death of his dear son, Yosef, he reacts by tearing his clothes and refuses to be comforted, instead crying out “I will descend to Sh’eol mourning for my son”. Ya’akov’s tortured utterance offers us an opportunity to examine what sort of afterlife the Torah might have envisaged. While later Rabbinic texts feature vivid and detailed depictions of the post-mortem delights and damnations that await humans (a matter I posted about previously here), such references and what they represent in Tanach are significantly more sparse.

In this guest post, Dovid Junik, a Jewish-theology enthusiast, teases out meaning from these afterlife references, advocating in the process a biblical afterlife of judgment and justice.

Biblical view of She’ol and the Afterlife

By Dovid Junik

If there was one single question we could get the answer to, most of us would probably choose the question of afterlife: what happens to our consciousness after the demise of the body. Many beliefs have evolved around this question, and even Judaism has had a diversity of opinions on the matter and an evolution of its own sort.

While the Talmud paints a vivid picture of a Heaven with many levels, a 12-month hell for some people, and an eventual resurrection, the biblical reality is far less vivid. There are even those who question whether or not the Tanakh believed in an afterlife of justice. Most bible scholars contend that Tanakh believed in an afterlife, but quite a different one than the afterlife we imagine. The biblical afterlife is called “She’ol,” described in various scriptures as the netherworld where the people eternally abide after death. It is described as an underground chamber where the dead live a dual life mimicking this earthly experience but in a shadowy dark environment. This She’ol is discussed in Canaanite writings as well.

We will now make the case that the Torah did in fact believe in an afterlife, whether it be a physical resurrection or a spiritual world for the soul or even She’ol. Afterwards, we will argue that Torah believed in a justice system for this afterlife as well. Let’s begin with the references to an afterlife:

· Describing the death of Abraham, Isaac, Ishmael, Jacob, Aaron, Moses and various biblical kings the Torah uses the terms "and he gathered to his nation"or "to his fathers”. This term strongly implies an afterlife in which these patriarchs are united with their pre-deceased ancestors. The term cannot mean simply joining the dead bodies of their ancestors in the graveyard, for most of these people weren't buried with their ancestors.

· In the Torah, we are warned about performing witchcraft, including talking to the dead spirit, implying that there was likely a dead spirit. This was quite a familiar practice at the time.

· Samuel the prophet's soul is being contacted by a witch after his death. During his conversation with King Saul, Samuel declares "Further, the Lord will deliver the Israelites who are with you into the hands of the Philistines. Tomorrow your sons and you will be with me; and the Lord will also deliver the Israelite forces into the hands of the Philistines.” Indeed, the next day Saul and his son Jonathan joined Samuel in the world above.

· David is in the midst of comforting himself on the loss of his son; and he says:

"But now that he is dead, why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he will never come back to me.” 

Seemingly King David is comforting himself that he will one day see his deceased son.

She’ol or a justice system?

It would appear that the Torah assumes an afterlife justice system , perhaps in addition to She’ol. This justice system, where the righteous are rewarded and the wicked punished, may be a part of the She’ol experience (although other cultures believing in She’ol, at the time didn’t seem to look at it as a justice system). Ezekiel 31:18 seems to mention that there are various levels within She’ol and the unworthy are at the lowest. Alternatively, She’ol is merely describing the demise of the body whereas the soul lives on in an afterlife and is brought to justice for the good and bad it has committed. A number of verses indicate that She’ol may just be the death of the body – and not an underworld with its own consciousness. It is described alongside “death,” “pit,” and “grave.”

The scholarly consensus among bible critics is that the Torah believed in She’ol afterlife and had no justice system in mind. This notion comes from their premise that the Torah is not a divinely-inspired document and was rather the product of Canaanite culture. Here we will argue that as a divinely-inspired document, the Torah is likely to have believed in an afterlife with a justice system of some sort.

Crucially, the Torah wasn’t a product of Canaanite culture: rather it was a product of the Israelite’s sojourn in the Wilderness. Thus, the Israelites would have taken the Egyptian notion of a spiritual afterlife for granted. The Egyptians left a clear record of their religious beliefs in their hieroglyphics and they paint the vivid picture of an eternal spiritual afterlife where their god judges them for their actions in this world. The silence of Torah on the matter would be an indication that Torah believed in that same notion of afterlife.

This indication is bolstered by certain references from within the Torah’s text itself. God is regularly described in scripture as the “God of Justice” who will punish the wicked and reward the righteous. Since our earthly experience is not consistent with this description, it can be inferred that an afterlife of justice is intended.

Furthermore, the Jewish people are described as privileged to be the special Chosen Nation of God out of His love for them. But if we look at their earthly experience alone, we see the opposite to be true. The Jewish people are burdened with many additional commandments, while suffering exile and persecution for disloyalty to God. What benefit is there in being from God’s Chosen Nation, if not for there being an afterlife where the Jews are rewarded for keeping all their extra commandments and remaining faithful to God? This argument is underscored by the prophetic utterance of Bilaam who petitions God: “May I die the death of the upright, may my fate be like theirs!" – a seeming advantage possessed by the righteous in their passing.

While the extent to which these points constitute proof can be debated, I believe I have demonstrated that a strong argument can be made to support the notion of biblical belief in an afterlife of justice.

For more on this subject, including more possible biblical references to the afterlife, footnotes, and a discussion of why the Torah doesn’t explicitly discuss the afterlife, see here.

First posted on Facebook 9 December 2020, here.

Responding to the Lag be'Omer tragedy

It is human nature to want to explore and suggest reasons for significant worldly phenomena and occurrences, particularly tragic events which strike at the heart of our own communities. As religious people, whose outlook and perspective of the world is premised upon a core belief in an all-powerful and providential God, our pain directs us to look for messages that God may be intending to send us. Some kind of constructive lesson that can, to a degree, enable us to rationalise and make some kind of sense of a tragic occurrence.

At this time of national mourning, I am reminded of a tragic episode a few years ago (and which I’ve mentioned in a previous post).

A bus crash on the outskirts of Jerusalem claimed a number of young Haredi lives. As the community mourned, Pashkevilim and religious media inevitably began to point fingers at the usual suspects including smartphones, silk wigs and insufficient Torah study. One thoughtful response, however, contained in a letter from the late Haredi leader, Rabbi Aharon Yehuda Leib Shteinman, caught my attention. Its profound message and direction has sadly not received the attention that it deserves:

“Even in the times of prophets they did not, except for few specific exceptions, pronounce for what reason God had brought certain things upon us…therefore it behooves us to improve ourselves but there is no question as to which area must be strengthened, for in any area that we improve there is benefit…”

This emphasis on seeking the correct response to tragedy rather than speculating as to its spiritual underpinnings is a prevalent theme in the writings of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik. In Kol Dodi Dofek he argues:

“We do not wonder about the ineffable ways of the Holy One, but instead ponder the paths man must take when evil leaps up at him. We ask not about the reason for evil and its purpose, but rather about its rectification and uplifting. How should a man react in a time of distress...In general the purpose of suffering is to repair the imperfection in man’s persona. The halakha teaches us that an afflicted person commits a criminal act if he allows his pain to go for naught and to remain without meaning or purpose.”

Unlike the bus crash Rav Shteinman was responding to, however, initial reports concerning events at Meron on Thursday night indicate that a more systematic failure seems to lie behind the disaster (the second tragic event of this sort to have occurred at Meron on Lag Be’omer).

As I go through in Judaism Reclaimed, Rambam considers that the vast majority of human suffering and misery in this world is caused not by God, but by poor human decision-making. Errors of judgment from people who lack proper character training, perspective and priorities in life.

The best way to honour the memory of the deceased is not to politicise the tragedy or to seek a version of the narrative that accords with our own political/religious affiliations and ideas. Nor should difficult questions be deflected with simplistic assertions that “whatever happened was God’s will and not for us to examine”. But rather it is for all involved to set aside egos and personal interest so that an open and honest investigation can take place. The best way to honour the victims is to allow this tragedy to change our societies for the better – and to ensure that such heart-breaking scenes are never to be repeated in the future.

First posted to Facebook 2 May 2021, here.

How Judaism approaches pain and suffering

The hardest moments that any rabbi or religious figure have to deal with tend to relate to pain, grief and suffering of innocent people. Sometimes this can involve otherwise less-religious people who are trying to make some sort of sense of their devastating difficulties, but for many religious people too, witnessing such inexplicable suffering at close hand can present a significant challenge to their faith.

What range of responses does Judaism offer to people who find themselves in such an unfortunate situation – or to rabbis who are approached to advise them?

Perhaps the most important words of wisdom that Jewish tradition has for rabbis – and indeed anyone who finds themselves in a position of providing support – are taught in Pirkei Avot (4:23):

Rabbi Shimon ben (son of) Elazar said, do not appease your fellow at the time of his anger, do not console him at the time his dead lies before him…

A person’s profound suffering will sometimes express itself in the form of theological questions: “why is this happening?” “why is God doing this to me?”. Those numb with grief are unlikely to be genuinely seeking a deep philosophical response, and their minds are typically not settled enough to appreciate such a response anyway. At a particularly tragic shiva I attended a couple of years ago, the parents of the deceased stared blankly across the room – clearly uninterested in engaging any of the visitors in conversation. After what seemed like an interminable awkward silence, another family member told the gathered crowd that their very presence was providing support and comfort for the mourners – even if no words, conversation or advice were being sought.

While knowing when to remain silent and avoid theological discourses is certainly important, Judaism certainly does contain an interesting range of responses to why the innocent suffer. The closing section of Judaism Reclaimed’s chapter relating to parashat Vayeshev focuses primarily on Rambam’s approach to explaining human suffering in Moreh Nevuchim.

Rather than trying to explain and justify individual cases of suffering, Rambam seeks to provide a broader perspective on why an all-powerful perfect deity should have constructed a world which contains so much suffering and pain. His answer presents three primary categories of suffering experienced by humanity, all of which are necessary components of creation.

The first category is caused by the inevitable disintegration of all aspects of physicality. Only God and spiritual entities can be unchanging and eternal. Humanity’s purpose is to transcend mortal physicality, and for people to develop their souls in order to earn the eternity of the World to Come. Our physicality, indispensable to this fundamental purpose, automatically makes us subject both to mortality and to the illnesses generated by the process of decay, a natural consequence of the body’s temporal physical existence. Natural disasters are also included in this category, these being the inevitable result of the dynamic nature of the cycle of growth and decay which characterises the physical world.

According to this approach, God’s plan required a world which could operate by itself through perpetual, dynamic and self-regulating rules of nature. Humans, the sole bearers of the ‘tzelem Elokim’ divine intellect, possess the ability to transcend this mundane physicality by connecting to the metaphysical divine, thereby attracting hashgachah (divine providence) and the prospect of entering the World to Come.

[As an aside, Rambam’s proposition that illness and natural disasters are the result of a necessary process of decay is developed on the basis of modern scientific understanding by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks (The Great Partnership p 244). Rabbi Sacks finds support for this understanding from the dynamic conditions necessary for the emergence and evolution of life.]

The second category consists of the evil that humans are capable of inflicting on one another through the operation of their free will. Allowing free will to function is of fundamental importance to the purpose of the world, therefore God will rarely interfere with it.

Finally, Rambam considers that the most prevalent form of suffering in the world is self-inflicted through the choice of unwise and imbalanced conduct such as the pursuit of unhealthy lifestyles. Lack of control over one's desires for worldly pleasures not only has a negative impact on the intellect but can also lead a person towards illness and hardship

Rambam’s explanation certainly does not cover and explain all instances of suffering, and may well be too cold and detached to comfort many people. A more common approach to coping with grief and difficulty in this world seeks to place it in a wider perspective of the function and purpose which Jewish tradition attaches to our lives. As another Mishnah in Avot (4:16) teaches:

Rabbi Yaakov said: this world is like a corridor before the World to Come; prepare yourself in the corridor, so that you may enter the banqueting-hall.

The most far-reaching version of this approach explains suffering of innocents in terms of gilgulim, and each soul having its own specific mission and rectification that it needs to achieve. As someone put it to me earlier today, this is “surely the correct approach within Judaism as it is the only way to explain such suffering”. For those whose Judaism includes belief in gilgulim, this is probably correct. Its place within Jewish thought has been strongly challenged however by great figures such as Rav Sa’adiah Gaon, and it is notably absent from biblical passages – such as Job and Habbakuk – which address the suffering of innocents.

One final dimension to suffering of innocents emerges from a debate between Rabbi Akiva and Turnus Rufus, the Roman governor of Judaea. Turnus Rufus confronts Rabbi Akiva with the question: “If your God loves the poor so much why doesn’t He feed them?” Rabbi Akiva’s profound response is that it is of course within God’s power to feed the poor. But, in a perfect world which contains neither suffering nor poverty, there would be no real opportunity for humans to perform acts of kindness.

Reflecting further upon Rabbi Akiva’s response, one can ask which other forms of suffering it can be extended to cover. In a world in which there were no poor, suffering or sick people, what opportunities would there be for individuals to empathise with others and demonstrate the sort of self-sacrifice which really sets apart the greatest among us.

The Ramban, at the start of his commentary on the akeida, explains the concept of nisayon (a divine test): that God will sometimes test us in order to draw out the latent potential within us and thereby improve our character. But how far can such an argument be taken? There were certainly many Holocaust heroes including Raul Wallenberg, Oskar Schindler and many righteous people who risked their lives to protect others that they did not know. Had it not been for the Holocaust would these people still have pushed themselves to become great? Yet I’m not sure anyone would agree that the Holocaust was justified in order to produce such heroes.

While this approach may seem insufficient in its own right, taken in combination with some of the other ideas contained in this post, it may be able to provide a degree of comfort to those who are suffering (personally or their loved ones).

Ultimately, we cannot expect to fully understand or explain such events. One thing that we can take from the experiences of Ya’akov and Yosef in these parshiyot, is that years of painful and apparently pointless suffering can sometimes be part of a bigger picture and project that we are not aware of at the time.

The true prophetic response may therefore be contained in the words of Isaiah:

For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, says the Lord. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts [higher] than your thoughts.

First posted to Facebook 28 November 2021, here.

Shemot: a theological perspective on the Holocaust and Anti-semitism

The chapter of Judaism Reclaimed that relates to parashat Shemot develops an approach to an extremely sensitive area of Jewish theology: the attempt to place anti-semitic hatred and violence – and the devastation of the Holocaust – in a theological context.

Much ink has been spilled by Rabbis and scholars far greater than I on this difficult topic. In the Modern Orthodox world, Rabbis Eliezer Berkovits and Jonathan Sacks have attempted to shift the focus from God to mankind. Since God’s plan for the world requires the unfettered functioning of human free will, the argument goes, His modus operandi involves the provision of moral and spiritual guidance rather than micro-managing human affairs. Accordingly, the real question that should be asked is not “where was God during the Holocaust”, rather “where was man”? While I find this approach attractive, and adopt it more generally in my chapters concerning providence and free will (see recent post on parashat Vayeshev), it does not seem sufficient when dealing with a tragedy of such magnitude inflicted upon the entire Jewish nation. Nor does it strike me as consistent with the Torah’s attitude to significant national events. Other Rabbis have adopted a perhaps more traditional approach which sees the Holocaust as heavenly punishment for sins. This understanding is also open to fundamental questions: as many such as Primo Levi have pointed out, an assessment of victims and survivors does not appear to reveal any obvious punishment-for-sin pattern.

Judaism Reclaimed seeks to place the Holocaust, as well as the broader phenomenon of antisemitism, in a biblical context starting with the first episode of brutal national enslavement and suffering for 210 years in Egypt. Our search for a theological explanation for this bitter servitude takes us back to the brit bein habetarim. This covenant, when the enslavement was first disclosed by God, links the suffering to the concept of a “chosen nation” and the role which God intended it to fulfil. In the conversation that takes place at the time of the covenant, Avraham asks God, “Bemah eida?”: “How can I know that my descendants will be worthy of inheriting the land? That they will fulfil the daunting task of standing apart from the other nations of the world as a leading light?” God responds that Avraham’s descendants will be enslaved in a strange land. The clear implication is that this suffering holds the key to their ability to succeed as the chosen nation.

We note historical precedents for the notion that collective suffering can forge a cast-iron collective identity, and cite Rav Soloveitchik’s suggestion, in Kol Dodi Dofek, that the Jews’ experiences in the ‘’crucible’’ of Egypt formed an intense unity (or Fate Covenant) and separation from other nations. This role of the Egyptian servitude in establishing an independent Jewish identity is underscored both by the Torah’s account (which repeatedly emphasises how the plagues will distinguish Jew from Egyptian) and copious Midrashic commentary as to both the extent of this separation, and as to how it was in the merit of Jewish identity (represented by the retention of names, clothing and language) that the Jews were redeemed. This theme is followed through to the symbolism of the carefully orchestrated commandments relating to the redemption, as the emerging nation approached the daunting challenge of succeeding as a lone island of monotheism surrounded by a raging sea of paganism.

In his Beit HaLevi, Rav Yosef Dov Soloveitchik draws upon some of these ideas as part of his analysis of antisemitism, a seemingly illogical phenomenon which has accompanied Jews around the world throughout the centuries. Initially, he is startled by a verse from Tehillimwhich includes Egyptian oppression among the acts of kindness that God performed for the Jewish People. He then notes midrashim that connect the start of the oppression to the Jews’ attempts to conceal their Jewish identity. His great-grandson and namesake, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, elaborates on a similar theme, that a history of persecution and martyrdom has had the effect of hardening attitudes toward any form of assimilation which could challenge the distinct identity and values of the Jewish People.

According to this approach, the key to understanding both the suffering in Egypt and continued antisemitism through the ages is to view them not as a punishment but rather as God’s tool to ensure that His promise to Avraham at the brit bein habetarim would be observed. It is only as a result of unabated antisemitism, particularly severe at times of heightened assimilation, that the Jews have survived as the chosen nation, retaining the ability to carry out their holy and extremely challenging mission. This idea is given full expression in Radak’s commentary to a passage in Yechezkel in which the prophet describes God’s refusal to countenance Jewish attempts to assimilate among the nations:

But when they disobey My commands, I will strengthen the nations against them… Israel, whom I took out from the house of slavery to be my treasured nation etc., and to them a God, My eyes will be constantly on them for good and bad, as it states in the prophecy of Amos: “Only you have I known from all of the families of the world, therefore I will be attentive to all of your sins.” And if you wish to depart from My worship, I will not grant permission for this. Even though you will be many years in exile, you will never cease to be a nation before me…and with force I will reign over you, and will purify you…

Rav Meir Simchah of Dvinsk, in his Meshech Chochmah, makes a similar connection between antisemitism and the preservation of Jewish identity. Writing in the 1920s, he concludes with an ominous warning: that the assimilation of European Jewry and attitudes such as “Berlin is the new Jerusalem” would necessarily lead to a “storm” against the Jews that would serve to preserve Jewish national identity. This dark prediction was based upon his answer to the fundamental question of where God was during the brutal Egyptian servitude. The response, it would appear, is located within God’s covenant to Avraham at the brit bein habetarim.

I would like to make it clear that this post is not intended to trivialise or belittle the indescribable suffering of the Holocaust, accounts of which are prone to reduce me to a flood of tears. Nor am I fully comfortable and at peace with the conclusion that it reaches. My agenda here is merely to share my exploration of biblical and rabbinic texts for a perspective on the devastation of the Holocaust which I find theologically convincing.

First posted on Facebook 15 January 2020, here.