Reflecting on Judaism

      Some of the more frequent questions asked of our religious leaders are, '  How could a Good and caring God have allowed six million Jews, including over a million innocent children, and many others too, to be murdered during the holocaust'? 'How could a Good and caring God  have allowed over 400 innocent children to die by suffocation by a landslide'? 'Can all of these deaths, and many other tragedies, have been prejudged'? Many, if not most, of the answers given by our religious leaders to these kinds of questions, sound hollow, convoluted and unconvincing. The lack of a reasonably convincing answer causes many to lose faith.     

Rabbi Cardozo has suggested a new, original theory, which he has circulated to many rabbis but received negligible feedback. Is his theory convincing? Read it and decide. If you have any comment to make, he would be pleased to hear from you.         

Rabbi Dr. Nathan Cardozo is well known as an international lecturer on Halachah and Jewish religious subjects generally. He received his S'micha from a leading Yeshiva. He is a philosopher; an author, the Dean of Machon Ohr and leads a successful students' course at the Hertzlia International College. As I understand his 'Thoughts to Ponder', copied below, he is not satisfied with the conventional Jewish understanding of the relationship between Man and God. I have exchanged letters with him and he has given me permission to circulate them. He would be interested in learning of others peoples' reaction to his 'Thoughts'.     

If you are interested in writing to him direct, his e-mail address is Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo nlc@internet-zahav.net  If convenient, please let me have a copy.

Regards,

Woolf Abrahams.           
 

Machon Ohr Aaron & Betsy Spijer

Thoughts to Ponder

251

Nathan Lopes Cardozo

God is Unjustifiable

Part 2

The goodness of God; man as His image

(For the philosophically inclined)     

What do we mean by professing that God is good and man was created in His image? When God allows and even causes unbearable pain to befall man, afflicting him with sickness, cruel death, earthquakes and the most horrible wars, there seems little room for these claims. If God, by our moral standards, cannot be justified for many of His actions, as we have suggested in the previous “Thoughts to Ponder” (250), how are we to revere Him?     

How can man live a meaningful life when it is entirely impossible for him to know why God created the universe and therefore man? Ultimately, man has no insight into why he was placed in this world and can only wonder why God seems to treat him like a divine experiment. What can be the purpose of man who has been denied any information about his existential meaning?  Is he not given any consideration? How can we claim that God is benevolent, good, merciful, and cares for His creatures when He does not even inform man of His intentions?     

If God is entirely unknowable and the reason for man’s existence is beyond the grasp of his intellect, should we then conclude that from man’s perspective his life is indeed meaningless, even though God knows better?      

Is pain, then, completely pointless in man’s eyes, his suffering of no value, his perseverance to survive against all odds; nothing but an emotional need to see purpose in his life while there really is none?    Is God the only one who knows the story, refusing to give man any insight?  And is this the God who is to be emulated by man?     

Moreover, what do we make of the biblical claim that man was created in His image? If God is the cause of so much evil and pain, does this not pave the road for man to be cruel and evil, as he was created in that very image?     

Jewish tradition has never denied that God is the creator of evil. The Bible itself attests to this: “I make peace and create evil” (Yeshayahu, 45:7). The sages never lived in a psychological vacuum denying the realities of life. There was no attempt to cover up all the terrible things that could befall man. They tried only to understand where evil belonged in the scheme of the divine creation.     

When Jewish tradition claims that God is good, even in the face of all evil, it speaks the truth. But it can only make that claim from within the system of divine purpose. “God is good” does not mean in the moral sense of the word but in the sense that there is ultimate meaning to man’s existence, known only to God.       

With evil abounding all over the world, it is clear that the “moral good of God,” as generally understood by man, is not the whole story. There must be a reason for all this evil, but it can only be justified in terms of divine meaning, not in moral terms. The unfathomable meaning of all existence becomes clear the moment that evil becomes apparent. It is in the deviation and violation of God’s own moral standards as expressed in the Torah and felt in the heart of man that it becomes clear that the purpose of the creation of the world requires God’s “teleological suspension of the ethical.” The world was not created for the sake of ethics; it was created for the sake of divine meaning.  It requires moments and circumstances in which God’s morality must be side-tracked.     

To argue that evil needs to exist so that man can grow spiritually has no bearing here. There are forms of evil from which man is not able to grow, such as heinous crimes perpetrated during the Holocaust. Moreover, we remain with the unanswerable question of why man needs to exist so as to be able to grow. True, the sages stated that man needs to examine his deeds when evil befalls him (Berachoth 5a) and that the Holy One, blessed be He, brings suffering upon the righteous so that they may inherit the world to come (Kiddushin 40b). But this does not shed any light on why evil needs to exist, since it does not answer the question of why man must exist to examine his deeds or why he must suffer to merit a share in the world to come. All these arguments are a posteriori. 

This is not to imply that there is no meaning to man’s suffering, or that pain has no function and moral dilemmas no purpose. Throughout history we have seen how much these have contributed to the spiritual and moral greatness of man. It is through these challenges that people of moral stature have emerged and inspired millions. It has certainly been meaningful in human terms. But this is so only because there is an a priori reason for man to exist that surpasses any reason for him to be moral.  The latter can never be seen as man’s ultimate significance.  It is of secondary importance in the overall divine meaning of existence. It is a by-product, albeit a deliberate one that God intended.    

In fact, it is in the absence of knowing why God created the world that man is able to find meaning. To be part of God’s world and play a crucial role in it without knowing exactly what role one plays, or why there is even a need for it all is by far the most profound awareness man can ever experience.     

What gives life its grandeur is living with the knowledge that one plays a role in some plan that is much greater than one can ever fathom. It is recognizing that the value of human existence is in living with fundamental questions which, like diamonds held up to the light, show the spectrum of colors without ever being able to unite all these colors in a well formulated position. The moment these questions would be answered, the light would dim and the colors refracted in it would lose their splendor.     

Every answer is a killer since it destroys the art of searching, the very element that makes life exciting. A world that makes total sense is a world not livable. It is endless human curiosity, which can never be satisfied, that is the drive behind all meaningful life.  It is not the knowledge of something that gives us joy. It is the relationship between what is known and what remains an ultimate question – that is what gives man the satisfaction of “being”. Lacking this mystique, man can achieve nothing noble. It is God’s gift to mankind, and for that He is to be revered.     

It is this unknowable mystique that mitigates man’s pain even when tortured. What raises our indignation against suffering is not the torment itself but its senselessness. What makes the anguish of a suffering child intolerable is the inability to raise it to the level of meaning. As such, it is the most disturbing form of “teleological suspension of the ethical.” It is this particular case of a child’s suffering, demonstrating the complete absence of divine justice, that proves morality is not at the core of all creation. 

For man to truly live life he must live for the sake of God. Our love for God is tested by the question of whether we seek Him or His gifts. A God of only mercy is a God unjust. To live for His sake means to feel and sustain the ultimate “wherefore” that cannot be answered. This is what the Kotzker Rebbe meant when he said:  God, I do not need to know why I suffer, but I want to know whether I suffer for Your sake. “For Your sake we are killed all the time” (Tehilim, 44:23). 

It is possible for God to exercise mercy and benevolence only as long as His ultimate meaning for this world’s existence is not violated. It is seemingly despite this divine purpose that mercy exists, not because of it. In this sense, mercy is a novelty because its existence may run contrary to God’s purpose in creating the world. This may be a disturbing observation – it violates our understanding of who we believe God is and who we want Him to be – but it cannot be circumvented. It reminds us that God is not there for the use or benefit of man, nor does He fall within the parameters of man’s understanding. No reason can be given for the nature of God because that nature is the foundation of rationality but not rationality itself.            

It is in the image of this divine mercy that man was created in God’s likeness. It is despite God’s ultimate reason for the creation that man needs to live in His image. Man is asked to undo the amoral effects of God’s ultimate purpose for His creation, since the need for morality is an integral part of God’s being but is not His totality. God’s demand that man live in His image is in partial contradiction to the fundamental purpose of His creating the world. It is only in its a posteriori intention that this demand can be made.  Since man has no part in the reasons for this creation, he cannot play a role in its entire fulfillment; he can only do his part, which is to try to be ultimately good, as God’s likeness. God’s likeness is only His image, not His divine totality. 

      Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo.    

Dear Rabbi Cardozo,

      Forgive me. I am still trying to understand your 'Thoughts to Ponder', above. It is bothering me.

      You and I both see a world full of horrible, ghastly tragedies. You innumerate some of them in your 'Thoughts', as above.

      You say that you can't reconcile these tragedies with the conventional understanding of a good, kind, caring God that we were brought up to believe in. These attributes are set out in the '13 attributes of God' that we are taught to believe in.

      You, therefore, still wanting to believe in a fine image of God, look for, and appear to have found, another kind of image, one where He controls the world in a way that we can't understand, and where we appear to be only pawns in His greater plan. So in spite of the facts that we see with our own eyes, you say that they do not represent the actuality of what it is all about.

You do not say where you get this understanding from, other than in a firm belief in wanting, that it must be so.

But how can you be so sure?

      If your theory is correct our prayer books are meaningless. They describe God's involvement with man in a manner that you doubt exists.

Is it not easier to believe an alternative theory, that God created the Universe, Nature, and Man and said 'Get on with it'.

Surprisingly, we both agree that the conventional religious understanding of God can't be the correct one.

      Why do you think that your theory is more likely to be correct than the alternative theory?

Woolf

Dear Rabbi Cardozo,

  Your theory is new. The alternative theory I mentioned goes back to the priests, via the Sadducees, who believed that everything that happens is caused by Mans' efforts, except for those things which are cause by Nature. They believed that God created the Universe, Nature, Man, and Man's incompetence, such as when Man builds structures which collapse on people and kills them. This explains earthquakes, floods, landslides and volcanoes which also kill 'quite naturally'. I was surprised, very surprised, to learn that Chief Rabbi Sacks also subscribes to this theory when I read his book ' To Heal a Fractured World', where he mentions God only once, and then only in passing.

  The Essenes believed that everything is caused by God. Rambam discusses this theory in his 'Guide' and dismisses it out of hand.

      The Pharisees, the forerunners of the rabbis tried, and in my mind unsuccessfully, to combine the two theories and they get themselves into a tangle when they try to explain the horrible things that happen to Man. Because of this, they incorporated prayers which relate to neither your theory nor to the alternative.

    But of course, you know all of this much better than I. Because of the alternative theory, I have trouble with prayer. I want to revert to sacrifice but sacrifice by way of charity, not animal sacrifice. What are my chances?

      This is not really a subject for correspondence. It should be discussed in small groups where, no doubt, the alternative theory would almost certainly not be accepted in a synagogue environment.

Regards,

Woolf

Dear Rabbi Cardozo,

    I read our exchange of letters10 times or more but something was bothering me. I have now found the cause. You wrote 'We pray that God will do "damage control" and limit the damage which is caused by His reason why He created the world.'

    If God is a good God, in a way that we do not understand and if He is working to a plan for the overall good, which may include much suffering for His creation, on what basis do you pray for 'damage control'? Based your theory, should He not know better than we do what is good for us and for His plan? What is the value of your prayers? Are they not impertinent?

Regards,

Woolf.