Reflecting on Judaism

The cause of the dilemma.
History books and newspapers fully report the atrocities that Man inflicts on Man. They are too numerous to detail. Recent examples include:
*The blowing up of the World Trade Centre which cost over 3000 lives,
*Deaths and injuries caused by suicide bombers within the State of Israel to both religious and secular alike, to its aged, its teenagers and to its children,
*The many brutal murders within families.

 The rabbi’s dilemma.  The Torah teaches quite explicitly that man has freewill to act as he wishes; he is fully responsible for choosing between doing good or doing evil, but he should choose to do good.  Part of our liturgy teaches the opposite. It teaches that it is God alone who is responsible for deciding ‘how long we will live and how and when we shall die etc.’. This teaching appears to remove from the perpetrators of atrocities responsibility for their evil actions for, in these circumstances, it could be argued that they were predestined to do God’s work. Their freewill had been curtailed.

The question. Which of the alternatives do rabbis believe? If they believe that God decides how and when a person dies, why hold the perpetrators responsible? If however they do believe that the perpetrators are responsible for their actions, why do they continue to encourage us to repeat liturgy knowing it to be irrelevant? Because of this dilemma it is difficult to get a clear and straightforward answer from many of them. Some admit that there is a problem reconciling Torah and liturgy teachings. It is as though they believe that they are equally authoritative. Such rabbis forget that much of our liturgy is the work only of poets and mystics and were not handed down at Sinai.  

The rabbi’s two problems. The first problem is that in their heart of hearts many know that the perpetrators are solely responsible for their actions and its consequences. They say as much continually in their speeches and sermons. However, having been brought up with such powerful liturgy, the centrepiece of our High Holiday services, it is difficult for them to disregard its message. It is ingrained in their fibre and emotions. I know the difficulty from personal experience. The second problem is that even if they acknowledged to themselves that the aforementioned liturgy is irrelevant and inappropriate to whom can they admit it? If such views became known they would be ostracised by their peers even though many such peers may privately hold similar views.

The importance of the matter. This discussion is not only of academic interest. Very often in our history, as for example at the time of the destruction of the second temple, our people did not act in accordance with common sense and follow the advice given by Yochanan ben Zakkai, the religious leader at the time. He encouraged them to do a deal with the Romans but instead they unsuccessfully relied upon God to intervene on their behalf and help them. They would not accept that God does not interfere with Man’s freewill decisions which was in this instance the Roman’s freewill decision to capture Jerusalem. Similar instances abound. Unfortunately, there are still many people around today who have still not learned the lesson.

December 2001