Judaism and Tragedy Redux
A friend of mine sent the following to me yesterday in the form of an e-mail, my responses are dispersed throughout and appear in italics:
I had a shiur on Shabbat which strayed from its usual topic. The Rabbi gave a mussar talk on your favorite topic: the World Trade center disaster and Hashem's intervention for the good. Well, he mainly focused on Hatzolah and said we may not be able to see why things happened at teh time, or maybe even never, but that Hashem plans everything for a reason. I re-read your comments on your Blog. Now while you object to the terminology "for the good" and state that mourning is also an important Jewish mitzvah, do you also object to the deterministic view that Hashem plans everything - no chance?
I believe that people have free will to do what they want in life. As for whether Hashem plans all external events (i.e. illness, tragedy, good fortune, etc.), I don’t know. I believe that Hashem can and does intervene in the world, but also believe that Hashem usually allows the world to operate b'derech hatevah, in its normal course. In other words, Hashem may allow a tragedy like 9/11 to happen by not stopping evildoers like Bin Laden.
I suppose this means that everything as a whole is directed by Hashem for some higher good, reason, or goal, not necessarily an individual's particular good or goal. So many of the sages in their mussar works defend this concept.
This I agree with – that an individual’s good may not be the right perspective, but the good of the Jewish people or perhaps the entire world.
So who (what sages) agrees with you that "for the good is wrong"? Or maybe you just object to trying to find miracles in everything bad, although I think that may be the other sides point: that no matter how awful a tragedy, it is directed at some goal by Hashem. Perhaps we don't have to take joy in the idea that Hashem allows tragedies to occur even though there is some distant goal in mind.
I don't have a problem with the concept of gam zu l'tovah in the abstract, but do have a problem in looking for non-existent miracles in terrible tragedies, as well as trying to decipher these miracles and the reasons for tragedy as though we have a direct line to G-d.
In addition, even if we believe the view of a higher good behind a tragedy, we might not have the right to tell those suffering that there is a higher good or even try to speculate for them what it is. Instead we help them mourn.
Yes, and this is supported by the mourning in Judaism both for personal losses (shiva, kaddish, etc.) and for communal tragedy (i.e. Tisha B’av and the other fast days).
I wonder if the need to say it is all for the good is more of a coping devise for people who did not suffer than for those who did. I remember hearing Elie Wiesel coping with this issue of when asked by Oprah Winfrie if he thought he was special for surviving. He said no and that people far greater than him perished. I think it is hard for people to live through a disaster or escape it and they need to reconile their feelings even if it flies in the face of the sufferers themselves.
I think all of it is a coping device for people who did not suffer. I would never object to someone who is in mourning or endured a loss from saying "it's all for the good," but nearly always it's others who say it on other's behalf.
posted on 12/29/2004
