In an earlier column, “Spiritual Penicillin”, I stated, “We will never understand Hashem’s ways, never,”which is not an original thought. In countless divrei Torah over the years I have heard great men and women say that Hashem’s ways are inscrutable – His reasoning is way beyond anything our limited human minds can fathom. I have always insisted that everything that happens to anyone or anything is min Shamayim. Even a leaf falling off a tree is engineered by Hashem.
It is my deepest conviction that Hashem is the Master of the Universe and in total control, which means that I and countless other Jews turn to Him for rachamim, mercy for those who are in pain – physically, emotionally or spiritually. And when that mercy is seemingly not shown, we struggle with our emunah – some of us more than others, and some of us are more honest about it.
Case in point: I know of talmidei chachamim, the stars of their yeshivot, who threw away every vestige of their Yiddishkeit after surviving the gehenom that was the Holocaust. I am sure it was for the very reason mentioned by the letter writer, “It is a basic tenet of Judaism that G-d rewards the righteous and punishes the wicked.” In their eyes and experience, the very opposite happened. Their righteous, sheltered and innocent wives, sisters and mothers were brutalized by lecherous camp guards. Yet we hear of notorious Nazis who had arichut yamim – living long lives of comfort and dying peacefully, surrounded by loving family.
It is sometimes challenging to grasp that Hashem rewards the righteous and punishes the sinners – but I do not reject that tenet. As I repeatedly have said, we do not understand Hashem’s ways and never will. One day we may understand that what seems bad is actually a good thing and vice versa, but for now it’s beyond our mortal scope.
There was a story on the Tales of the Gaonim page in which a distraught rav asks his beloved dying student to present a list of questions to Hashem. Days after his death, the student comes to him in a dream. “What did Hashem answer,” the rav asked eagerly. The student replied, “The questions were so ridiculous I couldn’t ask them!”
It is wrong to add undeserved, soul-gnawing guilt to people already broken by anguish and grief by inferring that “Hashem punishes the wicked.” Years ago a friend whose child was critically injured in an accident and sustained brain damage, confided that a member of her community told her that if this happened, it was because she deserved it! I was mortified by this blatant insensitivity.
Since the basis of the Torah is to treat someone how you would want to be – with respect and kindness – then not doing so is, in my book, an act of apikursus!