Shoftim 5786: Tragedy Strategy

GOOD MORNING! A common reaction to tragedy is a preoccupation with the question “Why?” The mind repels reconciling tragic events with the knowledge of a compassionate God. Of course, this only bothers those living in a theocentric universe. Though, sadly, it may affect their continuing worldview.

The famous naturalist Charles Darwin abandoned his life-long belief in a “beneficent God” because, in his mind, God’s creations do not behave in a manner that Darwin could reconcile as being “good.” His “proof” was through the observation of nature. Some wasps lay their eggs in live caterpillars and their larvae eat their way out. Cats frequently torment mice by “playing” with them.

However, this argument presumes that God (and all of His creation) must fit into a human definition of the nature of “good.” This line of thinking has many flaws – the most glaring one being that a finite being cannot begin to fathom the true nature of an infinite God. Limiting God by making Him fit into a human value system represents a profound misunderstanding of the nature of God.

In essence, Darwin is saying: “I cannot imagine why a beneficent God would create a wasp that eats a caterpillar alive.” Darwin is somehow totally oblivious to the fact that it only establishes the limits of his imagination; it does not “prove” anything about God.

A further illustration: At some point, every two-year-old can come to the conclusion that their parents must hate them. After all, their parents refuse to give them as much candy as they want, they “force” them to bathe and go to sleep, and they “torture” them by taking them to doctors to get probed and endure painful shots.

Actually, all three of those events can easily happen in any 24-hour period and a child, with an extremely short perspective (and memory), may conclude that their parents are their greatest enemy. In fact, if you haven’t at some point heard your child yell at you “I hate you!” then you might be doing something wrong. If a child cannot properly discern the true intent of his parents (who only have a slightly larger perspective than him), then how can we possibly divine the true intention of God Who has an infinitely greater perspective than us?

This is the overarching theme of the Book of Job. Initially, Job demands an explanation for his incredible suffering, and God’s response is – strikingly – not an explanation of why each particular tragedy occurred.

Instead, God essentially confronts Job with the limits of his vantage point: “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?” (Job 38:4). The point is not “suffering isn’t painful.” It is: you are attempting to judge the architecture of reality while only seeing an infinitesimal portion of it.

The only true understanding of what is good and moral is in God’s Torah – an “owner’s manual” gifted to mankind, which defines what is good and how we ought to live in order to have the most meaningful and fulfilling lives. Of course, atheists have a problem with the very essence of that statement. They basically define morality as being whatever humanity can all agree upon as being right and good. In support of this view, atheists just love to raise what is known the “Euthyphro dilemma.”

The “Euthyphro dilemma” asks, how does God know what is moral? Plato wrote a dialogue in which Socrates essentially asks Euthyphro, “Is what is morally good commanded by God because it is morally good, or is it morally good because it is commanded by God?”

The very foundation of this argument – that good can possibly exist outside the essence of God and that perhaps God tried to match up His commandments with what is objectively good – once again betrays a profound misunderstanding of the Essence of God. As Maimonides points out in the first principle of his Thirteen Principles of Faith – God is the Primary Cause of all that exists. This is also touched upon in the second principle; God has an absolute and unparalleled unity. In other words, there is nothing outside of the Essence of God.

This would have been very hard for Plato to intuit, seeing as the Greeks had a very different understanding of what is a god. Essentially, they believed that gods are rather similar to human beings, but just far more powerful. Their gods consistently fight with each other, engage in very strange and questionable behavior, and are totally susceptible to all of mankind’s moral failings. Little wonder that their philosophical understanding of the nature of God is so shallow.

Naturally, this reminds me of a joke. A kindergarten teacher was walking around her classroom admiring the concentration that her young students were applying to their artwork. She came across a six-year-old girl drawing a picture of a man inside a whale. “That’s pretty interesting, what are you drawing?”

"It's Jonah from the Bible, inside the belly of the whale.” She replied.

The teacher, an avowed atheist, told her “You know that didn’t really happen, right?”

The young girl kept drawing while considering her teacher’s words. Finally, she responds, “I guess when I get to heaven, I’ll just ask Jonah.”

“What if he’s not in heaven?” The teacher questioned.

The girl, still drawing, paused for a moment and looked at her teacher, “Then you’ll ask him.”

In this week’s Torah reading we find a very interesting aspect of Jewish law and its enforcement.

“You shall appoint judges and policemen in all your gates that God your Lord has given you, and they will judge the nation justly” (Deuteronomy 16:18).

The sages seem to be bothered by a glaring omission in the verse. The verse starts out saying that we must appoint judges and police officers, yet only seems to describe the job of the judges; “and they will judge the nation justly.” There is no independent mention of the role of the policemen.

The great Biblical commentator known as Rashi explains this by quoting the Midrash that defines the role of the police officers: “They are the ones who enforce the law on the people and impose the verdict of the judge.” We see from here that the role of the police force was to support the judges; in other words, they are part of the system of courts.

This is a fascinating departure from the American system of jurisprudence. In American law, the judges are in the judicial branch of government, but all the enforcement of the law falls under the executive branch. That is to say that police officers, sheriffs, and other law enforcement personnel work for the local, state, or national municipality; whether it is the mayor, governor, or president. This is because, under the American system, the judges bear no responsibility for the practical application of law, just the determination of it.

However, under the Torah system of law, the judges are required to not only adjudicate issues that come before them, but to also oversee the application and enforcement of the laws. Thus the police force is the enforcement arm of the judicial system. In other words, the American system of jurisprudence simply charges the judges with determining the law while the Jewish system makes them fully responsible for the law; charging them with the responsibility of maintaining the integrity of the law as well.

Maimonides (Yad Sanhedrin 1:1) takes this one step further and explains that the officers not only enforced the laws and administered the punishments for those who violated them, but they were also responsible for maintaining a moral and honest society. The police were responsible for monitoring the markets to make sure there was no price collusion or gouging and that all the weights and measures used in the marketplace were accurate and honest.

In the American system, one which places a high priority on a “separation between church and state,” the law of the land isn’t really driven by morality – rather it is based on the values of social justice and keeping the peace. There is a basic (unspoken) understanding that you can do what you want as long as you aren’t hurting anyone.

But in the Torah system of law, the laws are there primarily for the betterment and growth of the individual; to make sure that people live rich and rewarding lives. The Torah laws aren’t primarily driven by the purpose of maintaining law and order just to make sure society doesn’t devolve into anarchy; our primary concern is promoting a moral society that reflects the values that God has ordained for this world.

In a similar vein, living a Torah life begins when we stop demanding to know why God did this or that and begin asking what God wants us to do with it. “Why?” seeks entrance into the mind of God; “What?” turns the experience into a mandate for growth. Only in this way can we reach our individual potential and contribute to building the society for the betterment of the world and fulfill the ultimate realization of God’s purpose for the world.

Shoftim, Deuteronomy 16:18 - 21:9

Topics in this week’s portion include: Judges and Justice, “Sacred Trees and Pillars,” Blemished Sacrifice, Penalties for Idolatry, The Supreme Court, The King, Levitical Priests, Priestly Portions, Special Service, Divination and Prophecy, Cities of Refuge, Murder, Preserving Boundaries, Conspiring Witnesses, Preparing for War, Taking Captives, Conducting a Siege, and the Case of the Unsolved Murder.