Berakhot 156

In Berakhot 152 our shiur was concerned with the berakhah that we are required to recite upon hearing bad news. I wrote:

I then added: It may be appropriate for us, at this juncture, to discuss a theology of good and evil; but I shall only embark upon such an excursus if there are requests to do so. There were many such requests (some of them insistent!) so I now undertake the rashly promised excursus.

In his most important work on a philosophy of Judaism, The Guide for the Perplexed" [Moreh Nevukhim in Hebrew, though originally written in Arabic], Rambam devotes chapters 11 and 12 of Part Three to the question of evil in God's world. This excursus is heavily indebted to that source. Although his translators have rendered his language as discussing evil, a careful perusal of what he has to say would suggest that what he is really talking about is why there is suffering in God's good world. At the very end of the Creation story [Genesis 1:31] we read that God surveyed everything that He had created and deemed it "very good". If this world is "very good" why is there suffering in it? Rambam says that suffering is that which we don't want because it will hurt us in some way.

Physical suffering is a part of life in this universe, which is constituted as God wished it to be. This is sometimes very hard for us to accept. Let us try to clarify. Rambam separates "evil" into three categories: "evil" that is concomitant with the fact that we are alive and biologically functioning; "evils" that a person inflicts on himself by his own deeds; evil that humans do to other humans.

Because we have a physical existence we are subject to all the deficiencies of physicality. Things can happen to us. This is the way of God's universe. Whatever is possessed of physicality is subject to change and damage. This damage might be something that is part of our very nature, such as a child being born with a physical deformity or with congenital heart disease, and so forth. These are not afflictions that God has brought upon us by a special fiat: they are part and parcel of our being human beings that are conceived and born and live in this physical universe. Similarly, people might be buried alive in molten lava because a volcano erupts in their vicinity: this is not an affliction brought upon us by God, but our own interaction with the natural world and its forces.

All animals are capable of physical suffering; but, perhaps, man's greatest drawback is awareness of self. Other animals, perhaps, suffer patiently (as it were) because the pain is "accepted" as something natural that is happening to them; man suffers thousandfold because he is aware that he is suffering, and can ask himself "why is this happening to me?" The basic answer is that we suffer physical pain because we exist in this physical universe. Therefore, when we suffer, it is surely more effective to pray that God give us the strength and patience we need to face our affliction, rather than railing against a misperceived sense of Divine justice. The possibility of physical suffering is the price we have to pay for our existence, and we must face it when it comes upon us with as much equanimity as we can muster.

To be continued.