Berakhot 161

We conclude our excursus on Evil in the World with some of your comments and my responses to them:

Rémy Landau writes:

I am wondering whether or not such concepts as the Shoah [Holocaust] can indeed fall into the Rambam's ideas of God's role in human suffering. I'm not certain that Maimonides could have ever imagined, let alone understood, something as thoroughly incomprehensible as that rampant evil so willfully perpetrated by highly intelligent human beings.

I respond:

I think that we have already addressed this question. However, for the sake of completeness let me suggest that the evil perpetrated during the Holocaust was monstrous in its compass not in its ethos. The annihilation of the communities of the Rhineland, for example, in 1096 was just as horrific and ruthless and complete – and, unfortunately, one could give countless other examples from Jewish history of such mass slaughterings. So the avowed annihilation of Jews was not something new, and Rambam, in his experience, could easily comprehend what man was capable of doing to man. What he could not have known was the staggering compass of the Nazi extermination scheme, with all its modern technological possibilities. But, pro rata, a greater percentage of the Jewish communities in Speier, Wurms and Maintz was slaughtered in 1096 than in Europe between 1941 and 1945. When we are brought face to face with monstrous evil it is the child in us that expects the father-figure to wave a magic wand and "make it go away"; the adult in us must force us to act against that evil in order to make it go away. "Everything is in the hands of Heaven except the fear of Heaven" – that is in our hands, and we are our brother's keeper.

Israel Man writes:

The explanation of "Evil in the world" raises a few questions in my mind. The explanation leads to a logical conclusion that the blessing of "Ha'Gomel" is not necessary as God has nothing to do with the cause and outcome of illness or accident. Also the figures of speech as "im yirtze Hashem" [God willing] or "baruch Hashem" [Thank God] would [not] be in congruence with your explanation.

I respond:

I fail to understand why showing our gratitude to God for the good things that happen to us [Birkat ha-Gomel] necessarily conflicts with Rambam's philosophy. If this universe is the way it is because that is God's pleasure – that is the way God created the universe – then everything that happens in it may ultimately be ascribed to God. It is true that we now understand that the sun does not rise every morning because God says "Get up and do it again"; but the mechanics of the universe are, to the religious mind, the surest and most certain indication that the Divine pervades the whole.

Bill Wiesner writes:

I have always thought of Abel's murder as the first holocaust. When 25% of humanity is killed it is serious business. Even more so in this case since Abel (as far as we can tell) was the only sinless one of the first four people. So my question: what good is prayer if God won't intercede on our behalf? Who was better off? – Cain, whose sacrifice was not accepted – but who married and had children; or Abel – without sin – but also without a life or heirs. I must confess that I personally believe in free will to a point; and that point is where my free will bumps up against the Eternal.

I respond:

We have already had a discussion on the efficacy of prayer, so I won't repeat everything again: you can find the discussion in Berakhot 153 and
Berakhot 154. The logical furtherance of Bill's thesis would be "better a live sinner than a dead saint". Yet it was Cain himself who pleaded with God that he could not live with his conscience: "My punishment is too great for me to bear" [Genesis 4:13]. I repeat what I have written before: often we are not punished for our sins but by our sins.

Before I introduce the next (and last) comment I want to break from a rule that I set for myself right at the beginning of these shiurim. I never give participants in our discussions their titles (Professor, Cantor, Rabbi etc) nor do I describe their provenance. However, I feel I must introduce our next participant in order to prevent too many raised eyebrows. He is a non-fundamentalist Christian pastor working in a church community in western Germany, and I have been in e-mail contact with him now for several years. (Since English is not his mother-tongue I have taken more editing liberties than usual.)

Christian Günther writes:

In part II of your excursus you wrote: I shall expatiate more on this point when we discuss the next category; but at this stage let me point out that if God were to intervene and prevent us from harming ourselves, God would be severely compromising our moral independence – which according to Judaism is the hallmark of humankind.

Moral independence is – according Christian teaching – the hallmark of humankind also. But another important question in Christian theology is unde malo – from whence comes the evil, and why does it exist? And most Christian theologians teach that doing evil things is caused by man's moral independence and is a privilege of humankind and of God. But – why only humankind? My dog obviously seems to have a conscience and responsibility for all members of our family. Monkeys (chimpanzees) can lie and sometimes they do much more evil things to other monkeys. The results of modern ethology seem to show that being evil is something like a surviving strategy. Now, what can be learned in the teaching of Judaism about the nature or essence of evil?

I respond:

I do not accept the addition of the words "and of God". God does not act morally; God acts in accordance with God's will. We do, however, believe (not know) that God does not demand one values standard of us while adopting another in the governance of the universe. (Put more simply: we do not believe that God says, "Don't do as I do, do as I tell you".) When Abraham challenges God "Shall not the Judge of all the Earth act justly?" [Genesis 18:25] his challenge goes unanswered. Furthermore, I do not think that animals have a moral consciousness. If they distinguish between right and wrong it is because of human training, not because of some innate awareness or peer-group teaching. Christian's observation about our nearest primate cousins is very interesting, but I do not have the necessary knowledge to evaluate it. Maybe someone else does.

Christian continues:

Referring to humans doing evil, you pointed to non-intervention by God. I like this point of view, it pleases my "enlightened" idea of history. (A lot of Christians think – unlike me – that God helps them with smaller or bigger signs and wonders, or punishes them with evil or sufferings, like some billiards player who engaged a truck driver and some street workers with pneumatic hammers to cause vibrations, so that the balls change their direction if necessary.) The moral independence of humankind is still untouched in this construction!) But reading a lot about the Holocaust, its demonic dimension and its absurdity, I remember that Eli Wiesel wrote some books about a Torah-juridical inquiry by Rabbis who lived in Birkenau. At first they condemned the Germans, of course, secondly themselves, the Jews, thirdly they condemned God. My question is: Do you think that we would look at the evil in this very simple, individual and somehow "enlightened" or positivistic way if we would be victims of a comparable demonic, absurd situation?

I respond:

Probably not, but our reaction would be subjective and would not in any way vitiate the objective view we have presented. I recall the advice of the great sage Hillel in the Mishnah [Avot 2:4]: "Do not judge your fellow until you are in his situation."

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