Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: ken%pyr@gatech.edu (Ken Hall) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Jewish Wisdom Message-ID:Date: 29 Sep 89 07:00:48 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Georgia Institute of Technology Lines: 175 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu It is good for Christians to read and understand Jewish thought. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Message-ID: <1078@cbnewsk.ATT.COM> Date: 26 Sep 89 15:09:07 GMT Reply-To: alu@cbnewsk.ATT.COM (Alan Lustiger) Organization: AT&T Engineering Research Center Lines: 159 SHABBAT SHALOM Nitzavim-Vayelech by Shlomo Riskin Efrat, Israel -- In a world such as ours, so often expressive of evil and suffering, we often hear the cry, "where is G-d?" And the religious answer is : "G-d is not dead; he is merely hidden." But how do we narrow the gulf between a hidden G-d and a revealed G-d? Why does G-d choose to hide himself? In the second part of this week's Torah reading, Nitzavim-Vayelech, G-d prophecies to Moses what will happen if, and when, the Jews worship other gods, a description which penetrates the heart of the nation since it's the Torah's final warning prior to the last blessing that Moses will shortly bestow upon the Israelites in the Torah's final verses. "Then my anger will burn against them and I will forsake them. I will hide my face from them and they shall be devoured, and many evils and troubles shall befall them, so that they will say on that day, 'Are not these evils come upon us, because our G-d is not among us?' And I will surely hide my face on that day for all the evils which they shall have perpetuated, in that they have turned to other gods." (Deut. 31:17-18) Although during the 40 years since the Exodus from Egypt, G-d had been revealing Himself in ways never done before, He prophesied, nevertheless, that in the future he will be "hidden" as a punishment for worshiping other gods. One of the thorniest theological issues in Judaism (or any religion) is how to tackle the question of a hidden G-d or, in more familiar terms, why do evil people go unpunished while the good continue to suffer? In his work Faith After The Holocaust, Professor Eliezer Berkowitz explores this idea of G-d's "hiddeness" as it appears in at least three different contexts in the Torah. I'd like to review these in order to focus on why G-d's punishment of evildoers does not follow our own ideas about speedy justice. Our text cited above sees a "hidden G-d" as punishment for abandoning His ways. If we sin, G-d "hides" himself. The more we sin, the more hidden shall the face of G-d become: hiddeness as punishment. But there is a second aspect to "hiddeness" that has nothing to do with punishment; the hidden face of G-d is also an expression of Divine indifference. This theological interpretation seems most appropriate to the Holocaust, a period when we can certainly suggest that G-d was "hidden" or, in more prosaic terms, He was asleep. In sleep, one is indifferent to surroundings, one seems to forget that the world exists and, apparently sleep removes one's self from responsibility. "But it is for Your sake that we are killed all day long; we are reckoned as sheep for slaughter. Awake, why do you sleep, O Lord?" (Psalms 44:23-24) The words of the Psalmist could have been spoken by the victims on the Holocaust. Similarly, in another verse, the author cries out, "Until when, O Lord, will You forget me forever? Until when will you hide Your face from me?" (Psalms 13:2) A third understanding of hiddeness can be found in Isaiah and is, in some ways, more disturbing and astonishing that the specter of an indifferent G-d. "...You are a G-d you hides Yourself, You are a G-d who saves them,", (Isaiah 45:15), and earlier, the prophet declares, "And I will wait for G-d who hides His face...and I will hope for Him. Behold, I and the children G-d has given me are for signs and for portents in Israel from the G-d of hosts who dwells in Mt. Zion." (Isaiah 8:17) This is a radical - even revolutionary - idea. For Isaiah, the redemption and all that which we hope for, must come from a hidden G-d. Our various texts evoke different ways of apprehending G-d's mystery. The first, though harshest, is easiest to comprehend. When we do not live by G-d's law, we are punished. Next, although the idea of G-d far removed from our mundane world hardly comforts, we accept the theological possibility of G-d off in other realms, whether "asleep" or "indifferent" because, from the human perspective, this is what a hidden G-d is all about, at least in its literal meaning. By far, the most difficult concept to understand is Isaiah's hidden G-d who leads us toward hope and salvation, an idea that challenges us to fathom how we can achieve absolute light from absolute darkness. Fundamental to Jewish theology is the idea of an imperfect world awaiting perfection. When will this perfection occur? When G-d is perfectly manifested in the world, when He and His name become one, then our planet will be under the kingship of G-d. What is the job of the Jewish people? To lead the world towards achieving perfection. If we don't do it, we shall be punished. And our punishment? G-d's hidden face because, just as there is no greater reward than achieving perfection, there is no greater punishment that the continued hiddeness of G-d. But, ironically, this very hiddeness conceals a blessing. G-d is depicted in the Torah as "...mighty, merciful, and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in love and truth... forgiving iniquity and sin and transgression..." (Exodus 34:6-7) Therefore, what seems to be G-d's indifference to evil is, in actuality, G-d waiting for repentance to emerge from the evildoer's own volition. Understanding that G-d does not have to swoop down every time a Wells Fargo truck is robbed means that I grasp evil not-yet- punished does not necessarily restrict G-d's greatness. Our salvation will only come, however, when the world repents. And G-d has ultimate faith in human nature, in the fact that the evildoer will eventually change direction and return to the source of ethics and morality. G-d's patience with the sinner is an expression of His confidence in the human ability to perfect itself. An amazing text in Tractate Yoma 69b explains that the Men of the Great Assembly were called this because they returned greatness to the crown of G-d. When Israel was crushed under the weight of the Babylonian and Roman powers, Jeremiah and Daniel expressed their despair by evoking G-d in terms far humbler than Moses' prayer, "G-d is great and mighty and awesome..." (Deut. 10:17) They each deleted another one of the Divine attributes. But the Men of the Great Assembly illuminated G-d's way to man, restoring the description of G-d as great, mighty, and awesome to its pristine praise. "This is G-d's greatness, that He was able to overcome His instincts, that he was able to be longsuffering to the wicked." Although the nations who destroyed the Holy Temple should have been immediately destroyed, G-d restrained Himself, demonstrating the basic attributes of His essence: "...merciful and gracious and longsuffering..." One might think that what makes G-d great is the swiftness of His sword; the Great Assembly taught that the opposite is true. G-d is great precisely because He is "...merciful and gracious and longsuffering, and abundant in love and truth..." (Exodus 34:6-7). In effect, when we ask why good people suffer and evil ones prosper, we are really asking: Why is G-d a hidden G-d? Let's look at the alternative. If everything about G-d were revealed and manifested, this would mean we'd already have achieved a perfect world, which is far from true. G-d wants us to repent and he appears hidden because He wants us to find Him.. And He is confident that we eventually will. A story is told about the Shoplyer Grandfather, a chassdic master who once came upon children playing hide and seek and, when he saw one of the children crying, he stopped and asked, "Why the tears?" The child answered that he'd been hiding for the longest time, but no one had come to look for him. The elderly Jew looked up to heaven and cried out, "Master of the universe, I know You're hiding because You want us to find You, but what happens if You continue to remain hidden and Your children stop looking? Before it's too late, reveal yourself." If we could address G-d as directly and simply as the Shoplyer Grandfather, what a huge step we'd be taking toward revealing the "hidden face" of G-d. Shabbat Shalom Copyright Ohr Torah 1989. This essay is distributed by Kesher --the Jewish Network. For information regarding its use, contact the Kesher BBS at 312-940-1696. For more information, call (212)496-1618. ============== K'tiva v'chatima tova. -- Alan Lustiger |_ | | AT&T Engineering Research Center / |( Princeton, NJ attmail!alustiger or att!pruxc!alu [I hope you have verified that this use doesn't violate the copyright? --clh]