Evil in the World as Fire Damage (Column 214)
With God’s help
Yesterday I wrote an angry column dealing with Holocaust Remembrance Day, but I decided that publishing it now would be like pouring fuel into the middle of the bonfire. I will therefore postpone it a bit, until the day breathes and the shadows flee. Here I will raise a few reflections that occurred to me while studying the passage of his fire is treated like his arrows ("his fire is treated like his arrows") (Bava Kamma 22) on Holocaust Remembrance Day. As is known, the Talmud itself (Bava Kamma 60b) compares the destruction and burning of the Temple to fire damages caused by God, and mountains of unconvincing homilies have already been written about this (see Column 52). Here I will suggest another interpretation with very broad and highly significant implications.
Evil in the World
Several times in the past I have already presented here my proposal for solving the problem of evil in the world. My claim was that the difficulty is based on an incorrect conception of providence. There is an assumption that everything that happens in the world occurs through God and by His decision. Hence people come to Him with complaints and see Him as responsible for it. But in my view this is a mistake. Human evil (that is, evil that is the result of human choice) is brought about by the people who carry it out, and not by God. One can raise against God the claim of why He did not intervene and prevent it, but not the claim of why He did this to us. He did not do it; the human perpetrators did.
I have already mentioned the story of Rabbi Amital in his conversation with Aba Kovner (a partisan, poet, and publicist, a man of the Labor movement). Kovner said that in the Holocaust he lost his faith in God; Rabbi Amital answered him that in the Holocaust he lost his faith in man. That debate reflects my argument here. Kovner assumes that everything is brought about by God and sees Him as responsible. Rabbi Amital argues that this is a mistaken view. Evil is the work of human hands, through human guilt and human responsibility. As noted, the question of responsibility still remains: why did He not prevent it? See below.
This is also what the Ran writes in Derashah 10 of Derashot HaRan:
For at the outset He warned Israel about two things: first, that they should not attribute their success to their own power and the might of their hand; and second, that they should not attribute the conquest of the land to their own merit. For above this it says (Deuteronomy 8:12–18), “Lest you eat and be satisfied, and build fine houses and dwell [in them], and your cattle and your flocks multiply,” etc., “and you say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand have produced for me this wealth’; but you shall remember the Lord your God, for it is He who gives you the power to produce wealth.” He meant by this that although it is true that individuals possess special aptitudes for certain things, just as some people are predisposed to acquire wisdom and others are predisposed to devise plans within themselves to gather and accumulate, and accordingly it would be partly true for the rich man to say, “My power and the might of my hand have produced for me this wealth,” nevertheless, although that power is implanted within you, you must surely remember who gave you that power and from where it came. This is the meaning of the verse (ibid., 18): “You shall remember the Lord your God, for it is He who gives you the power to produce wealth.” It does not say, “You shall remember that the Lord your God gives you wealth,” for if it had, it would imply that the power implanted in man is not an intermediate cause in the accumulation of wealth, and that is not so. Therefore it says that although your own power produces this wealth, you must remember the Giver of that power, blessed be He.
The Ran here too comes out against the simplistic religious conception assumed by Aba Kovner. God gave us the power, but we are the ones who use it, for good or for evil. In the end, anyone who thinks that everything that happens in the world is God’s handiwork is mistaken, and so too is anyone who infers from this that every event must have a theological justification. When a person violates the Sabbath or murders, that does not mean that God did it, and not even that He wanted it. Clearly He did not, because these are acts He forbids. A person chooses to do good or evil, except that God is the One who gave him the ability to do so (free will).
As for natural evil, which is admittedly not our concern here, but only so as to complete the picture: it cannot be attributed to any other agent. Regarding such evil, I explained that one who makes this claim against God bears a prior burden of proof. He must show that it is at all possible to create a world that runs according to rigid laws (my assumption is that God wants this, and one can also understand why), laws that do everything the current laws do (for that is what God wants from the nature of the world), but without the elements of evil (tsunamis, epidemics, and the like). The question is whether such a system of laws exists at all. Imagine that there is here a mathematical-logical impossibility (like a round triangle, or an equation with no solution). There simply is no such system of laws. If so, then there is no room for a complaint against God asking why He did not create a world with such a system of laws. He cannot do that (just as He cannot make a round triangle).
The Holocaust and the Destruction of the Temple
The Holocaust is of course a paradigmatic example of an event of human evil. Therefore there is no room here for explanations of why it was right and proper to do this. Quite simply, He did not do it. The claims against God can be, at most, why He did not prevent these things.
As I mentioned, the Talmud in Bava Kamma 60b relates to the destruction of the Temple as God’s handiwork:
"If a fire breaks out and finds thorns"—it goes out on its own; "the one who kindled the fire shall surely pay"—the Holy One, blessed be He, said: It is upon Me to pay for the blaze that I kindled. I ignited a fire in Zion, as it is said: "He set fire in Zion, and it consumed her foundations"; and I will one day rebuild it with fire, as it is said: "And I will be for her a wall of fire all around, and I will be glory within her."
The Talmud says that the verse describes the fire as though it goes out on its own, yet nevertheless there is someone who is defined as the one who kindled it and upon whom liability for damages rests. God is described here as one who kindled a fire that went out on its own. This is an oxymoron, and it is easy to see its connection to our earlier discussion (does God bring about evil, or does He only create the natural and human mechanisms that do so). This is already a first hint at the question of the connection between the events themselves and God as the One who causes them. But before we enter the Talmudic context and its implications for our question, we must become acquainted with a fundamental dispute between Amoraim regarding fire damages and the responsibility of the one who kindled the fire.
"His fire is treated like his arrows"
In Parashat Mishpatim (Exodus 22:5) we find:
If a fire breaks out and finds thorns, and a stack of grain, or standing grain, or a field is consumed, the one who kindled the fire shall surely pay.
Here the Torah establishes liability for damages upon one who kindles a fire that goes and damages a stack of grain or standing grain. How should we understand fire damages? In the Talmud cited above we see that the Amoraim were aware of a certain difficulty that exists with respect to fire damages. The fire is described here as something that happens on its own (with the help of the wind and other natural circumstances), and yet the person bears liability for damages because of it.
In tractate Bava Kamma 22a, Rabbi Yohanan and Resh Lakish disagree on this point:
It was stated: Rabbi Yohanan said, “His fire is treated like his arrows,” and Resh Lakish said, “His fire is treated like his property.”
Rabbi Yohanan sees the fire as the person’s arrows, that is, as a case of direct human damage (a person who shoots an arrow and causes damage is regarded as a person who damaged with his own hands, like someone holding a hammer and breaking something). Resh Lakish sees the fire as his property that causes damage, like my ox or dog that goes and causes damage. In those cases too the Torah innovated that a person bears responsibility for damage caused by his property (what is called property that causes damage, as distinct from a person who causes damage).
The Talmud now turns to clarify the basis of the dispute. First, it turns to Resh Lakish:
And what is the reason Resh Lakish did not say like Rabbi Yohanan? He can say to you: Arrows go by his force; this one does not go by his force.
Why is Resh Lakish taken to be the one who owes us more of an explanation than Rabbi Yohanan? Presumably because the more plausible view a priori is that the fire is not a person’s property (for it is difficult to speak of a person’s ownership over fire), and therefore it is more reasonable to see the damage as the person’s own damage (like shooting an arrow). Resh Lakish explains that it is difficult to compare fire to the shooting of an arrow, because the arrow goes by the power of its owner, whereas the fire goes on its own (with the assistance of the wind and the combustible material). We can now understand why, in the Talmud above, they understood the language of the verse this way: "If a fire breaks out"—on its own.
So what does Rabbi Yohanan answer to that?
And what is the reason Rabbi Yohanan did not say like Resh Lakish? He can say to you: Property has substance; this has no substance.
Rabbi Yohanan does not explain that fire is similar to the shooting of an arrow. It seems that he too agrees that the similarity is not perfect, but in his eyes it is even harder to compare fire damages to property that causes damage. Fire is not its owner’s property, because it has no substance.[1] In Jewish law there is no ownership over things that have no substance. If this is not property that causes damage, says Rabbi Yohanan, then what remains is a person who causes damage. The Torah apparently teaches that despite the difference between fire and an arrow, a person’s responsibility for the damages caused by the fire he kindled should be seen as the responsibility of a person who shot an arrow (a person who causes damage).
Notice that neither of the two rationales explains why fire resembles property or an arrow. These are negative rationales (why it is not similar to an arrow and not similar to property).[2] Rabbi Yohanan and Resh Lakish agree that there is no full resemblance to either side, but they are looking for that to which it is least dissimilar.
It is likely that Resh Lakish also agrees with Rabbi Yohanan that the resemblance between fire and property that causes damage is limited and problematic. Rather, in his opinion the resemblance to shooting an arrow is more problematic. Therefore it seems that both Rabbi Yohanan and Resh Lakish agree that fire is neither property that causes damage nor a person who causes damage, and the dispute between them is only over which of the two it is less unlike.
By the way, I will add in passing that the distinction between an arrow and fire, which as noted is agreed upon by both Amoraim, can be interpreted in two different ways: 1. because of the manner of movement toward the place of damage—that is, because the fire goes by the power of the wind, unlike an arrow, which goes by the power of the person. 2. because of the force that creates the damage—that is, because the damage of the fire is done by its own power, whereas an arrow brings about the damage by the power of the shooter. The inference from the language of the verse indicates that the difference lies in the manner of the fire’s going out ("If a fire breaks out"—on its own), that is, as in the first interpretation. But one can see in the passage that the medieval authorities (Rishonim) are apparently divided on this issue. Be that as it may, it is clear that according to all opinions, kindling a fire is not similar to shooting an arrow.
One might wonder: if fire is not similar either to a person who causes damage or to property that causes damage, why should we not exempt it? But that is not an option, since the Torah itself imposes liability for fire damages (see the verse cited above). The more difficult question is why we should not assume that fire is a category unto itself, neither a person nor property that causes damage. The Sages assume that there are no further categories. It is possible that the reason is the practical consequences, for example liability for the four additional payments: medical expenses, pain, loss of work, and humiliation. Only a person who causes damage is obligated to pay all of these in addition to the damage itself. One whose property caused damage is exempt from them and pays only for the damage. In those terms, the dichotomous picture seems reasonable. One must decide: either one is liable for the four additional payments or not.
Back to the Comparison with the Destruction of the Temple
In Bava Kamma 60b the above Talmudic passage that addresses the destruction of the Temple is cited, and now let us see it in full:
Rav Ami and Rav Assi were sitting before Rabbi Yitzhak Nappaḥa. One master said to him: Let the master tell us halakhah; and the other master said to him: Let the master tell us aggadah. He began to say aggadah, but one master would not let him; he began to say halakhah, but the other master would not let him. He said to them: I will tell you a parable. To what is the matter comparable? To a man who has two wives, one young and one old. The young one plucks out his white hairs, and the old one plucks out his black hairs. He ends up bald on both sides. He said to them: If so, I will tell you something that will suit both of you. “If a fire breaks out and finds thorns”—it goes out on its own; “the one who kindled the fire shall surely pay.” The Holy One, blessed be He, said: It is upon Me to pay for the blaze that I kindled. I ignited a fire in Zion, as it is said: “He set fire in Zion, and it consumed her foundations”; and I will one day rebuild it with fire, as it is said: “And I will be for her a wall of fire all around, and I will be glory within her.” As halakhah: the verse begins with damage caused by one’s property and ends with damage caused by one’s own person, to teach you that his fire is treated like his arrows.
The framework of the story is very puzzling. There are two students here, Rav Ami and Rav Assi, one of whom does not want to hear aggadah but only Jewish law, and the other the opposite.[3] Rabbi Yitzhak Nappaḥa is caught in a bind, and suddenly a brilliant solution occurs to him: he will say something that will satisfy both of them. What does he do? He gives them two innovations, one in Jewish law and one in aggadah. So how is that any different from what came before? In what way is that a solution to the problem? Why did they not once again silence him and dismiss both interpretations? Even if these are two interpretations of the very same verse, there is no lack of examples of an aggadic interpretation and a halakhic interpretation of the same verse. Apparently even regarding the same verse they would not have let him offer either an aggadic or a halakhic interpretation. How, then, does this solution answer the difficulty with which he is dealing? To understand this, let us consider what he said.
The aggadic interpretation begins with the assertion that the fire went out on its own. Why is that connected to the homily that appears there? Simply because if a fire goes out on its own and causes damage by its own power (as we saw above), there would be room for the reasoning that the owner of the fire (the one who kindled it) should be exempt. Therefore it was taught that God is considered the one who kindled the blaze (even though the fire goes out by its own power), and He is obligated to repair what He ruined. This is learned from fire damages, for there too a person created the fire but it causes damage by its own power, and nevertheless Jewish law sees the one who kindled it as responsible to repair the damages.
In essence, the Talmud is telling us that the relation between God and the laws of nature that He created is not like the relation between a shooter and an arrow, but like the relation between one who kindles and a fire. You create something, and now it goes by its own power. Therefore here too the discussion of Rabbi Yohanan and Resh Lakish regarding fire arises: is this a case of a person who causes damage (God Himself burned the Temple) or of property that causes damage (the people and the forces in the world that was created did it). This of course comes to answer the question of God’s responsibility for what happens in the world. If it were a matter of shooting an arrow (that is, if everything happened by His power), the question would be simple and it would be clear that He bears responsibility. But the passage here says that it is like fire and not like an arrow, meaning that nature conducts itself by its own powers, and not that God directly causes everything. The Holocaust and the destruction of the Temple were not His handiwork, but the handiwork of the Nazis and the Romans. Ostensibly this exempts God from responsibility, as we saw above, since this is not damage done directly by His hands. But the verse regarding fire damages teaches us that even so the one who kindled bears responsibility.
God, who created nature and us and gave us the power to bring things about even if they are against His will, is nevertheless responsible to some extent for what happened, and therefore He also promises to repair what we have ruined. As we saw above, it was the Nazis who brought about the Holocaust, but the one who kindled the fire (created them and gave them the power to perpetrate these horrors) bears a certain degree of responsibility for the result. This is not quite a case of a person who causes damage, that is, not His own act, but He still bears liability for damages because He did not guard His fire and did not prevent the damage.
In his halakhic interpretation, Rabbi Yitzhak Nappaḥa learns from the language of the verse that his fire is treated like his arrows. The fire goes out on its own, yet there is still someone who kindled it. How can that be? If you created the fire, then when it goes and burns the stack you are regarded as the one who burned it. This is a linguistic inference from the wording of the verse. But what is the logic and reasoning that underlies this inference? The logic of responsibility for fire damages: his fire is treated like his arrows. The aggadic interpretation explains the halakhic inference. This is also why Rabbi Yitzhak Nappaḥa’s solution really answered both of them. He is not bringing two different interpretations from the same verse, one halakhic and one aggadic. He brought here two complementary aspects that are learned from the same verse in the same way. Both depend on the fact that the verse describes a fire as going out on its own (meaning that it is ignited by a person but proceeds on its own, as we saw in the dispute of Rabbi Yohanan and Resh Lakish cited above), yet there is still someone who kindled it and is responsible for the results.
By the way, what will Resh Lakish do with this verse? After all, according to his approach, liability for fire is because it is one’s property that causes damage. So why does the verse begin with the fire’s going out and end with the one who kindled it? It may be that according to his view the "one who kindled" is the one who ignited the fire, not the one who is regarded as having burned the stack (for Rabbi Yohanan, the burning refers to the burning of the stack. The verse teaches that the one who ignited the fire is regarded as the one who burned the stack). But it is more plausible that the halakhic interpretation here also follows the view of Resh Lakish, and when it says his fire is treated like his arrows it is not meant to exclude Resh Lakish, but rather to exclude the view that would have exempted the one who kindled altogether. He learns from the verse that although the fire causes damage by its own power, there is still one who kindled it, and he bears an obligation of payment and responsibility. On that Resh Lakish agrees as well.
Be that as it may, the Talmud’s novelty touches not only the destruction of the Temple but the question of evil in the world, and even more than that, the question of the relation between God and what takes place in His world. The passage comes to teach that, contrary to what is commonly assumed by many, what happens in the world is not God’s direct handiwork, exactly as we saw in Derashot HaRan whose words were cited above. The lesson is that "it is He who gives you the power to produce wealth," but He does not perform the act itself. But as we have seen, this still does not completely exempt God from responsibility. He is not literally a person who causes damage, but He created the world and is therefore responsible to watch over it and bear the liability for damages, as we learn from fire damages. Fire is an excellent example of this, because unlike an ox (which is the ordinary case of property that causes damage), which a person buys or receives, fire is something a person creates, and that is what imposes responsibility upon him (which is why this is not ordinary property that causes damage; the Talmud determines his fire is treated like his arrows). Fire is a unique example in this respect, because in the case of fire the relationship between the person and the thing that causes damage is exactly like the relationship between God and His world. If a person bears responsibility for the damages caused by a fire that he created even if it caused damage by its own power, then God bears responsibility for the damages caused by the creatures He created. The novelty is not that He is regarded as the one who did it, but that the responsibility to repair rests on Him (because of negligence in supervision or simply by virtue of ownership of His world), and that is exactly what the aggadic interpretation says.
Incidentally, the Talmud also seems to indicate that the repair can be effected by way of fire and not through His direct action. This hints at a human model of redemption, like the Arukh LaNer in Sukkah 41a, who writes that the Temple will not descend from heaven (contrary to Rashi there), but will be built by human beings in a human process. And yet this will still be a redemption brought about by God as the one who kindled the blaze (the one who gave us the power to do it).
If we return to the dispute between Rabbi Amital and Aba Kovner, we can put it this way: Aba Kovner assumes that God Himself brought about the Holocaust and therefore is unwilling to worship Him. He assumes his fire is treated like his arrows, like Rabbi Yohanan. Rabbi Amital answers him that his fire is treated like his property, that is, the Holocaust is the handiwork of human beings. But as we have seen, this does not exempt God from responsibility (and Rabbi Amital dealt with this quite a bit in his writings), for even the one who created the blaze bears responsibility, whether because it is his property or because it is like his arrows.
A Note on the Meaning of Aggadot
Several times I have already written here about my reservations regarding the study of aggadah. More than once I have argued that there is no real novelty in it and that it is difficult to extract from it a clear conclusion. Therefore a person usually derives from it what he already thought beforehand (what I called in Column 53 a homily, that is, a dubious inference with trivial conclusions). My claim is that usually the aggadah merely reinforces what you already thought from the outset.
My principled approach casts doubt on our ability to infer a conclusion from aggadot, which is what leads people to produce homilies on the basis of aggadah. It seems to me that the interpretation I suggested is not merely a homily, and that it reveals the aggadah’s real meaning. I leave that to the readers. But it is important to add in this connection that my main claim is that even when one does infer a conclusion from some aggadah, it is usually not new. It will fit the learner’s a priori conceptions. And indeed, in the present case as well, this is not a novel idea. One should note that the conclusion I extracted from here already appears several times in my writings and on the website, even before I thought of this interpretation of this aggadah.
I assume that if I thought that this conception of providence were incorrect (as many think, namely that God is involved in the world and personally brings about everything that happens in it through us), I would presumably have found a way to manage with the aggadic interpretation and adapt it to my views.[4] That is, there is indeed a conclusion in my words that emerges from this aggadah, and it indeed seems to me to be the aggadah’s true meaning, but it is still a conclusion that fits my a priori position completely.
Not by chance does the frame story of this passage deal with the dispute between an enthusiast for aggadah who rejects Jewish law and an enthusiast for Jewish law who rejects aggadah. It is impossible to satisfy these two fellows, and we remain bald on both sides: without Jewish law and without aggadah. The interpretations that appear in the passage try to answer this. They teach us that aggadah has a certain value, and this is mainly when it clarifies the Jewish law attached to it. Here the passage does not leave this to the creativity of the commentator and the learner, but says it almost explicitly. But, as stated, usually it falls on fertile ground. The conclusion fits the intuition we had beforehand.
[1] If I remember correctly, I once saw someone who made this dispute depend on the question why we obligate the owner of property that caused damage to pay: is it because of negligence in supervision, or because of the very fact that his property caused damage (the property is a kind of peripheral extension of its owner, as though he himself caused the damage). If ownership is required only in order that he bear responsibility for supervision, then creating the fire is enough to create such responsibility even without ownership. But if what creates the obligation is the fact that this is my property, and only that creates the connection between me and it, then fire is not my property and I have no responsibility for its damages under the law of property that causes damage.
[2] I have it from my mother that when one wants to investigate washing machines, one does not ask the salesperson about the machine sold by him, but rather asks each salesperson for his opinion about the washing machine sold by his competitor. Thus we get a full picture of all the disadvantages of both machines. The question of which of them is preferable in its positive features remains for us to decide.
[3] The Talmud does not identify which one is which, and usually that stems from a desire not to speak ill of one of them (see, for example, Shevuot 26a and many other places). Here this is a desire to avoid speaking ill of the one who does not want to hear Jewish law but only aggadah. This is slander for two reasons: both because of his refusal of Jewish law and because of his desire for aggadah, obviously.
[4] For example, here we are dealing with evil brought about by human beings possessed of reason. Clearly, in the laws of damages, when one sends a blaze by the hand of a competent person, the competent person is liable and the sender is exempt (see Mishnah Bava Kamma 59b). Why? Because the agent is responsible for his actions and cannot excuse himself by claiming that the sender told him to do it (= we were following orders). In the language of the Talmud: "When the words of the master and the words of the disciple conflict, whose words should one obey?" Therefore one must distinguish between the liability of one who kindles in damages and God’s responsibility for what takes place in His world, at least regarding what is brought about by human beings (human evil).
So how, in fact, do I ignore this important distinction? One must remember that this is aggadah, and with aggadah one must be careful with analogies. The aggadah does not come to equate the rationales one for one, but to teach the main lesson. This is a literary form meant to teach us how we should view God’s responsibility for what takes place in His world: like the responsibility of one who kindles for the damages caused by his fire. Despite the obvious distinctions, the Talmud wants to teach us that this is the correct mode of relating to it.
Discussion
I explained this briefly here as well. Suppose His purposes require a system of laws that is both circular in character and triangular. Can He do that? Alternatively, suppose He needed to create a wall that withstands every shell, and also a shell that penetrates every wall. Could He do that?
Fine, the Holy One, blessed be He, cannot go against the laws of logic. The rabbi assumes that such a system is impossible, but it is not clear to me why that should be assumed.
If the Holy One, blessed be He, wants to create a perfect world, what prevents Him? Who says that is impossible?
You’re missing the logic. I am not claiming that it is impossible; I am claiming that whoever raises the objection must prove that it is possible. After all, forcing a far-fetched reconciliation is acceptable, but raising a far-fetched objection is not acceptable.
Ah, nice. Only now did the penny drop for me. More power to you.
You can also present it this way (and perhaps it follows directly from what was said): it is not correct to relate to God as the cause of the events in reality; He does not literally do them, but He does establish their purpose. It is His responsibility that reality, and what happens in it, have a purpose. (That is also how I interpret most of the Amidah prayer: instead of praying that He heal us, for example, I mean that the purpose of everyone’s actions should be healing.)
Regarding aggadot, in my opinion (and in the opinion of my teachers as well), that is exactly the meaning of connecting halakhah and aggadah. True, some have claimed that this is a forbidden mixture, but our tradition has it that there is a Ritva who says that kilayim is a law only about seeds 🙂
I have gladly taken note of the novel idea from your study hall: aggadot have the power to interpret halakhah. I would add that this may happen in several ways. There is a narrative used to build, and a narrative used to refute. I am not sure whether the inference you made here is a third type.
I still have not understood how the question of evil is resolved, and the problem that led people to say there is no God because of the Holocaust, if in the end there is still responsibility on the part of the Holy One, blessed be He, as is emphasized several times. This only quantitatively reduces the problem, but does not solve it.
To tell the truth, I was thinking of you when I wrote these things. The dispute between Rav Ami and Rav Assi certainly reminded you of something, as it reminded me. Just note my reservation, that there was no novelty here that I had not understood beforehand.
Indeed, it has not been solved. I did not mean here to solve the problem, only to dull its sting a bit. I have several proposals that really do explain it, and that will be in the second book of the trilogy.
It certainly did remind me, and I respect the precision and even agree. And the application of the dispute about fire-damages to the question of providence, in your view, is truly wonderful. It would be fitting to add it briefly to the relevant chapter in the second book.
What is the halakhic ruling? Reish Lakish or Rabbi Yohanan?
Will be handled 🙂
Rabbi Yohanan. But according to the conclusion of the sugya, Rabbi Yohanan holds that his fire is both his arrows and his property.
And in the past I asked, and still ask: we have proof that it is possible for there to be a world with fewer hazards—modern medicine. If the Creator of the world were on a par with His creatures, He would at the very least have been able to create a world in which the medicines known to science today were common property already in the days of Homo erectus. This requires much further investigation.
In the next article perhaps two birds were struck with one stone: both the issue of evil in the current post and the sanctity of the Holocaust in the future column. From Rabbi Shagar’s Siach Yitzhak yeshiva website:
The Sanctity in the Holocaust – A Talk for Parashat Kedoshim, Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Day
Zohar Maor • 27 Nisan 5779
Two opposite perspectives on the sanctity in the Holocaust – is sanctity present in the divine nothingness, or in “the whole earth is full of His glory” – Rabbi Shagar and Shmuel Z. Kahana
This week we marked Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Day, and at its end we will read Parashat Kedoshim, at whose center stands the concept of holiness and the command to be holy. What option of holiness might the Holocaust bequeath? This in light of the fact that it is an almost unique case in Jewish history in which the struggle against Judaism was secularized: the Nazis fought Judaism as a race and not as a religion, and thus in effect denied the possibility of “dying for the sanctification of the Name.”
We will seek the answer with the help of two figures: Rabbi Shagar, a second-generation child of Holocaust survivors, for whom the Holocaust is present-absent in his thought; and Shmuel Z. Kahana, known as Shazakh, whose writings on the Holocaust I edited into a book that came out a few months ago. Shazakh was in Warsaw during the first months of the Nazi occupation but escaped before the implementation of the Final Solution. Even so, the Holocaust deeply affected him, and he established the first state memorial institution (which still exists today) – the Holocaust Cellar.
For Rabbi Shagar, the incomprehensibility of the Holocaust, the divine hiddenness, and the muteness it imposes on religious discourse make it an expression of a holiness beyond the world, beyond understanding:
And regarding God, in whom the Holocaust exposed the “divine terrible” above the “form of man” — do these aspects leave us defenseless, exposed to arbitrariness? Can God behave capriciously? Is there not here a smuggling of a godless world into God’s own domain?! Religion teaches that this is not so — far be it from God to do wrong, “A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and upright is He” (Deuteronomy 32:4) — but what sense is there to meaning that is meaningless? Even if there is meaning, it is in the nature of a differend: on the one hand, it is not grasped in human terms, and on the other hand, the human cannot become non-human and thereby attain the meaning foreign to him. What meaning is there in saying that there is “there” something, some meaning, apart from the statement itself, the knowledge of the fact, and not knowledge of the reality itself? And perhaps this is what the Lubavitcher Rebbe meant when he said that “we have absolutely no explanation or elucidation whatsoever for the Holocaust, but only knowledge of the fact that thus it arose in thought before Him”? Does the meaningless statement about meaning itself function like “negative attributes,” as a differend? “In the differend, something ‘asks’ to be put into statements, and suffers… as a result of not being able to do so immediately” — is the meaningless statement about meaning in fact an encounter with something seeking expression but unable to express itself?
(On That Day, p. 76).
In this sense, the Holocaust itself is holiness — in the sense of the transcendent, or in Rudolf Otto’s terms, the numinous, that which is beyond understanding, beyond language: “‘You shall be holy, for I am holy’ — might it mean like Me? My holiness is above your holiness” (Vayikra Rabbah 24:9). Of course, the Holocaust is not a unique manifestation of this holiness: one who studies Rabbi Shagar’s writings, such as his interpretation of Torah 64 in Likutei Moharan, will see that this is how he understood the meaning of the vacated space according to Rabbi Nachman: God is certainly present and revealed, but this revelation cannot be understood; it must be paradoxical, beyond language (in the vacated space there are no letters), in order, on the one hand, to preserve its divinity, and on the other hand to allow the world independent existence.
Although Shazakh faced a similar experience of the Holocaust as a revelation of the incomprehensible, his conception of holiness is the opposite, at least at first glance:
When the Temple was destroyed and it was no longer possible to fulfill the commandments connected with the Temple, the regular offerings and the additional offerings, the Sages established that they should be studied, or that some memorial act should be done in their place; they studied the laws of the Temple and thereby fulfilled the commandment of the Temple, or they made some memorial for them that was considered as though they had fulfilled them. And now, in the camps, we are unable to fulfill the commandments at all — but they too have a substitute, prayer or study, and if that is impossible there is an additional substitute, the most important of all, one that contains a kind of supreme holiness, a holy of holies, the sanctification of the Name: the person himself, in all his limbs and in his whole body, becomes the commandment, and of this it is said: “Let us make man in our image” — [the person] became a holy of holies, a holy commandment.
A Jew who in the Holocaust could not fulfill a commandment himself became a commandment; and he became a living Torah, suffering and shining. And so R. Yoel says to his friend in the camp as they were being led on Purim to the gas chambers: “I was distressed that I was unable to fulfill mishloach manot this year, and behold, we ourselves have become mishloach manot, two portions, body and soul, a gift sent to heaven…
(The Parchments Burn and the Letters Fly, p. 84)
And in another passage:
The Holy One, blessed be He, says to Israel, “Would that they had forsaken Me but kept My Torah.” And in the reality of the Holocaust the opposite was fulfilled: they forsook His Torah but kept Him; yet by keeping Him, all of life was transformed into a life of Torah and commandments; everything was sanctified through the commandment of sanctifying the Name. And by this all life in the camps was transformed into holy life and was filled with Torah and commandments. And all the skeletons wandering in the camps, the Muselmänner and the stupefied, were transformed into heroes, heroes sanctifying the Name of Heaven. The survivor added: “In the camps in which I was, it was not possible to fulfill commandments, and life was the life of slaves, prisoners condemned to death, secular lives of chronically ill people without hope; yet along with this there was a certain holiness in them. The commandments of the Torah were absent, but their holiness was in all of life. That is how we felt and that is how it was: the secular was sanctified.”
When he told me this, my mind was drawn to the mighty enterprise of Rabbi Kook, of blessed memory, who succeeded in sanctifying the secular in the building of the Land. Everything is holy there and everything is holy here. A period of intensifying holiness
(ibid., p. 85).
According to Shazakh, the Holocaust does not constitute a revelation of the divine nothingness, but the opposite, of “the whole earth is full of His glory.” Precisely because the Nazi struggle against the Jew seemingly lacked a religious dimension, and precisely because the reality in the labor and extermination camps did not come to negate Judaism but humanity itself, sheer humanity, sheer human life, became the loftiest divine revelation. Despite Shazakh’s comparison to Rabbi Kook’s immanent conception, in order to make sense of the former’s position we must sharply distinguish between them; we can do so in light of the following well-known midrash:
“Here it says remember, and regarding Shabbat it says remember — are they the same?! Although it is written regarding Shabbat ‘remember’ and regarding Amalek ‘remember,’ they are not the same… Regarding Shabbat it is written, ‘Remember the Sabbath day to sanctify it,’ to honor it with food and drink and clean clothing; and regarding Amalek it is written, ‘Remember what Amalek did to you’ — how do you remember him? At an empty table, as it says, ‘You shall blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven’”
(Tanchuma, Ki Tetze).
Rabbi Kook’s and Hasidism’s “the whole earth is full of His glory” is “at a full table,” from a place of fullness and a sense of the good in reality itself. The Holocaust, by contrast, is the sense of the divine presence everywhere from a place of paradox, of emptiness. Here we return to Rabbi Shagar’s conception — the vacated space enables us to return to the world and find holiness within it itself — this is a holiness beyond letters, the holiness of the wondrous melody that the true tzaddik finds in the vacated space, as Rabbi Nachman describes in Torah 64.
Completely wrong. There is an evolution of development. Besides, today’s medicines cure yesterday’s diseases. Even today there is much suffering.
Yet another collection of claims that in my view are nonsense.
I think that your very point—that there are evils that the Holy One, blessed be He, does not do—is well explained in Maimonides’ Guide for the Perplexed: one who is not in constant connection with God does not have individual providence over him and is left to chance.
Abba Kovner’s statement reminds me of a statement by Rabbi Kook, of blessed memory (roughly), that there is a common denominator between the greatest righteous people and the greatest wicked people; apparently both are seeking a total God—these find Him for that reason, and those do not find Him for that very same reason.
Have a good week
More power to you, Rabbi Michi. One of the finest articles on the blog to date.
I didn’t understand one point. It would seem that the “derash”/”midrash” in the Gemara concludes that “his fire is משום his arrows,” no?
“The passage opened with damages by one’s property and ended with damages by one’s person, to tell you that his fire is משום his arrows.”
I didn’t understand the question. I noted that this does not contradict Reish Lakish.
I didn’t understand how to reply directly to MIKYAB, so I’ll ask: why did “whoever raises the objection must prove that it is possible” make the penny drop for you? The assumption that God is omnipotent means that it is possible, no? Why is this “a far-fetched objection”? It follows directly from the assumption of God, without any forcing.
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As for your question: in order to object, you need to show that there is an objection. As long as you have not shown that such a system of laws exists, you have not raised an objection. The assumption is that even God cannot make a contradictory system like a triangular circle (and therefore you will certainly agree that the question why He does not make a triangular circle is not an objection against Him and His omnipotence—like the stone He cannot lift).
Thanks for the instructions about where to reply. And simply put, the assumption is that God can indeed make a contradictory system, if God created logic and so on. However, a stone that He cannot lift He cannot create, since that contradicts His own definitions and attributes. A circle and a triangle, by contrast, are His creations, subordinate to Him. That is the question regarding the matter under discussion. But another question emerges from the above: why should we say that if there is no such stone, then there is no such triangular circle? I recall a book whose name I will not mention out of respect for the author’s modesty, which answers (according to that Rational Youthful Spring, p. 71) the question of the stone based on the understanding that a triangular circle is impossible. So how can one unproven thing prove another unproven thing? Here we proved by means of the stone, and there we proved the stone by means of the triangular circle. (And there is also another point here—that one contradictory system was used to prove against another contradictory system, no? (-: )
There is no difference at all between types of contradictions. If He makes a triangular circle, I can always ask: is this triangle circular? Then it is not a triangle, and vice versa. Therefore He cannot make a triangular circle, exactly like the stone. The same applies to the system of laws under discussion. If it is like a triangular circle, then such a system cannot exist: if it is triangular, it is not circular, and vice versa.
As for the pilpul about what came before what—it is of course baseless. Nothing relies on anything else. These are two examples, and each person can choose whichever one makes sense to him.
Why should I care whether one can ask today whether a circle is not a triangle? Does that question prove that an alternative reality cannot exist? The question is based on the logic of the present reality, so why connect it to an alternative reality? How do we know that in the “reality” in which God did invent such a triangle it would not be circular? How do we know this secret? From the present reality, which is necessarily different from the “reality” that was not invented?!
P.S. Why is the difference I pointed to not a difference? We are like clay in the hands of the potter. If He wishes, He makes everything into clay. But if He wishes, He does not make everything into a potter. And the stone affects the creator, and therefore there are limitations there of creatorhood; whereas a triangular circle is only clay and does not affect the creator, and therefore if He wishes He can do with it whatever He likes. And according to this, perhaps God can create such a stone in a different reality not limited by the logic of our reality. Altogether there are three components here that will not appear together in the same picture: omnipotence, the logic familiar to us, and lastly the delightful one, a stone that cannot be lifted by the omnipotent. Remove one, and you get a realistic picture. Until then, it is an invented picture. (And simply put, the omnipotent could have invented it, but there is really no point in that, right? Omnipotent, yes—but in practice He does not do everything, correct?)
It is hard for me to elaborate more than I already have. If you want to say that the Holy One, blessed be He, is blah blah blah, then fine. Statements that include contradictions (even if their subject is the Holy One, blessed be He) are in the category of blah blah blah. Do not forget that these statements are made by human beings.
A small note: circular and triangular do not belong to the present reality or to an alternative reality. A circle is not a triangle in any reality.
That’s it. I’ve exhausted the matter.
Thanks anyway, and sorry for the overlong digging
The rabbi has expanded on this issue many times. Search the site and his article on contradictions. You’ll find lots of material.
Where is the article? Thanks
With God’s help, 7 Sivan 5779
In any case, the prophet Isaiah says that God is “making peace and creating evil” (and in the refined wording of the Men of the Great Assembly: “and creating everything”). God, as the creator of all and the all-powerful one, does not hide behind justifications of “helplessness,” but takes full responsibility for the existence of suffering and evil in the world. The presence of evil is infuriating and creates tremendous energy of resistance against evil, resistance that brings an intense desire to repair, a desire that leads to a strong aspiration and vigorous action to repair the world. The destructive and infuriating fire—it is itself the constructive and stirring fire.
Best regards, Shatz
And perhaps this is hinted at in likening fire to an arrow:
Shooting an arrow is done by over-stretching the bow backward. The more one draws back—the more forcefully the arrow moves forward. And so, the more reality is “stretched backward”—the greater the energy that drives it forward!
Best regards, Shatz
In connection with what was said in the post, I wanted to add that there are two cases in the Torah of fire coming forth from before the Lord:
The first is in the passage about Nadav and Avihu: “And fire came forth from before the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord.” And the second is in the passage about Korah and his congregation: “And fire came forth from the Lord and consumed the two hundred and fifty men who offered the incense.” According to what was said in the post, when fire comes forth from the Lord, this is not a direct action of the Lord, but something that happens on its own. And indeed, from examining the passages one can see that the Holy One, blessed be He, did not punish Nadav and Avihu or the 250 incense-offerers; rather, they were killed as the result of something natural (a kind of law of nature) and not as a punishment from the Holy One, blessed be He. This can be inferred from the fact that the Holy One, blessed be He, warned the priests immediately after the death of Nadav and Avihu against drinking wine and strong drink before approaching the sanctuary—that is, lack of caution brings devastating consequences not as a punishment but simply as a natural result. Also in the case of the incense-offerers, Moses asked the Holy One, blessed be He, “Shall one man sin, and will You be angry with the whole congregation?” It follows that the Holy One, blessed be He, accepted Moses’ plea and punished only the leaders of the congregation by swallowing them into the earth (Korah, Dathan, and Abiram), while the others He did not punish; rather, they were killed because of some natural law that whoever offers strange fire is killed as a result, and not because of an initiated intervention by the Holy One, blessed be He.
That is interesting, but the inference from Nadav and Avihu is not compelling at all. The Holy One, blessed be He, could also warn them about a punishment that He would give for such an act.
Even if the inference from Nadav and Avihu is not compelling, one can learn it by verbal analogy from the incense-offerers (in both cases the Torah phrases it as the going forth of fire, unlike the other places in the Torah where the Holy One, blessed be He, punishes directly).
Indeed true
With God’s help, 13 Av 5779
And perhaps, it may be said on the basis of the comparison to Nadav and Avihu and to the incense-offerers, that even the fire that destroys the Temple comes out of the people’s drawing near to God in an improper way, a closeness not accompanied by the rectification of character and deeds.
And just as the incense is an elixir of life when it is done by Aaron, a lover of peace and as the emissary of the whole community (including the galbanum…) — so too the Temple will be rebuilt when we rebuild the life of the nation in its land in Aaron’s way, as one who “loves people and brings them near to Torah,” with the ardor of one who loves and builds, and not with the ardor that burns and destroys.
Best regards, Shatz
In paragraph 1, line 1
…that even the fire that destroys the Temple…
To claim that evil stems from man’s free choice is correct regarding individual events, such as murder or theft. But to say that national events too, such as the Holocaust or wars in general, are “because man has free choice”—that is much weaker.
Maimonides already argues in Shemoneh Perakim that although the individual has free choice, the collective does not [at least in certain cases]. True, every Egyptian [or Nazi] had a choice whether to do what he did, but the Egyptians as a whole did not really have a choice. There had to be enslavement [as was promised to Abraham]; whether the individual took part in it—that is where free choice appears. True, each person has a choice whether to sin—but the existence of sinners is inevitable. So here too, the murder of this or that particular Jew can be attributed to free choice, but to attribute the Holocaust as a whole to that—that is much harder. To say that the course of history is not governed by interventionist providence, that is, that it is subject to changes according to free choice, is really difficult.
People say that what the individual will do is unpredictable. But what a group will do—that is mathematics. If there is a tyrant over a people—there will be a revolt. It is impossible to know who will take part in the revolt, but its existence can be known almost with certainty.
I would be glad for the rabbi’s reply.
What the individual will do is certainly predictable, otherwise we would not drive on the road for fear that the person in the other car—who is a whole and complete person with free choice—might act freely and move the steering wheel freely out of complete free choice.
Hello.
I’ll start from the opposite direction: if every human act is the product of choice, then the acts of the collective are also the product of choice. True, there is the law of large numbers, but clearly if people decide to act differently, things will be different. Especially when there is a mass movement and then there is no independence between the decisions of the individual people, the law of large numbers does not apply here (otherwise there would be no historical phenomena and no predictions about them either).
And from another angle: in the end, what happens in the collective is a collection of the decisions of individuals, and therefore there is still no room for intervention by the Holy One, blessed be He. His intervention and a change in the course of events would require intervention in the acts of individuals. It is impossible to intervene in the collective without touching the individuals.
I once expanded on this regarding the dispute between Maimonides and the Raavad in ch. 6 of the Laws of Repentance (both in the series of posts on knowledge and free choice and in the book).
I do not know what stands out more in the article, its beauty or its implausibility.
You are essentially arguing that according to the expositor in the Gemara, the destruction of the Temple happened naturally as a result of the choices of the Romans or Babylonians. In light of our familiarity with the theological explanations that are so deeply rooted in the Bible and in Hazal, especially regarding such a dramatic event as the destruction of the Temple, there is not the slightest chance that any amora would try to argue that the destruction was not a punishment for sins but merely the product of natural happenstance and the choices of the enemies. It is far more likely that the analogy to the laws of fire, which you elegantly uncovered, attributes to the Holy One, blessed be He, Israel’s evil choice that brought about the destruction (the Holy One, blessed be He, created their capacity for choice), in the same indirect way that the fire is attributed to the one who kindled it.
It seems to me that one can see in this, on the other side of the coin you used, proof that there is meaning in learning from aggadah, which does not tolerate just any interpretation. One may reject aggadah, as you explained in the past on the site, but for one to whom aggadah is a source with weight, there is the possibility of learning from it something non-trivial.
I am not sure that they did not use this as an example to clarify our attitude toward God’s actions in general—not דווקא the destruction of the Temple. Certainly regarding the First Temple, there were prophets who said that it was His handiwork. As for learning from aggadah, I believe I addressed that here.
But the aggadah was said about the destruction of the Temple.
Clearly. But one can still say that this is only an example to clarify a general idea and not a statement that refers specifically to the destruction. Something like this happens in some decrees instituted because of an incident that occurred, where it is quite clear that the incident is not really the reason for the decree.
One can explain it that way, but there is a better explanation — the choice of evil is likened to a fire that God kindled (by granting free choice), and not the act of destruction, which is direct intervention. The Talmud is essentially saying that since the existence of the Temple is an important spiritual value, God takes partial responsibility for Israel’s evil free choice that brought about the destruction by means of divine intervention (punishment). All this is somewhat similar to the indirect responsibility of the one who kindled the fire.
By means of this explanation, one avoids the difficulty in the Talmud’s formulating a derashah about the destruction of the Temple that actually teaches about other cases in which there is no intervention.
Forgive the lengthening of the discussion; it seemed to me that it had not yet been exhausted.
Once I spoke with the rabbi (“with you,” in the third person out of respect) about the possibility of the Holy One, blessed be He, creating a world without flaws (tsunamis, etc.), and even then I did not understand how it does not follow from the premise that the Holy One, blessed be He, is perfect and omnipotent, that His creation too would be perfect.
The human body is constantly decaying and moving toward its end every moment; how does that fit with the wisdom and goodness of the Holy One, blessed be He?