supervision
Have a good week!
I apologize for raising an issue that has been discussed here tirelessly, but it is Torah and we need to study.
I would like to quote here a column by Rabbi Moshe Rat, which was published in the “Shabton” of Parashat Yaishlach:
What does providence look like?
Some people claim that they do not believe in private providence because, as they say, “they do not see it.” It seems to them that their lives are carried out in a random and blind manner, according to the laws of nature and probability, and they do not see any guiding hand.
The obvious question is – what exactly do they expect to see? It is impossible to determine that we do not see something, if we do not first define what it looks like, so that it can be determined with which tools to look for it and how to identify it. In the same way, someone can say that they do not believe in God, because they looked at the sky with a telescope and did not see him… The expectations in this case are of course wrong: God is not something that can be seen with a telescope, and therefore the fact that such an observation did not locate him does not undermine his existence at all.
So what about providence? Those people probably have a naive view, according to which providence means that whoever appears righteous will always have only good things happen to them, whoever appears wicked will always have only bad things happen to them, and every prayer will be answered immediately. If this is providence, it is indeed not usually seen. However, this description is perhaps appropriate for a Disney movie, not for providence as it is described in the Bible and the words of the Sages. These insisted that the system of divine considerations is complex and mysterious, and that no human being can fully understand it. An example that illustrates this is the midrash on Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi, who accompanied the prophet Elijah and saw him do things that seemed completely unjust: for the righteous poor he prayed that their fornication would die, for the stingy rich he prayed that the wall that had fallen to him be rebuilt, and so on. Rabbi Yehoshua was unable to understand this, and only when Elijah explained the things did the justice in them become apparent. Similarly, the Gemara tells of righteous people who were punished because God was meticulous with them, of wicked people who were rewarded for a small good deed they did, and so on.
To deny the existence of providence because we “don’t see it” is like denying the existence of gravity because airplanes and birds “disprove it” – a fact that they don’t fall! However, the wise understand that, as in physics, providence is a complex system that the average person cannot understand, and yet it operates precisely. It is better to be humble and realize that we only see a small part of the picture, rather than deny everything.
Yes, indeed.
And I would like to ask: How do you define the same providence that prevailed in the days of the Sages and that no longer exists? What is the providence that you expect to see and that is not revealed to you? From the writings of the Sages, it does not appear that reality in their time appeared any different than it does today: the questions of how “a righteous man is evil and bad for him, a wicked man is good for him,” or “this is Torah and this is reward” were also asked in periods when providence prevailed, in your opinion, and yet its negation was not on the agenda.
If you were to deny the existence of providence even in earlier times and claim that they did not understand reality, fine. But when you claim that providence prevailed and then ceased, and on the other hand there is no justification or historical hint for this, then we are in a dilemma…
This has actually been addressed here several times.
I expect to see a different situation in a controlled experiment for those who pray and those who don’t. Or to see an obvious miracle of course (a deviation from the laws of nature). At that time there were prophets and they could tell you that what happened to you was the hand of God even without a controlled experiment and without an obvious deviation from the laws of nature. Beyond that, there were also obvious miracles (a deviation from the laws of nature), which anyone can witness.
1. The claim to expect a difference in a controlled experiment is incorrect, in my humble opinion.
Observing prayer is forbidden, and this is probably analogous to the physical ”observer effect”.
Our observation will cause things not to happen as expected.
2. If conducting a controlled experiment is forbidden (as mentioned, the observer effect/observing prayer), we can look at data from the past (in which there was no observation/observing), and see whether there was indeed a difference between those who prayed and those who did not.
Well, it turns out that according to an article on the website of Dr. Rabbi Moshe Rat (who is one of its leaders), it actually seems that religious people live longer and even healthier:
https://www.knowingfaith.co.il/%D7%99%D7%94%D7%93%D7%95%D7%AA-%D7%95%D7%97%D7%99%D7%99%D7%99%D7%9D-%D7%9E%D7%95%D7%93%D7%A8%D7%A0%D7%99%D7%99%D7%9D/%D7%9E%D7%90%D7%95%D7%A9%D7%A 8%D7%99%D7%9D-%D7%99%D7%95%D7%AA%D7%A8-%D7%91%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%90%D7%99%D7%9D-%D7%99%D7%95%D7%AA%D7%A8-%D7%9E%D7%95%D7%A1%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%99%D7%9D-%D7%99%D7%95%D7%AA%D7%A8
3. Even if the article above is not entirely convincing (I wonder what the rabbi has to say about this), and in truth it is indeed difficult to see a difference between (for example) religious patients who were prayed for, and secular patients who were not prayed for.
For example, let's say if we take 1,000 secular and 1,000 religious terminal cancer patients, it seems that all (or almost all) of them died. The secular and religious, although the religious ones tore the sky apart with prayers. No change can be seen between the two groups, and certainly not significant.
The explanation for this is as follows:
One could perhaps believe that after the illness has already arrived (whether it is a mild fever or terminal cancer) the measure of justice has been decreed upon the person, and hence the chance that prayer will help is very, very low. Therefore, we do not see a substantial change between a religious patient and a secular patient.
I mean, praying after one is already sick is almost like “crying out loud” (but only almost).
After all, no basketball player who broke his leg the day before an important game expects that if he prays, the fracture will heal, so too cannot someone who has a mild fever (the measure of justice has already struck him), be healed by prayer.
Still, the question of why the Sages did rule that one should pray in any situation (“even if a sharp sword is placed . . .”).
Some answers:
A. It is not a case of an absolute state of “ex-screamer” (if it were considered that way, it would be forbidden to pray)
B. Of course, the psychological effect of prayer and faith.
C. Although the merit of the law was derived from the medical problem itself, prayer in very rare situations can still help.
D. Prayer helps even if the problem does not resolve, in the next world, etc.
4. Rabbi Michi does not address Rabbi Moshe Rat's claim that there are effects of prayer that we cannot see, for example, perhaps because of prayer the patient's suffering is much less than it should have been?
The Rabbi's perspective is very limited. Who said it had to be binary?
Whether the patient recovered or not?
Likewise, the Rabbi does not address the possibility that the prayer that the sick person prayed, even though it did not help him now, will help him in the future in the next incarnation.
Likewise, the Rabbi does not address other arguments such as the “bag of rights” that is gradually filling up, and also that the personal prayer may help someone else. For example, let's say someone physically harmed someone else, and as a result he (the injured party) is sick and paralyzed. After a few years, the harmer himself becomes sick and paralyzed, and then he prays for his own healing, but because everything is unified, then the harmer's prayer helps precisely the person he harmed a few years ago.
“I am telling the truth” believes Honorable Rabbi Michi. The point is that this truth is very partial and limited, and one could say that it is actually not true . . .
The topics have already been discussed to the point of exhaustion, and the arguments are very weak. If you want to prove that there is providence from the claim that someone said there is none, you can also prove the existence of fairies in the same way. In my book I explained very clearly why I think there is no providence (certainly not in the normal course, except for sporadic cases). I explained there why you and all those who wave their hand in the provision do not really think so and do not behave so.
I have really already answered everything and I see no point in returning again and again to such weak arguments.
Argument 1 is not weak, it simply says that it is impossible to conduct an *in advance* (scientific-empirical) experiment on prayer.
Argument number 2 is certainly not weak, because if it is true, it refutes the rabbi's entire concept.
Argument number 3 is also not weak because, like argument 1, it shows (at least in the context of the illnesses I gave as an example) that there is no point in looking for significance for people for whom they prayed, because the measure of justice has been sealed.
Regarding the arguments I wrote in section number 4, they can indeed be called “weak”, because there really is no indication that they are correct. But precisely in our day, when teachings such as the incarnations and the teachings of Rav Kook (the unity of reality) are becoming clear as something very basic in Judaism (and it is a shame that the rabbi fails to understand/accept them), there is no reason not to base them on them as a platform for the arguments I raised. All that is needed is to be open-minded about these new concepts in Judaism.
Well, the rabbi probably knows physicists who advanced from Newtonian mechanics to quantum mechanics. . .
The readers will be the judge.
Hi
Your claim is, more or less, that God is no longer involved in history. If I understand correctly, it is based on familiarity with Jewish history and its scriptures. After all, you believe that God revealed himself to Israel in the past but that is over. Hell.
True?
I asked: If you were not Jewish and had no familiarity with this culture, would you have come to the same conclusion, that is, the conclusion that God is no longer involved in the world?
No. It is based on looking at reality and understanding that it operates according to its own laws. That is why I believe I would have come to the same conclusion.
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