Q&A: Has God Abandoned the Earth?
Has God Abandoned the Earth?
Question
Hello Rabbi Michi,
Why is it so important to you, on principle, to argue that providence does not exist?
Our Sages already trained us to behave according to the natural order. Maybe the reason that what happens to a person today is just his fate, with no divine involvement, is because there is no miraculous intervention, only what people call “natural governance.” Why should I care whether “natural governance” is a sanitized term for “God has abandoned the earth,” or whether “God has abandoned it” is a sanitized term for “natural governance”? You concluded that God exists, that He chose the people of Israel at Sinai, that He performed miracles, and that He was involved—so why suddenly not today? We are on the same planet, descendants of the same human beings.
For me, paradoxically, there is a feeling that just as you and I have the intuition that today we live in an un-supervised reality, so too it was in the past; it was only because of the absence of science, ignorance, and the belief that every force of nature is the Creator’s involvement, that people got the feeling that God was right beside them, acting, doing, and commanding.
In any case, I’m asking according to your own approach.
Answer
I didn’t understand the question. It isn’t necessarily important to me. It’s simply the truth, in my view. What are you suggesting—that I hide it? Why hide it? And besides, it matters so that people won’t live in a fantasy and won’t develop expectations.
Discussion on Answer
See Rabbi Kanievsky, and the idea that Torah protects and saves.
Got it, thanks.
Elisaf,
In my humble opinion, it’s important for several reasons. First, for the sake of knowing the truth itself. Seemingly, there is value in investigating what is true and not living a lie.
On the practical level—I hear many stories about relying on the Holy One, blessed be He, that causes weakness and passivity, which in turn causes a lot of damage in Torah life (people say: “make an effort,” meaning lazily).
In addition, I’ve heard of people who abandoned observance of the commandments because of a crisis of faith regarding providence, and that might have been avoided if they had not held that belief in the first place.