Q&A: Can God Really Be in Distress?
Can God Really Be in Distress?
Question
Hello Rabbi, and may the fast be meaningful.
There is one point through which I do manage to connect to the destruction of the Temple: the point that there used to be a greater closeness to God, and a person could atone for his sins. I also connect to the desire for redemption, because I hope that the troubles will end and that the Jewish truth will come to light.
But I’ve heard several times people say that the greatest and loftiest reason to desire redemption and to mourn the destruction is that the Divine Presence is in distress—that God has no home, as it were, and it pains Him that we are in exile.
I can’t understand this, because God truly does not have emotions like human beings, and Maimonides writes that even when descriptions are used, they refer only to modes of conduct.
But that does not mean that God is actually angry and literally has wrath. If that is really the case, how can one connect to a pain that is not really pain, but only a presentation meant to let us know what to do???
It’s like a friend of mine making an angry face at me while I know he is not really angry with me and just wants something from me. Would I care about his angry face??? Of course not!!!
???
Thank you very much.
Answer
Suppose someone lost all his money and is in distress because of it. Is our help for him based on the distress, or on the situation itself that causes the distress (the absence of the money)? With regard to the Holy One, blessed be He, we are not talking about distress as a psychological phenomenon, but about a lack whose expression, for us, is usually by way of distress. When the Holy One, blessed be He, makes a distressed face to us, it is in order to motivate us to do something that we would do if we saw someone in distress—exactly as you said.