Q&A: Conceptual Questions
Conceptual Questions
Question
Dear Rabbi, hello,
I had the privilege of reading two of your books, which influenced me greatly:
- God Plays Dice
- Two Carts and a Hot-Air Balloon
There are two issues that interest me, and at one point you began answering me about them, although I still have some open questions.
The problem of evil – the philosopher challenges the religious worldview by saying:
God is omnipotent
God is good
There is evil in the world
If I understand you correctly, then your solution to the problem of evil is that God is perfect, and therefore He is limited.
Out of the total range of existing options, God chose the best possible one.
Question: Is the Holy One, blessed be He, bound by human logic, and could there be possible logical categories that are not within our grasp?
The possible solution as I understand it is that God is good and omnipotent.
If He were limited, then He would create a world containing only good, but precisely because He is omnipotent, He also created evil.
And since God is perfect, He created a worthwhile creation in order to turn the lacking into the complete, and that is the good in its fullest sense.
Perhaps this solution explains that evil is a means to the ultimate good.
But the question still remains whether He could have done this without the component of evil, since He is omnipotent.
It seems that every explanation requires giving up one of the criteria.
It seems to me that one of the reasons Maimonides rules that one must believe in the resurrection of the dead is that life itself is good, and therefore God, being good and omnipotent, revives the dead—but only the righteous, and perhaps this relates to reward and punishment.
Bottom line: the resurrection of the dead is exemplary proof, not a logical proof, and I still have not found a complete logical solution to the question.
Second question – the Rabbi draws a dichotomous distinction between morality and Jewish law, and I find it hard to accept this.
As the Rabbi noted, there are moral commandments such as “do not steal,” “honor your father and your mother,” etc.
Why does the Rabbi, even there, separate in an artificial way between the religious command and the moral command? In my eyes, they are one and the same.
Regarding the beautiful captive woman, it seems there is a halakhic permission to commit a one-time rape during wartime, and then the beautiful captive woman must undergo a process at the end of which—at least according to Maimonides, if I am not mistaken—there is a process of choice lasting up to 12 months, and then she is released.
If we consider the interpretation of the holy Or HaChaim, that there are sparks of holiness among the gentiles, what is more moral than undergoing some process in order to join the Jewish people, which is a great reward—according to the pain is the reward. Also, when a non-Jew converts, they keep him at a distance, and only one who insists undergoes a conversion process; likewise a Canaanite slave who is freed.
One can see from the Torah that there are halakhic solutions to moral issues.
A mamzer who is sold into slavery, for example, in order to rectify his offspring.
I would be happy to hear your response.
Thank you
Answer
I did not understand the question in the first paragraph. You are also not presenting my position there correctly. The questions I can identify there I have explained several times.
I have also explained my distinction between morality and Jewish law in detail at the beginning of the third book in the trilogy, and also here on the site. I did not understand what is unclear. In particular, I noted that the question of rape does not arise there at all. The transgression he is permitted is intercourse with a gentile. The rape does not bother anyone at all.