Q&A: God’s Involvement in the World
God’s Involvement in the World
Question
(a) Suppose there are studies whose statistical significance is absolutely overwhelming, showing that among religious people there are healthier and more successful people.
Couldn’t you argue, exactly as you argued regarding general providence, that there is no miracle here at all and that it can be explained simply by the fact that they engage in Torah study?
You could also draw on sources like “It is a tree of life…” and “It restores the soul…”
If you could not argue that, then why wouldn’t “engaging in Torah can explain it” stand by your side here just as you recruited it for the issue of general providence?
(b) I remember hearing you say that God is interested in and looks at the world, but He does not intervene.
Doesn’t that weaken the concept of divinity?
After all, how can one explain a God who sees so many children suffering so terribly, without any human being having caused it, say because of severe illnesses, because of the very nature that He Himself created, and who does not intervene to help them even though they did nothing?
Among those who support divine involvement, one can say that this is a matter of reincarnations and various heavenly reckonings, and therefore God acts with the attribute of justice, and that this is even a good thing.
(c) Suppose we were to see clear statistical significance supporting individual providence, as an answer to prayer among religious people.
For example: among religious people, someone who enters hospice, Heaven forbid, and prayers are said for him, has a 30%-40% chance of coming out alive and continuing to live a normal life. By contrast, someone for whom people do not pray dies.
What free choice would we have then whether to believe in God?
Answer
I wasn’t able to keep up with this barrage of questions.
(a) Indeed, I could explain that even without resorting to Torah observance. For example, the sense of security they receive from the Holy One, blessed be He, gives them emotional calm. I didn’t understand what relevance the verses you cited have. I also didn’t understand the question about recruiting this point and providence.
(b) I don’t deal with the question of whether a given position weakens or strengthens the concept of divinity. For me, what matters is whether it is true. If you are looking for an explanation of why He does not intervene, that is relevant both to human evil and to natural evil. With natural evil, one can ask why He Himself does this. I have explained this more than once here on the site and also in the second book of the trilogy, without reincarnations. Search for natural evil and human evil.
(c) The same free choice that the people of Israel had at Mount Sinai, immediately after which they worshiped the calf. The same free choice that everyone has, whereby despite very good arguments they remain atheists.
Discussion on Answer
I don’t think there is even one major sage today who denies reincarnations.
The fact that in the past they denied it (for example, Saadia Gaon) could have been for the following reasons:
A. It was explained to them incorrectly.
B. They were afraid the masses would be drawn after this mysticism, so they said it wasn’t true.
Besides, so what if they opposed it?
If it’s true, then it’s true.
The fact that there were physicists who opposed the Big Bang theory doesn’t mean it isn’t true.
By the way, even nowadays, I don’t think there are rabbis who say people should be occupied with the topic of reincarnations and so on.
We need to understand that we live here in this world and have to conduct ourselves accordingly.
So yes, it may be part of a much broader system, but practically speaking it doesn’t change all that much in a person’s day-to-day conduct.
Is this true or just nonsense?
Answer:
In the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) it isn’t mentioned. Fact.
In the Babylonian Talmud [despite the many stories and parables] it isn’t mentioned.
In the Jerusalem Talmud [despite the many stories and parables] it isn’t mentioned.
In later periods this belief [or fantasy] arrived [from India?] and spread and became known among the Jewish people as well. Saadia Gaon and many of our medieval authorities rejected it, and some even mocked it.
Some accepted it.
So is what the majority of Israel’s sages hold now [in our times—and how would they know by a head count?] relevant to the discussion of whether this is a true belief or a collection of fabrications?
To David.
You assume that Saadia Gaon was probably some kind of idiot who, poor guy, just wasn’t given a good explanation… but you and I are getting it explained to us wonderfully… ah, what a shame that Saadia Gaon [and the other Rishonim] didn’t at least have our great intelligence and tremendous Torah knowledge…
And likewise, that he really did believe in it but bluffed people so they wouldn’t be led astray…
In other words, according to your approach we have two options: either we are dealing with a fool or with a bluffer…
I assume that Saadia Gaon and the other medieval authorities who rejected it [and the Babylonian Talmud, the Jerusalem Talmud, and the Hebrew Bible, which did not mention it] were neither stupid nor bluffers.
Rather, they simply thought it was nonsense. Is that hard for us? Too bad—there are lots of hard things in life…
This is a kabbalistic matter. Kabbalah was not present / not known among the Jewish people before roughly the time of Nachmanides, and the Zohar became accepted / known even later. So it is no wonder that Saadia Gaon and others did not mention it or rejected it. But nowadays, when Kabbalah has been accepted by the overwhelming majority of Orthodox Jews and affects many halakhic rulings and customs out in the open, then in practice this is currently the position of Judaism. There is no difference between something that was accepted by the people during the Babylonian Empire, or among the Amoraim, or from the end of the period of the medieval authorities onward.
“Ori and Yishai”
As people wrote here, Kabbalah was not widely known in that period.
Apparently those who did know knew only a little, and conveyed it to Saadia Gaon in a distorted way, and Saadia Gaon apparently objected.
So he certainly wasn’t stupid; he just received incorrect information.
By the way, even today rabbis oppose Michael Laitman, the guru of “Kabbalah for the People,” and rightly so. He presents a very partial picture.
If relatively serious things were told, and Saadia Gaon did think there was some truth here, and nevertheless objected, it could be for the same reason that the opponents / Lithuanians at first opposed Hasidism quite strongly—it was necessary for the simple masses, so that they wouldn’t get swept along all at once and become confused (for example, it happened that people engaged in Kabbalah and became confused).
So that’s why I also don’t think he was a bluffer.
To Rabbi Michi,
What I meant in the first question is this—
You agree that the survival of the Jewish people is something rare and special. And nevertheless, you hold that it need not be explained through “providence” (general providence).
So too, even if we see “rare and special” statistical data about prayers being answered for individuals, you will say that it need not be explained through “providence” (individual providence).
So right now you say that “I don’t see it” (intervention),
but even if “people do see it,” you’ll be able to pull out other excuses.
Correct. Those aren’t excuses but reasonable explanations. A rare event proves nothing. This question has been discussed here several times in the past.
Just a remark regarding (b).
Many of our Geonic sages and medieval authorities (Rishonim) did not accept the concept of reincarnation at all as something real and serious. It is mentioned neither in the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), nor in the Babylonian Talmud, nor in the Jerusalem Talmud [even though there is no shortage there of all kinds of stories, parables, and aggadic material], so the question regarding Rabbi Michi’s view is not only about him, but about all those who believe in divine intervention nowadays as well. [According to the approaches that hold there is no such thing as reincarnation.]