Q&A: Divine Providence
Divine Providence
Question
Hello Rabbi,
I was exposed to your thought two years ago (I’m in 12th grade now), and at first I enjoyed it מאוד—it sharpened my thinking and it was pure intellectual pleasure. But after I saw that "the Lord has forsaken the land," my whole world collapsed. A sickening skepticism started washing over me, thoughts like: what’s the point of living in a world if there is no justice and no Judge and everything is random? I started losing trust in myself and in my life. Now, from what I know of your writing, you don’t really care much about psychological / existential problems, but I’d be glad to know what you think. I saw that you don’t deny that this may happen sporadically, and I also once saw (I can’t find it right now) that you sent something Rabbi Kook wrote and said it was close to your view. Could you send it again?
All the best
Answer
Hello Yosef. A few comments.
1. I don’t remember a passage from Rabbi Kook, but why would that help you?
2. If you think otherwise, then the fact that I hold a certain view doesn’t obligate you.
3. If the skepticism is about the Holy One, blessed be He, being involved in the world, I don’t see what the problem is. Even if He does not intervene, one should do the truth because it is true (Maimonides, beginning of chapter 10 of the Laws of Repentance). That is the right path, so why does it matter whether He is involved? The Sages also said that there is no reward for a commandment in this world.
4. The faith-and-Jewish-law path is the correct one; it also enables us to be rational and to act rationally, which is not possible in a secular-atheistic world. So it is both the truth and also what gives a better feeling. What’s bad about that?!
5. A mature person needs to free himself from assumptions that were imprinted on him in childhood and form a worldview for himself. He can and should also free himself from immediate dependence on the Holy One, blessed be He, just as one frees oneself from dependence on one’s parents. To invent for yourself a thesis of divine involvement in the world just to answer the childish distress of needing dependence—that is exactly what I mean when I say one should free oneself from it. We are mature people, and we have the authority and responsibility for our actions and for what happens to us (which of course is not always in our hands. It’s unpleasant, but that is the truth, and no invention will change it).
Discussion on Answer
Indeed. I didn’t notice that the questioner was actually describing something else. So it’s good that you clarified that. I claim that there is no active involvement on His part, meaning He does not change anything in the world with His own hands. But He does keep track and care, and perhaps also gives reward and punishment (not in this world).
As best I understand from the Rabbi’s words,
the intention when saying that the Holy One, blessed be He, does not intervene in the world is not that He does not desire it or is unaware of what happens in it.
Am I right?
Because if so, that is a bit different from the questioner’s assumption and understanding of the Rabbi’s words.