Q&A: Providence
Providence
Question
It hinges on understanding the nature of free choice. Every event in the world takes place through the action and direction of the Holy One, blessed be He. The only exception is a human action performed out of free choice. Here, it is not the Holy One, blessed be He, who determines what will happen; rather, He allows the person to determine it. If a person dies a natural death, that is an act of the Holy One, blessed be He, and then apparently there is some reason he deserved to die. But if a person is murdered by someone else, that can happen even if he did not deserve to die. If the other person chose to murder him, the Holy One, blessed be He, gave him a free hand, even to choose evil.
Rabbi, this is a quote from your words. You say that when a person dies a natural death, it is the work of the Holy One, blessed be He. What indication do you have for this? A two-month-old baby girl who went to sleep and did not wake up—is that a natural result or an act of the Holy One, blessed be He? And what about an 88-year-old man? Did he simply not wake up because he was old, or because that is what the Holy One, blessed be He, decided? Isn’t it more reasonable to assume that this is a natural death unrelated to the Creator of the world? What is the definition of “natural death” that the Rabbi means in his words?
Answer
As far as I remember, I did not write that. If only because I do not believe it, and I have written the opposite many times.
Discussion on Answer
Those are very old statements. Maybe that is what I thought then, and maybe I was only explaining the words of the Sages. In any case, today I do not think that nature is in the hands of the Holy One, blessed be He. At any rate, the source is the Sages, not observation of the world. A natural death is a death that is not the result of a human being’s free choice.
https://mikyab.net/writings/articles/after-the-death-of-those-killed-in-the-land-of-israel-instead-of-ki