Q&A: God's Involvement in the World During the Period of the Hebrew Bible
God's Involvement in the World During the Period of the Hebrew Bible
Question
Hello Rabbi,
In the period of the Bible, when there are descriptions of natural events happening (birth, war, economic abundance, etc.),
and ordinary people attribute them to God, but neither a prophet nor the Torah itself says that God did it,
in such a case do you hold that it really is God who brought about what happened, or are the people saying this out of ignorance and superstition?
Answer
I don't know. Back then He was more involved, but there's no way to know.
Discussion on Answer
Maybe it should. "Should" is also the name of a fish.
Take a look at Guide for the Perplexed, Part II, chapter 48.
I know it. It's obvious that it doesn't fit with what people used to think.
The prevailing view was that God really does bring about events within reality.
The question is: if reality also looked natural back then, and the Hebrew Bible says that it is a reality with providence, why shouldn't we think the same is true today?
It could be that the masses didn't think that way. But the Hebrew Bible was written by prophets, and they did think that way according to Maimonides (and according to all our Torah sages, as he writes there). Back then reality looked natural, and the Hebrew Bible says that this is a reality without providence, so why shouldn't we think the same is true today? 🙂
The Hebrew Bible says that this is a reality with providence. Otherwise there would be no point in prayers and in changing one's actions for the sake of reward and punishment as described there. It is obvious that the belief of the people within the Hebrew Bible is belief in providence, including that of the prophets. Maimonides likes to let his theology hide reality from him, but there is no doubt that both the belief of the masses and the belief of the prophets was that the Holy One, blessed be He, intervenes in reality, and there are countless verses that testify to this.
In the examples Maimonides brought there, he is not talking about prayers or changing one's actions for the sake of reward, but דווקא about natural processes that are attributed to the Holy One, blessed be He.
But even in the book of Nehemiah, when He was not so involved, they still attributed the events that happened to Him.
Shouldn't that make us think that even today He is involved, just in a hidden way? As people believed throughout the Hebrew Bible and the Talmud?