OzTorah

The words are from Abraham’s time, but the thought is ageless: “Shall the Judge of all the earth not act justly?” (Gen. 18:25).

The way God runs the world is not always easy to fathom. So often it just doesn’t seem fair.

Yehudah HaLevi offers an answer in his Kuzari: the creation as a whole is good, and everyone can see it. So any particular Divine act must be part of an overall pattern of good, and if we can not see the goodness in a specific moment it may be because our vision is too limited.

Other philosophers have their own approach; indeed every philosopher has to tackle the question sooner or later, and the range of philosophical explanations is vast.

But Rav Soloveitchik makes an important distinction between moments that can be approached philosophically and moments that can’t.

When a real human being is in pain it does not help to start with philosophical analyses of the problem of evil. At that moment it is all too cold, too analytical, too academic.

Someone has died: is that a time to say dispassionately that death is a universal human experience and sooner or later everyone must die?

Try talking like that and you’ll deserve the rebuke, “Yes, yes, but why was it my mother (or father or spouse or sibling or child) that God had to take, and why did it have to happen this way, and why did it have to happen now?”

There is a time for philosophy, but there is also a time for quiet, sympathetic companionship – there is a time for talking, and a time simply for being there.

According to Rashi, Lot was being given a chance of survival that was denied to the other inhabitants of the doomed cities, even though he had sinned like they had. It was not right that he should witness their destruction.

Rashbam adds that looking back might remind him that his two sons-in-law were trapped in the cities, and this might deflect his attention from his own and the rest of his family’s survival.

In a broader context it is a good rule that a person should not look back at what is now past.

There is a temptation to say, “I know I have moved to another country, but I am having my regrets”… or “I know I have retired, but now I’m feeling sorry I did”… or “I know I have sold the house, but I wish I hadn’t”.

Something can sometimes be salvaged from the past, but as a general principle one has to move ahead and build a new future.

Q. Is there a Jewish view of Buddhism?

A. Judaism and Buddhism have had very little contact. Nonetheless a comparison of their respective philosophies is instructive as each is a serious, noble system of thought which approaches life from a distinctive viewpoint of its own.

Buddha taught that all life was suffering: “Birth is suffering, Age is suffering, Death is suffering, all desire is suffering”. Suffering can, however, be negated by following the eight paths. There are three main roads, righteousness, meditation and Buddhist wisdom.

Judaism, for its part, does not deny that human beings experience pain and suffering but is an optimistic faith that accentuates the positive, celebrates life and aspires towards the joy of messianic fulfilment. It neither deifies nor denies desire but seeks to direct and discipline it.

In contrast to the quietness and passivity of Buddhism, it is an activist, dynamic faith that believes that social justice is both necessary and practicable.

In a significant passage in his Essence of Judaism (3:60-61), Leo Baeck writes: “There are but two fundamental and determining forms of religion, that of Israel and that of Buddha… The one is the expression of the command to work and create, the other of the need to rest… Judaism seeks to reconcile the world with God, while Buddhism tries to escape from the world.”

It goes without saying that Judaism highly respects Buddhist spirituality but regards as erroneous the lack of a God in some Buddhist teachings and the polygamy in others.

Q. Why do we sing “Eliyahu HaNavi” (“Elijah the Prophet”) at the end of Shabbat?

(An analogous teaching says that if you are planting a tree when the Mashi’ach arrives, you should first finish the planting and only then welcome the Messiah.)

If Elijah has waited till Shabbat is out before making his appearance, we sing to make him feel welcome.

A Midrash tells us that on Saturday night Elijah enters the Garden of Eden, sits beneath a tree, and records the names of those who have kept Shabbat. We have been assured that if all Israel keeps Shabbat properly two weeks running, the Mashi’ach will come; by farewelling Shabbat with a song about Elijah, we articulate our hope that this will be the Saturday night when we will have brought about the redemption.

Fiddler on the Roof featured the catchy song, “If I Were a Rich Man”. We all sang along, because we all had dreams of being rich.

Affluence is still a widespread dream, but most of us will never achieve it.

Even in the Bible it seemed noteworthy that some people were richer than others, Abraham for instance. About him the Torah says, “And Abram was very rich in cattle, in silver and in gold” (Gen. 13:2).

But how does the text say “very rich” in Hebrew? Kaved m’od, literally “very heavy”.

Possibly this indicates the sheer bulk of his possessions, but it could also be understood metaphorically as telling us, “Abraham’s affluence weighed heavily upon him”.

The sages say in Pir’kei Avot, marbeh n’chasim marbeh da’agah, “The more possessions, the more worries” (Avot 2:7).

One type of rich person constantly obsesses about not losing his or her wealth, but this is probably not Abraham. His worry is that of the tzaddik, for whom money is a challenge and an opportunity… a challenge to use his means wisely, and an opportunity to benefit society as a whole.