Rabbi Michael Leo Samuel

In Late Antiquity the Greek cynic and philosopher Epicurus fleshes out the cognitive dissonance people experience when contemplating the problem of theodicy:

1. Is God unable to prevent evil?

2. Is God unwilling to prevent evil?

3. If God is able and willing to prevent evil, then where does evil come from?

4. If God is neither able nor willing to prevent evil, then why do we call him “god”?

If God micromanages creation, as the Flood narrative seems to teaches, then why does the Creator tolerate natural evil? More to the point: Is all natural evil directly or indirectly due to moral evil? When the Lisbon earthquake struck in 1759, many skeptics wondered how God could allow such a devastating disaster to strike. From the modern critical perspective, the story of the Flood raises serious issues regarding the relationship between natural evil, commonly referred to as “acts of God,” and God’s justice. In the case of moral evil, the impact felt by the victim is identifiable and with the help of the law, the perpetrator(s) can be brought to justice. But natural evil poses a different kind of problem. One cannot subpoena an earthquake or a fire, or a disease after they strike. When natural evil strikes, the effects leave for the most part, little positive benefits with nobody to blame—except God.

After the Lisbon earthquake, the French philosopher Voltaire articulated his own brand of Epicurean doubt. Voltaire wondered how religious people could still refer to God as “benevolent” or “loving” after the death of so many thousands of innocents. In response to Voltaire’s criticism, his fellow Frenchman, Jean Jacques Rousseau argued that human beings must take the primary responsibility for what happened during the Lisbon earthquake. Poorly designed structural buildings, along with a lack of thoughtful urban planning and human error, played a role in the corporate damage the earthquake caused. A superiorly designed city might have suffered much less casualties and death. [1]

It is remarkable and ironic that Voltaire would put greater reliance on God given his penchant for upsetting the local ecclesiastical authorizes on matters of faith. It is no less ironic to see one of the great secular philosophers of his age, Rousseau, defend God’s order of creation with the vim and vigor of a skilled theologian. “If,” as the philosopher Susan Neiman writes, “Enlightenment is the courage to think for oneself; it is also the courage to assume responsibility for the world which one is thrown into.”[2] This message applies to all the genocides that we have witnessed in the last 100 years or more. Mature faith calls for diligence and activism.

Rousseau and Voltaire’s debate could apply no less to the destruction of New Orleans produced by Hurricane Katrina. Voltaire would certainly condemn the faith of those who believed in a benevolent deity. By the same token, Voltaire would have also scoffed at the religious leaders of today who saw Katrina as a divine tribulation for the city’s brazen sins. Religious leaders from numerous faiths ascribed a variety of reasons as to why Hurricane Katrina was so devastating. Some leaders blamed the licentious life-style of New Orleans[3], while others claimed it was divine retribution for the United States’ support of the removal of Jewish settlers in the Gaza Strip.[4] Buddhist and Hindu scholars blamed it on karma, while Muslim across the globe imams proclaimed in unison, “The Terrorist Katrina is one of the Soldiers of Allah…”[5]

One can only respond with the famous words of Thomas Hobbes, who popularized this ancient Roman proverb, Homo homini lupus—“man is wolf to man.”

Evidently, according to these religious men, God never left the Flood Business. But on a more serious note, Katrina illustrates how the various bodies of government (e.g., the City of New Orleans, the State of Louisiana, the Federal Government, FEMA, the Mayor, the Governor, the President, the local residents, and so on) failed to make maximum use of the resources available. Local officials knew in advanced that this type of storm was possible and that the levees could break. Why was nothing done about it? Why were the monies allocated for rebuilding the levees not utilized decades after they were collected from the government? Why was there no effective evacuation plan? Why did it take so long for the relief agencies to respond? How the local inhabitants compound the problem with their disregard for the law. Although the weather was fierce, the onus of Katrina’s damage did not come from the weather but from the systemic breakdown of government.

The Lisbon earthquake and Hurricane Katrina represents only one kind of theological dilemma involving theodicy. On December 26, 2004, an undersea earthquake measuring 9.3 100 miles off the western coast of Sumatra, Indonesia produced the second largest earthquake in recorded history and generated massive tsunamis. Over 230,000 people lost their lives in just a matter of hours. Given the destructive force of the tsunamis, would Rousseau agree with Voltaire, and hold God responsible for the tsunamis?

Not necessarily.

One could logically argue that given the technology, wealth, and information we possess of weather patterns and seismic conditions, nations can now take steps to help minimize natural catastrophes. Tectonic plates will continue to shift; magma from volcanoes will continue to explode with fiery force; the wind will continue to generate hurricanes and tornadoes (which incidentally, were also detected on the planet Saturn—a place far removed from human habitation).

Natural law will not change; yet, when these disasters occur, people of good faith can bring tikkun (repair) through a tsunami of compassion. When God enjoined Adam to, “Fill the earth and subdue it!” (Gen. 1:28), the biblical narrator may have had this type of thought in mind. “Conquering the earth” may very well involve fixing nature’s many imperfections. A mature faith in God requires that we be responsive to the various mishaps and flaws of creation through a covenantal co-relationship with the Divine.

Among the medieval theologians, Aquinas argued that all types of natural disaster derive from the fact that they are earthly phenomena, which are by their very constitution prone to corruption and dissolution.[6] A physical world based on the laws of physics, has no choice but to be subject to the reverberating fluctuations of imperfection. Only in the truly spiritual realm are entities believed to be bereft of deficiency. Thomistic theology asserts that had Adam refrained from sinning, his physical constitution would have been completely subservient to the soul’s spiritual life-force (a point which Augustine and Ramban both agree). Natural evil would exist, but it would not have any effect upon him; Adam and his progeny would have remained spiritual supermen, completely unaffected by aberrant changes in the environment. The human capacity to exercise ethical judgment would remain unimpaired, due to the soul’s complete harmony with the body, which God ensures. However, in a “fallen world,” humankind must come to terms with the world’s state of disrepair.

This writer takes sharp issue with Aquinas’ view that the world is “fallen,” but would agree that we have to come to terms with the world’s state of disrepair.” Maimonides stresses time and time again that natural law will operate on this planet whether man exists or not. Much of our problem with the natural evil that occurs in this world is due to a mistaken belief that is human-centric. As human beings, because of our higher intelligence we get disturbed at the great loss of life that occurs whenever a hurricane or a tsunami strikes. Animals do not obsess over the question: Why do bad things happen to good lions or tigers? Nature seems to accept the inherent randomness of the universe. We suffer perhaps because we tend to think our technology can save us; while that is certainly true some of the time, it is not true all the time.

In Genesis 1:31, the biblical narrator tells us, “God saw everything that he had made and indeed, it was very good.” Some subtleties get lost in translation, and this verse illustrates this point well. Every aspect of Creation, from the most majestic galaxies to the most infinitesimal particle, functions as God intended it to.[7] In my Genesis commentary on this verse I wrote:

• Although the term “good” טוֹב (tôb) appears six times earlier [8] in the creation narrative, here it appears for the seventh time to symbolize completeness. The peshat reveals that it is only after God has created humankind—after His image and likeness—that Creation graduates from being merely “good” to becoming “very good.” Some Jewish mystics observed that the letters of the word מְאֹד (mĕ’ōd = “very”) may also be read as an anagram for אָדָם (‘ādām = “human being”).^[9]

In a Talmud class I had just given last night, I was privileged to hear a most wonderful insight from a young 17 year old student named Austin, who has a promising career as a future zoologist. He pointed out that pine cones have a very unusual way of releasing its seeds. Pine cones remain tightly closed until the cones are heated at an extremely hot temperature, as in the case of a forest fire. At the death of the parent pine cone, the seeds are then released, which produce future pine trees. The story about the pine cones illustrates that in the face of a natural catastrophic event, like when a lightning bolt strikes a dry patch producing a raging forest fire; something can arise from the ashes of death itself-even when we least expect it.

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• Once a simple supernal light irradiated all existence. . . . There was no emptiness of space—only the light of the Infinite One. . . . As the Infinite One desired to create worlds and emanations, the Infinite One focused upon the central point of the light, removing the light from all sides as it were. As an empty space emerged, a complete vacuum appeared. . . . Now, this withdrawal (tsimtsum) was equal all around that central, empty point, in such a manner that that empty space formed a circle which was totally equidistant all around. It was not in the form of a square, with right angles, for the Infinite One withdrew Itself in the form of a circle, equidistant on all sides . . .
  

—R. HAYYIM VITAL, Etz Hayyim (The Tree of Life)

To paraphrase the well-known saying of St. Irenaeus, the religio peremis is fundamentally this: the Real entered into the illusory so the illusory might be able to return unto the Real. It is this mystery, together with metaphysical discernment and contemplative concentration that are its complement, which alone is important in an absolute sense from the point of view of gnosis: for the gnostic—in the etymological and rightful sense of the word—there is in the final analysis no other “religion.” It is what Ibn Arabi called “the religion of love”, placing the accent on the element of “realization.”

• SEYYED HOSSEIN, FRITJOF SCHUON, The Essential Frithjof Schuon

Theologians and philosophers have long wondered how God created a world that possesses a separate sense of self—one that seems apart from God. The renowned 16^th century Kabbalist, Isaac Luria, explains that in order for a world to exist—both finite and self-conscious of its own being—God has to “diminish” the light of His own infinite Being, by “withdrawing”, as it were, “to the periphery.” Luria metaphorically describes this creative process as צמצם “tsimtsum” – a word that means “contraction” or “constriction.” Luria’s tsimtsum, to a large degree, is based on the rabbinic notion of the Shekhinah. Historically, Luria’s myth of the tsimtsum is not without its antecedents. One recent study traces the origin of the tsimtsum to certain Gnostic traditions (of the Valentinian variety), which seeped their influence into the Zohar. The notion of “God withdrawing into Himself” prior to emanation, derives from the 2^nd century Christian Gnostic thinker, Basilides of Alexandria, who established a Gnostic sect known as the Basilideans.[1]

According to one 5^th century Midrashic text, the notion of God’s Presence is said to have been contained (מצמצם שם שכינתו) within the parameters of the Ark of the Covenant (15:10).[2] Other rabbinic teachings of the Midrash and Talmud regarding a concept of tsimtsum include: “Since the day that the Temple was destroyed, the Blessed Holy One, has nothing in this world but the four cubits of Halacha [Jewish Law] alone” (BT Berakhot 8a). [3] The renowned historian of Kabbalah, Gershom G. Scholem, differentiates between the earlier rabbinic models of the tsimtsum from the concept that he championed:

The Midrash—in sayings originating from third-century teachers—occasionally refers to God as having concentrated His Shekhinah, His divine presence, in the Holiest of Holies, at the place of the Cherubim, as though His whole power were concentrated and contracted in a single point. Here we have the origin of the term Tzimztum, while the thing itself is the precise opposite of this idea: To the Kabbalist of Luria’s school, Tsimtsum does not mean the concentration of God at a point, but his retreat away from a point. [4] What does this mean? It means briefly that the existence of the universe is made possible by a process of shrinkage in God. . . . Something of the Divine Being is exiled out of Himself, whereas the Tsimtsum could come to be considered as an exile into Himself.[5]

Most Kabbalists point out that the concept of צמצם is only meant metaphorically since space (and time) has no ontology prior to Creation.[6] Had the Infinite God not restricted His light, then everything would be overwhelmed by God’s totality. Yet conversely, the tsimtsum does not represent a complete withdrawal of God—only a partial one. Were the tsimtsum a total withdrawal, creation as we presently know it, would never have even an inkling of anything pertaining to Divinity and our sense of cosmic unity would be totally undifferentiated, i.e., without any sense of separate identity. More to the point, for human beings to have the freedom to become self-aware of their nature and origin of being, God must accommodate human freedom by withdrawing a part of His infinite power. God “contracts” some of His infinite essence in order to create the ontological space for a finite universe and world to exist.

The withdrawal of the Divine is not altogether complete, and may be analogous to a type of spiritual “black hole” where the divine energy is kept in check. Some Kabbalists compare this progression to the residual fragrance that is left in a perfume bottle after its contents has been emptied. More importantly, there is a second aspect of the tsimtsum that is equally as important to the initial withdrawal of God—to Himself, so to speak: the reintroduction of the Divine light into the ontological void that reveals God as the Creator within the primordial space of this new emergent creation. As the celestial light of the Ein Sof (the Endless One) flows and contracts, and flows and contracts, it gradually brings order into the chaotic space until each dimension of Creation becomes increasingly more tangible and limited. Thus, new levels of phenomenal reality are created, finally producing this material universe with all of its diverse expressions.[7] There is a mystical verse in the Psalms that captures this imagery—the notion that God creates the universe by wrapping Himself in a garment of light (Psa. 104:2).[8] (See notes on Genesis 1:3).

In analogical terms, almost any kind of creative human activity requires a “clearing” of mental “space” so that the power of the imagination will reveal new creative thoughts and concepts. As the power of conceptualization unfolds, the nascent concept may seem like a thin beam of light entering into the conscious mind. Once this light appears, the intellect will expand upon the concept and eventually seek to manifest itself into an inspired product of creativity or a new idea—this process ought to be especially familiar to anyone who has ever attempted to write a book! Some Jewish mystics say that the process of tsimtsum can be recognized whenever a conscientious teacher clears his or her mind and distills a sophisticated thought so that even a young child may comprehend its new wisdom. Continue Reading

What is a text? The question sounds simple enough; the answer, however, is philosophically and hermeneutically complex.

According to French philosopher and theologian Paul Ricoeur, a text is any kind of discourse that is fixed to writing, but its origins are frequently oral in nature, as in the art of storytelling and myth. Ricoeur explains, “Fixation by writing takes the very place of speech, occurring at the site where speech could have emerged.”[1] The text however, is not a static entity that is hermeneutically fixed or reified—texts invite encounter, discovery, dialogue, and interaction. In most instances, the reader cannot question what the author had in mind when penning his words and neither can the writer respond to the queries of the reader.

Ricoeur terms this formation as a “double eclipse”[2] for in a sense, both writer and reader escape the notice of the Other; this absence of presence also creates an interpretive tension between reader and text. On one level, a text presents a trace of the writer’s imagination and experience of the world. Once this experience is transcribed, the writer loses complete control of how his work will be interpreted, as Ricoeur and M. Bakhtin so note.[3] Left to its own, the written word remains in a dormant state until a reader enlivens the text’s capacity to challenge and transform his personal worldview. Each instance of engaging the text becomes an event where the minds of the past and present meld together and become one.

The etymological meaning of “text” bears this point out. The English word “text” comes from the Latin textus “woven material,” which in turn derives from the root texere “to weave.” It is still fairly common to speak about “spinning a tale” or “spinning a yarn,” or “weaving a tale,”[4] or “weaving a theme.”[5] While a text may be described as a “literary composition,” when it comes to its readers and interpreters it ought to be viewed perhaps more accurately as a “literary tapestry.”

The imagery of a literary tapestry is intriguing with respect to the Torah since each generation’s interpretations and commentaries continue to add new strands of thought that keep the text pertinent and contemporaneous. As a divine tapestry, Jewish tradition has always understood that each new generation re-weaves the sacred tradition, and in doing so, contributes toward its beauty and deeper understanding. The threads of interpretation may be different in their texture, quality, and color; nevertheless, each strand of interpretive insight adds, enhances, and preserves the ancestral tradition for future generations. Theologian R. David R. Blumenthal also touches on the theme of text as a woven fabric that continues to be rewoven by each new generation:

• The text is a fabric, woven (Latin texere/textus) from many threads. One thread is the received text—signs scratched, erased, and re-inscribed in eternity by many hands. One thread is the tradition— many conflicting voices echoing in the same eternity. One thread is the interpreter—gathering in, com-prehending, the threads into one fabric; but differently at different times. And one thread is the reader—calling and called to. All text-fabrics are created from other text—fabrics. Every reading is a gathering-in of older threads into a new tissue; an interweaving of the particular life of the reader with the tissue of the tradition. The text-fabric is never finished.[6] (Emphasis added.)

Briefly defined, the process of making an intelligible analysis of a given text is what scholars commonly refer to as “hermeneutics,” a word deriving from the Greek ἑρμηνεύω (hermēneuō) to “interpret,” or “translate.” This method aims to make intelligible one’s own thoughts or the thoughts of others, whether oral or written.[7] Hermeneutics is the critical reflection of the interpretive process, especially with respect to biblical texts, with a goal to understanding its deeper meaning. Aside from ascertaining the straightforward meaning of the text, the study of hermeneutics is also concerned with the various influences that impact a reader’s subjectivity and interpretation, such as beliefs, personal history, traditions, and so on (see Excursus 1). Continue Reading