Why Did Hashem Let the Massacre Happen?

The terrible suffering of lo aleinu that there has been and to a degree continues to be inflicted upon acheinu bnei yisrael, the sakana which continues provides, it asks for reflection on so many different levels with so many different foci. The current zman and regal, תפסת מרובה לא תפסת, so we'll try be'ezrat hashem together to focus on one aspect. When I was first reading about what happened in eretz yisrael on shabbos, so I saw that some of the survivors were comparing it to the Holocaust. And in my first round of reading where basically all I saw were statistics, horrifying statistics, I didn't understand why they were drawing that comparison. With the second round of reading where it wasn't limited to statistics but there were already descriptions of how, of what was inflicted and how it was done, the unspeakable savagery, so I began to, I understood the comparison to the Holocaust. And in my third round of reading, I now think that the savagery displayed by the Amalek of תשפד, obviously not in terms of numbers and quantity, but in terms of the savagery, it actually exceeds many of the Holocaust accounts one reads. And the question which some of you very sincerely are asking, others perhaps are on the receiving end of the question, so we understand that the perpetrators are Amalek, that they chose to abuse their bechira chofshis to extinguish the humanity within themselves, to extinguish the tzelem elokim within themselves and transform themselves into monsters, so we understand that. The question is, how did hakadosh baruch hu allow that? So I'd like to not answer the question but provide perspective on the question. When this question known as the question of theodicy arises, it's crucial to first understand how thinking about this should be approached. And one can't, it's, it's wrong and will yield wrong results if a person begins with the question of how could this happen. The question one needs to begin with is: within, given our conception of Hakadosh Baruch Hu and the belief system which surrounds it, can we, should we expect to understand all darkei hahashgacha? Can we, should we expect that all darkei hahashgacha will be comprehensible to us? So משל למה הדבר דומה: imagine you have parents who will adopt the following policy: because they don't want their baby to ever be frustrated by their actions, they'll only do for the baby—the newborn, the neonate, the three-month-old, the six-month-old, the toddler—they'll only do for the baby what the baby can understand and appreciate. But if the baby won't be able to understand it or appreciate it, so then they won't do that for the baby. So the baby's not going to understand why the guy in the white coat is sticking him with needles at his periodic visits, so they won't give him any inoculations. So our reaction to that is that's not compassion; that's cruelty. That the parents limit themselves in their parenting in looking out to the welfare of their child, that they limit themselves to the infantile, literally infantile understanding of the baby, is child abuse. So how could it be, there can't be an expectation that we, with our puny, finite intellect, are going to understand the darkei Hashem? Hakadosh Baruch Hu is infinite, Hakadosh Baruch Hu is omniscient, and we're finite and have a puny intellect. So take the mashal and multiply it by a factor of infinity. So there clearly is no expectation that we can or will ever understand all darkei hahashgacha, because that would mean that Hakadosh Baruch Hu is exercising hashgacha in a way that's limited and constrained by our feeble understanding. Now, a little bit of an omek to this, a little bit of an omek to maybe deepen our understanding of this point. Again, let's begin with a mashal. Let's say you have someone who has some, I don't know, some disability rachmana litzlan, that he can only see the world in two dimensions. When he looks at a person, he sees a cutout, a paper cutout figure. He only sees the world in two dimensions. He sees, he experiences, and therefore if he wants to analyze, can only analyze the world in two dimensions. And others who are not limited by this disability, they see the world in three dimensions. So it's not only the case that the one who sees, experiences, and therefore analyzes the world in three dimensions, it's not only the case that that individual sees more, that individual sees a different reality. Right? It's not just a question of more, not just a question of kamus, and maybe even eichus. is understating it. It's entirely a different reality to see something in two dimensions or to see in three dimensions is not to see more of it. It's not even just to see qualitatively different. It's an entirely different reality. If one wanted to oversimplify the Rambam's teachings about Hakadosh Baruch Hu and there would be some tachlis in doing it as long as one was aware that one was oversimplifying, so one would reduce it to the following. We have a tendency to think of Hakadosh Baruch Hu as, I don't mean this facetiously, it's not the time for humor and it's not intended to be humorous. We think of Hakadosh Baruch Hu as a superman. What does that mean? We think of that well we're mortal and Hakadosh Baruch Hu's more, He's immortal. And we know so much and Hakadosh Baruch Hu is omniscient, He knows everything. But basically we think of Him in human categories but since He surpasses us so He's superhuman. And the Rambam says no, that's fundamentally wrong. Hakadosh Baruch Hu's existence is entirely different and sui generis and has nothing in common with our existence. אין אמיתתו כאמיתת אחד מהם. Everything about Hakadosh Baruch Hu is entirely different, entirely different from us. And in the same way the Rambam says that ein amittaso, the reality of Hakadosh Baruch Hu has got nothing in common with our reality, so too when we speak of Hakadosh Baruch Hu's yediyah it has nothing in common with our yediyah. And that's what Yeshayahu Hanavi means when he's speaking in the voice of Hakadosh Baruch Hu: כי לא מחשבותי מחשבותיכם. So when Hakadosh Baruch Hu sees the world, sees in quotation marks, כי לא מחשבותי מחשבותיכם, Hakadosh Baruch Hu sees a different reality. Again, משל למה הדבר דומה, obviously any mashal whenever talking about Hakadosh Baruch Hu by definition the mashal is inadequate but nonetheless helpful. משל למה הדבר דומה to the one person sees, experiences and analyzes the world in two dimensions. Another person sees, experiences and analyzes the world in three dimensions. So the answer to our first question of can we, should we expect to understand all darkei hashgacha? So the answer is obviously very compellingly no. Of course not. Of course not. That's min hanimna. Of course there have to be mysteries of the Divine providence. There have to be, yes, some parshiyot ptuchos in this sugya of hashgacha, but obviously there are going to be parshiyot stumos. It couldn't be otherwise. It's ludicrous to think that it would be otherwise. The other element of the perspective on the question, again, we're not looking to answer the question, we're looking to have a perspective on the question. Let's again begin with a mashal. Let's say you have an adult and he's looking back on his childhood and he's looking back on how his parents engaged in parenting. And the track record, the objective record is that his parents were wonderful parents. Always even in terms of his subjective experience, always nurturing, always doing what was best for him. Once when he was eleven years old they disciplined him very harshly. Neither then nor subsequently could he ever make sense of Acted that way. It doesn’t add up. It didn’t add up when he was eleven and experienced it. And even now when he’s twenty-one, thirty-one, forty-one and looking back with another perspective, it still doesn’t add up. So if he’s going to reflect on his parents and their parenting, so obviously he can’t have tunnel vision and hone in on that experience that Monday evening when he was eleven years old and draw inferences from that and draw conclusions from that and characterize how his parents parented without ignoring it, without denying it, but honesty requires if you want to have an accurate perception instead of tunnel vision, he needs a panoramic vision. He has to reflect on his entire childhood. When he does so, that episode remains a kashya. He still doesn’t understand it. Maybe he never will. But he knows davar hane’elam mimenu, he knows again in conjunction chozer ve’itstarfay in the nimshal with the first yesod that obviously there have to be things in hashgacha that we won’t understand. It has to be that way, it can’t be otherwise. But given what we do understand, that there is a pattern. There’s a pattern of our miraculous existence. There’s a pattern of חסדים על גבי חסדים על גבי חסדים. Whose life here hasn’t been changed by the brocha of being able to spend time in Medinas Yisrael? The reason he’s able to spend time in Eretz Yisrael is because there’s a Medinas Yisrael. So yes, there’s an indescribably excruciatingly painful episode which defies our understanding. We don’t understand it, we’re not going to understand it, but it doesn’t shake a person’s emunah because a person knows going in that he can’t, shouldn’t, that it’s absurd to think he’ll understand everything. And there is a broader context in which a person needs to think. That’s the basis for tzidduk hadin. That’s how a person when it’s literally applicable rachmana litzlan when a person has to make the brocha of dayan ha’emes. That’s the mindset which allows for it and that’s what we need to be aware of as we reflect upon the current matzav in Eretz Yisrael.