Kol Dodi Dofek 1

We will read perhaps the opening paragraph here. Tzadik Vera Lo.

אחת החידות הסתומות שהיהדות נתחבטה בהן משחר קיומה היא עניין הסבל בעולם.

One of the enigmatic, cryptic riddles that Yahadus has struggled with from the dawn of its existence is that of suffering in the world.

אדון הנביאים כבר התחנן לאדון הכל בעת רצון בשעת נטיית חסד ורחמים כי יאיר את עיניו בהלכה עמומה זו. משה בן אדון הנביאים

already implored Hakadosh Baruch Hu that he should enlighten his eyes in this murky, in this dim, in this murky halacha.

דפק משה על שערי שמיים וזעק הודיעני נא את דרכיך ואדעך למען אמצא חן בעיניך הראני נא את כבודך. מדוע ולמה יבואו ייסורים על האדם? מדוע ולמה יסבול הצדיק ויצליח הרשע?

From that wonderful morning that Haroeh Hane'eman stood before Borei Ha'olam and asked for a comprehensive solution to the question of questions, the prophets and the sages of Israel have struggled with it over the generations.

חבקוק תבע עלבון הצדיק, ירמיהו, דוד בתהילתו וקהלת ישבו על מדוכה זו, ספר איוב כולו מוקדש לתמיהה זו, עתיקת ימים וטמונת סוד.

This ancient perplexity still hovers in our world and demands an explanation. למה נתן הקדוש ברוך הוא רשות לרע להשתלט ביצורו? In the footnote, the Rav cites that it's a machlokes Tannaim.

עיין ברכות ז עמוד א. כי רבי מאיר סבר שמשה לא נענה בבקשתו בנוגע להבנת עניין הסבל בעולם צדיק ורע לו רשע וטוב לו. רבי יוחנן משום רבי יוסי חולק עליו.

So it's a machlokes in Chazal whether or not even Moshe Rabbeinu was given to understand the phenomenon of צדיק ורע לו רשע וטוב לו. The Rambam in Moreh Nevuchim

נקט שיטתו של רבי יוחנן משום רבי יוסי שהקדוש ברוך הוא האיר את עיני משה בהנהגת המציאות כולה.

The Rambam accepts the view of R' Yosi that in fact Moshe Rabbeinu did, was given to understand this, this riddle, this enigma of צדיק ורע לו רשע וטוב לו. What is it that it seems natural enough, but the question is worth asking nonetheless? What is it that sort of motivates the question? What generates the question? Moshe Rabbeinu says הודיעני נא את דרכיך. It's not with any grievance, rachmana litzlan. That's usually the way we rachmana litzlan would ask the question, with a ta'ana, with a grievance. Moshe Rabbeinu, there's no grievance there. So what motivates the question? And especially to, I don't know if it's sharpening the question or asking the question a little differently, when we'll see בעזרת השם בלי נדר as the Rav continues, that really the human perspective can't, is not capable of understanding everything. So again, what generates the question? So the Rambam, in that same place that the Rav is metzayen, another example of the Rambam's extraordinary parshanus, הודיעני נא את דרכיך ואדעך למען אמצא חן בעיניך. There are two tremendous yesodos explained in this pasuk. Number one, that yedias Hashem is yedias darkei Hashem. That not only a person, a malach is not in a better position in this respect. No one, no being, no entity can grasp the essence of Hashem. Right, even if you think about the words that were used to describe Hakadosh Baruch Hu, so we say correctly that Hakadosh Baruch Hu is infinite. So infinite doesn't really say what He is, it just says what He isn't. Right, no mind can grasp עצמותו של הקדוש ברוך הוא. There's in many siddurim, there's a passage from the Zohar printed at the beginning of davening, and there's a famous phrase in that passage of לית מחשבה תפיסא ביה, that no thought can apprehend, can comprehend Hakadosh Baruch Hu. Aye, but there is a mitzvah that ahava is totally on yediyah, that לפי הדעת תהיה האהבה, but if da'as, if yediyah is impossible, so then how is ahava to be attained? So the answer is, the Rambam says that the yediyah of which we are capable is yedias darkei Hashem. How Hakadosh Baruch Hu acts in the world, how Hakadosh Baruch Hu governs the world, how He exercises His divine providence. Which then means that the desire, when Moshe Rabbeinu implores Hakadosh Baruch Hu that he should be able to understand all darkei Hashem, including all darkei Hashem, הודיעני נא את דרכיך, he wants to understand all darkei Hashem, including but not limited to צדיק ורע לו רשע וטוב לו, it's for the purpose of yedias Hashem and it stems from an ahavas Hashem and looking to deepen and intensify that ahava. So then that's where the question comes from. היהדות בחזותה לשון מחברת tonality bechol maftecheihem to assure of security ba’olam shasu’a umevutar, right, v’shissa oso b’shissa and the Kohen in Shmuel also, right, when he kills that guy he says that it's also lashon shissua to cut in half.

בעולם שסוע ומבותר על ידי ייסורי קיום ובבקשה מענה לחידת פואמה של הסבל השורר למראית עין שלטון בלי מצרים

in its search for an answer to this riddle of how suffering seemingly rules sovereign הגיע לידי ניסוח חדש והגדרה חדשה בנוגע לבעיה זו a new formulation, a new definition שיש בהם מן ההרחבה והעמקה גם יחד it's both broader and deeper. העמדת שאלת הסבל טוענת היהדות אפשרית בשני דימנסיות מפורדות you can pose the question in either of two dimensions goral v’yiud. I think it’s clear from what follows that by goral the Rav means fate and by yiud to mean destiny. היהדות הבחינה תמיד בין קיום גורלי לקיום ייעודי Yahadus always distinguished between an existence of fate and an existence of destiny בין האני יליד הגורל להאני בן הייעוד between a person, an I, who sees himself, who lives as one born to fate as opposed to one who sees himself and lives as one born to destiny. בהבחנה זו צפונה תורת הסבל שלנו within this distinction is hidden our Torah, meaning our approach to suffering. קיום גורלי כיצד זהו קיום מאונס under coercion

בבחינת על כורחך אתה חי קיום עובדתי שלוב בשרשרת חוקיות מכנית נטולת משמעות כיוון ותכלית ומשועבד לכוחות סביבה שלתוכם נדחף היחיד על ידי ההשגחה מבלי שנמלך בה קודם לכן

an existence of fate means when a person sees himself as just, he sees his existence as factual. He’s part of a causal chain reaction. He’s totally subordinate to the forces around him. דמות אובייקט להאני הגורלי he sees himself not as subject but as an object. כאובייקט הוא מופיע כעשוי ולא כעושה as an object he appears as one who's acted upon and not as a doer. Not someone who acts. Asuy hu, he's acted upon על ידי התנגשותו הסבילה, his passive encounter im hachutz ha'objektivi with the objective external world, all of which is a given, kachefetz le'umat chefetz as one object encountering another object. נכלא האני הגורלי בכף דינמיקה אטומה כשכולם מופנים לחוץ. Yeshuto nevuvah, his, his existence is hollow. נבובה תשאו על סלע. Ne'ederet pnimiyut, it's missing, ish lo ne'edar, it's missing internal life, atzmiyut, essence, and atzma'ut, independence. האני הגורלית מכחישה את עצמה הכחשה גמורה. By viewing oneself as born to fate, it's an act of self-denial. כי הרי אין האנוכיות והחפציות יכולות לדור בכפיפה אחת. Being an object and being an I are mutually exclusive. Al reka kaze, on this background, צפה ועולה חוויית הרע בכל מוראה. The experience of ra emerges in all its terrible force. שני שלבים לחוויה זו בישות הגורלית. There are two stages.

לכתחילה האדם אובייקט עשוי בשלשלאות של קיום בעל כורחו עומד נבוך ומבולבל בפני המסתורין הגדול ששמו סבל.

Hagoral mit'olel bo, fate plays with him, it teases him. חווייתו טרופה ושסועה מנגדת את עצמה ומכחישה ערכה וחשיבותה. His existence which is torn negates itself, denies its value. Magor hakilayon, the fear of death, תוקף עליו ומפרק את גופו, it, it breaks avodat perech

את גופו וגם את נשמתו. תועה הסובל בחללה של תבל.

He wanders around in the space שחיטת אלוהים פרושה עליה וחרון אף מתוח נגדה. He's angry, vekulo mofrad umurgaz. ייסורים משלהלים כל גוון בהיר ומופיעים ככוחות סטניים. Any clear color or shade is negated by the yissurim and they appear as satanic forces,

כתולדות התוהו ובוהו שמזהמים את כל היצור שנועד להשקיף גבורת היוצר.

As derivatives of the chaos, of the tohu vavohu which poison the whole creation. בשלב זה של מבוכה ואלימות, in this stage of confusion and muteness,

טמטום הלב ובלבול המוח. אין האדם שואל כלל עילת הרע ומהותו.

He doesn't even ask.

הוא סובל בדממה ונאנק ביגונו שהשתיק את התלונה וכבש את השאלה והחקירה. אחרי הזדעזעות הפסיבית של הסובל כתגובה ראשונה לסבל באה הסקרנות האינטלקטואלית החוטרת להבנת הקיום וחיזוק בטוחו וביטחונו של אדם.

The next stage comes intellectual curiosity which tunnels, which seeks to understand. בשלב זה מתחיל האדם להתבונן בסבל. It begins to reflect about suffering ulehakshot kushyot chamurot and to raise serious questions.

מתחקה הוא אחרי יסודותיהם השכליים של הסבל והרע ומשתדל למצוא את השלווה וההרמוניה בין החיוב והשלילה.

He's trying to understand what the foundations of evil and suffering are. suffering are. He's trying to reconcile ulehasir es chudah and the sharp point of the tension between the thesis, hatov, the antithesis, hara shebehavayah.

מתוך השאלה והקושיא הפתרון והתירוץ ובא לידי ניסוח מטפיסיקה של הרע של אדם מתפשר הוא עם אותו הרע ומנסה להתחקות עליו.

He arrived with this at a metaphysical formulation and with this he looks to make peace with ra and to cover it up, שמא יכפה על דעתו חס ושלום right, in Gittin. משתדל הסובל בכח ההפשטה השכלית שחונן בו מאת הבורא, the one who's suffering utilizes the the power of intellectual abstraction עד כדי אשליה עצמית to the point of self-deception, self-delusion, which is כפירה במציאות הרע בעולם. Ra doesn't really exist. So here the the Rav doesn't provide the marei mekomos for this in terms of you know this answer that he's critiquing, this answer that he's rejecting, this approach to ra which he says is entirely untenable. The problem is that the formulator he has in mind the the Rambam seems to say something very much along these lines and and the Rambam means something very very profound by it which it's inconceivable that the Rav is rejecting. The Rambam has as follows when he talks about evil. The Rambam taka says that this loshon that the Rav says that through abstraction one denies the existence of evil, so the Rambam says that the truth is that all evil is just the absence of something. There is no such thing as positive evil. So for instance, let's say rachmana litzlan, a person is blind, rachmana litzlan, a person is deaf. So we think of that as a positive evil. The Rambam says when you think about it really it's not true. What it means is that instead of this person being blessed with five senses the way other people are, so the person is blessed with four senses. So there isn't it's not that the evil is there, it just means that there's less that there's less. But it's a heeder, again that same from the word in Yeshayahu, ish lo ne'edar. It's a heeder rather than than something which is actually there. And and the Rambam and and the Rav seems to be saying that but that's just that's what it means with the koach of abstraction with the the faculty of abstract thought, so one is denying the existence of of evil. But that philosophical formulation doesn't really align with our experience. Ulechol hapachas the pshat is is kimedumeh as follows. The Rambam is saying something which is again goes without saying, which is tremendously profound. That line if you go back to footnote number one that the Rav quoted, אמנם אמרו כל טובי, right? Hakadosh Baruch Hu says to Moshe Rabbeinu in Parshas Ki Sisa, ואני אעביר כל טובי לפניך, right? I will make quote kol tuvecha pass before you. So what does that mean? So the Rambam says kol tuvecha means the entire briya. How does kol tuvecha mean the entire briya? Because the Rambam says, if you go back to Parshas Bereishis, in Ma'aseh Bereishis,

וירא אלהים כי טוב, וירא אלהים כי טוב, וירא אלהים כי טוב, וירא אלהים את כל אשר עשה והנה טוב מאד,

so the briya is tov. What does it mean that the briya is tov? It means that existence is a positive, existence is good. But when the Rambam says that rachmana litzlan, again, what we refer to, what we experience as evil, as suffering, is really just a heder, what the Rambam means is as follows. Without being conscious of it, we, most of us, live, not all of us, but most of us, the overwhelming majority, I think, live with a sense of entitlement. A sense of entitlement. We expect a certain baseline. We expect a certain baseline in terms of health. We expect a certain baseline financially. We expect a certain baseline professionally. We expect a certain baseline in terms of family. When our expectations are met, then things are good. If our expectations are surpassed, then things are gevaldig. And if our expectations are not met, then things are bad. But says the Rambam, that's really very audacious. The fact that a person is, rather than isn't, is tov. And by definition, a person is blessed. משל למה הדבר דומה. Let's say you have a family of several children and every year on their respective birthdays, they get a birthday card with a check enclosed from some benefactor. Vayehi hayom, so one year, all the children get a fifty thousand dollar check and one of them gets a forty thousand dollar check. What are you going to do? The one who gets the forty thousand dollar check is going to call his lawyer and he's going to sue? He's going to sue, how come they got fifty thousand dollar checks which seems to me that it's worth more and seems to me that it's more valuable, I only got a forty thousand dollar check? Everything is a gift. Everything is tov, everything is a gift. A person can't have tainas because my anonymous benefactor should have given me a hundred thousand dollar check for my birthday, not just a fifty or forty thousand dollar check. So that's something very profound. It's certainly not what the Rav is dismissing very sharply by describing it as ashlayah atzmit. It's a very, very profound vort. Something to live by, something to try to be aware of, to what extent we live with this really audacious sense of entitlement. Presumably, what the Rav means is that at the end of the day, as true. As what the Rambam says is, it doesn't align with human experience. Of course it's true. But at a certain point, the suffering that we see in the world or the evil that we see in the world, the most recent horrific terrorist attack in Eretz Yisrael. At the end of the day, on the human level, we do experience that as evil. And therefore it can't be that the extent of the approach that Yahadut provides is this formulation of, you know, it's really just something that's it's less. It's not evil, it's just less tov. But that doesn't align with our experience and halacha is oriented towards our experience. So Rachmana litzlan when a person is niftar so we make a bracha of dayan emet. That's what was supposed to be. If the person was niftar, that's what was supposed to be. So what are we crying for? What are we crying for? Why is it that the shlosha yamim livchi? And why is it that כל מי שאינו בוכה על מתו הרי זה אכזרי? Because the answer is that what is true and even what we know is true מצד הקדוש ברוך הוא, there's a gap between that and what we experience. כל מאי דעביד רחמנא לטב עביד. And yet, we speak of ra and tov. חייב אדם לברך על הרעה כשם שמברך על הטובה. So the answer is that that gap exists. And given that that gap exists, so the Torah guides us and instructs us on our level and it doesn't expect us to deny or to a lesser degree disregard the human reality. And yitachen that it's on that level that the Rav is sort of pushing back against what he describes as the philosophical approach to ra. היהדות עם גישתה הריאליסטית. Oh, oops. Wait. Okay. Okay, we'll stop here for today. I'll pick up tomorrow. Okay, so we'll continue 1:30. I'm not sure how long shiur will be at 1:30, but we'll see.