Author: Ari Shvat

If animals can’t choose their fate the way humans can, why does the natural world involve so much of their suffering?

Q. Why is the animal world full of chaos, if they don’t have free will why do they have to suffer?

We obviously don’t understand G-d and why He created each detail the way that He did, but one thing is for sure: the Creation is many things but surely not chaotic! The exact ecological cycle is so precise and synchronized that its order is clear to all when we learned it in elementary school science. Like many things in life, if one just sees the small picture of the cat chasing the mouse, it looks chaotic, but a mature person knows to step back and see the whole picture where everything is davka in perfect order!

If a body was completely destroyed, how could the Revival of the Dead actually restore it?

Q. The 13th principle of faith of the Rambam is the dead will be brought back to life. How will the dead be brought back to life if those whose bodies were completely destroyed in a battle, fire or plane crash ?

The Revival of the Dead will obviously be miraculous and tradition teaches that even the sick, old or “destroyed” will also be healed. Tradition teaches that there is a bone called the “Luz” which always survives, and from that the dead will be revived (sounds something like cloning, but we’ll see how it will be done when the time comes, for it actually may be fulfilled via medical developments which are also G-dly revealed!).

The prohibition on wearing the other sex’s clothing uses terms that shift with culture – why leave it undefined?

Q. In sefer Devarim where it speaks about the prohibition of cross dressing the terms for male and female clothing are different and on top of that the terms used for the clothing is not gender specific.

The Torah is purposely ambiguous on this prohibition, because the definition of male and female dress differs from place to place and from time to time. Especially today in the western world, where there is a conscious and ideological statement involved, wishing to blur the gender differences, one should be especially careful regarding this prohibition, for it has direct and indirect influence on the already and unfortunately weakened family unit and clarity of identity, something very problematic for Jewish identity in the western world.

The monarchy is promised to the tribe of Yehuda – so why was Israel’s first king, Shaul, chosen from Binyamin?

Q. Why if the kingship is in Yehudah did Shmuel pick shaul?

The Ramban explains that in the very source that teaches the kingdom belongs to Judah, the wording is “The (ruler’s) staff shall not leave (!) Judah” (Breishit 49, 10), that once kingship comes to Yehudah it should not be taken away. On the other hand, Shaul was appointed by G-d Himself (through his prophet Shmuel, who was directed to anoint him), despite coming from the tribe of Benjamin, because the kingship is not “leaving” or being “taken away” from Judah, for David had not yet received it.

Continuing the question of animal suffering, and what Rav Kook’s writings on vegetarianism actually contribute to it.

Q. But why does the order have to be full of pain, I’m not talking about humans who have free will but animals who don’t have a destiny and can’t change their lives. why do they suffer even at a small level, you can answer that predators are lowering the population and that it’s in perfect order, is the answer to the problem is that we don’t know. I hope this doesn’t sound condescending.

Rav Kook deals at length with your questions, and you should study his “Vision of Vegetarianism” (part of which has recently been translated into English). Nevertheless, in short, he explains that just as the prophets suffered unpopularity, and even were sometimes assassinated as a direct outcome of their rebuking, so too, the Jewish people have paid a heavy price for our role as the “Nation of Prophets”, the “Conscience of Mankind” and the “Light to the Nations”. Similarly the rest of mankind and in fact all of creation is based upon the framework of Free Will for mankind, to choose between good and bad. Part of which is to hear rebuke, and see examples in life, in history and in the animal world as well, which educate man to differentiate between right/moral and wrong/evil when he sees it.

Clarifying where Judaism’s concept of the evil inclination actually diverges from the Christian idea of original sin.

Q. I engaged in a conversation with a Christian and wasn’t quite able to make a clear distinction between their notion of “original sin” and our notion of the two impulses. Our position is that man has two impulses the yetzer hara and the yetzer ha-tov. Man isn’t necessarily born evil, he simply has an inclination to do evil which can be tamed by performance of the mitzvot. He (the Christian) responded by claiming that it’s inconsistent because we Jews acknowledge that man is flawed by nature, but leave open the possibility that man can become “perfect” by our performance of the mitzvot, that the messiah we wait for will be a man claiming to be perfect and the Sanhedrin we establish will be led by “perfect” men. We both recognized that there are NO perfect men. I have to be honest, I didn’t know how to respond. How would the rabbinical literature respond to this.

Please excuse me, but there are several inaccuracies mentioned here. For reasons of clarification, we sometimes refer to 2 “different” drives, but in fact there is no drive which is inherently “bad”, and surely no “original sin”. Man has a G-dly soul which is inherently good! In fact, everything G-d created is good unless man, with his free will (which is also good), misuses it. Eating is a good drive, but if you over-do it, you turn it into a yetzer-ra, a negative inclination. Same thing with sleep, sexual attraction or really everything is good, unless one takes it out of its proper proportion. In other words, man is not flawed by nature, but we have Free Will to choose bad, if we sometimes wish. Nevertheless, as soon as we sincerely regret, apologize and resolve to improve, that is as perfect as man can get: the strive for perfection is as perfect as you and I, Moshe Rabbenu and the future messiah/Sanhedrin (and your friend!), can get. Only G-d is perfect, and messiah, who will be a man, will not be perfect and neither will the Sanhedrin who are mortal flesh and blood (what he mentioned to the contrary is a totally Christian and anti-Jewish idea, but it is true what you both agreed in the end that “there are NO perfect men”).

Is there a way to actually discover one’s unique purpose in this world, rather than risk missing it?

Q. Is there any way for us to know what a person’s individual purpose in the world is? Such a shame if I miss it. I really don’t want to have to come back again. Ty I am sorry for such a question, but i feel VERY disturbed.

Each person is here for several, even many, different purposes. Our sages teach us that when a person feels a natural affinity towards a certain ideal or mitzvah- that is surely part of your purpose in this world. Conversely, if there are particular mitzvot that one finds especially challenging, that’s also a sign that it’s part of your “tikun” (what you are here to fix). Common examples are: speaking good- not bad- about people, modesty in dress and action, making Aliya to Israel, which in our generation are especially “on the agenda” because of social media, pornography, birth-control, immodest fashions and being that finally, Jews can once again return to live in the Land of Israel. These are clearly among the challenges of each individual in our generation. They are mitzvot which were always difficult (and often transgressed) in the past as well, but today, in order to fix them, the stakes are greater, to either fall deeper than before, or to rise to unprecedented heights!

Is free will explicitly rooted in the Torah’s text, or could it be an illusion in some deeper theological sense?

Q. I was asked where in the Torah does it say that we have free will and if this free will is an illusion of free will (which does not mean that we should do bad)

All of the commandments of the Torah are based upon the fact that man has Free-Will to do or not to do them (BTW, Chazal refer to bechira and not bechira chofshit because there are many instances in life where one doesn’t have totally “free” will, e.g. his height, place of birth, family, people he will or will not meet, etc.). Without man’s will, there is no reward and punishment, so the tochechot of P. B’chukotai and Ki Tavo and the concept of Tshuva (Dvarim 30) would be irrelevant. If nevertheless, you’re looking for explicit psukim, see Dvarim 11, 26-28 and 30, 15-20.

How should a Jew relate to someone who murdered a fellow Jew purely out of religious hatred?

Q. To support this question I would like to know should we forgive a person who killed a Jew out of antisemitism (e.g. a Muslim terrorist) ? How should we treat this person in fact if it happens that we meet this person ?

We actually sing and praise G-d when He avenges our blood and punishes our enemies, as on Purim, Pesach, Chanuka, etc. Whenever we could (as above), we ourselves avenged our brothers’ blood, fighting the enemy as did all of the heroes of the Tanach, Avraham (when they kidnapped Lot), Moshe (slaying the Egyptian who beat the Jew), all of the Books of Judges, Samuel, and Kings Saul, David, in fact all of the kings did so (even Yael killed Sisera after the war was over, Judges 4). Only Achav is punished for having mercy on the enemy King Ben-Haddad at the end of the war (Kings I, ch. 20) and the prophet rebukes him, that G-d will do to you like you should have done to the enemy. Judaism does not “turn the other cheek” but fights evil and avenges wrong. We believe that it’s moral to fight evil, and thus save the underdog, society (Am Yisrael), and the evil themselves- by deterring them and showing the price they will pay, and that they are better off being nice, getting married and having a nice family!

How should one try to process a devastating tragedy that struck during a joyous Lag BaOmer celebration?

Q. How can we try to understand why the awful tragedy happened in Meiron last night? People just wanted to celebrate Lag baOmer there but came back in body bags! Why would such a thing happen?

We obviously don’t know the entire picture. But the Rambam (Guide for the Perplexed 3, 12) writes that most of the problems and bad in the world are done by people to each-other and to themselves, and it’s up to us also to prevent. Anyone who was ever in Meron on Lag BaOmer, knows that certain areas are more crowded than anything you will ever see in life! Accordingly, we (the Ministry of Religion, police, Hatzala, religious leadership, parents and the participants themselves!) should have foreseen this scenario, and made sure that less people are allowed to come together at the same time in the same place. I’m sure that the lessons will be learned and things will be done differently, but all we can do right now is cry and comfort each other, and help the killed, wounded and their families.