Parshas Vaera
Faith and Tsunamis
In this week's parsha we read of a mutual disappointment. God, so to speak
is disappointed in Moshe's reaction to the events at Pharaoh's palace.
Moshe
complains, "Since You sent me on this mission the situation has worsened
and
You have not saved Your people!" God, in a manner of speaking, is
disappointed with Moshe's complaint. He remembers, as you might say, the
loyalty of our Patriarchs - Avraham, Yitzchak and Yakov - who never doubted
or questioned the legitimacy of His promises and commitments. There is an
apparent standoff here - a crisis of confidence and faith. Even when the
Jews are finally redeemed from Egypt and receive the Torah at Sinai, Moshe
is still not satisfied with his relationship with the Lord. He asks again,
"Let me know Your ways." How do You run the world? Why the Holocaust? Why
the tidal waves? Why indeed? In this, Moshe echoes the challenge that our
father Avraham put forth to God - "Shall the Judge of the entire universe
not act justly?" Why can we not know Your reasoning and decipher Your code
for guiding this world? Where is Your fairness and balance? How is your
goodness seen to be manifested in our lives and world? Moshe is not alone
in
asking these questions. They are the subject of the entire biblical book of
Iyov. These questions are the ones that dominate all Jewish philosophy
throughout the ages. They are certainly the questions that haunt
post-Holocaust Jewry today.
God provides an answer to Moshe. The answer is that the finite cannot ever
understand the infinite - "living humans can never see Me!" Though this may
seem to be an unsatisfying response to the questions posed above, it is in
reality merely a restatement of the human condition. Humans are mortal and
God is eternal. As great as human intellect is, it is still essentially
limited. God is omniscient and omnipotent. Human beings are not. This is
the
answer that the Patriarchs arrived at on their own in achieving a sense of
their true relationship with God. Moshe persisted beyond the point where
the
Patriarchs retreated in submission to an unknowable God. But he too would
have to eventually withdraw from the fray. About Moshe it is written, "He
was just short of God Himself." But at the end of the day, Moshe remains a
human - the greatest of all humans, but nevertheless human. And the line
between humans and our Creator cannot be crossed. God's ways are awesome
and
frightening, comforting and endearing. But whatever we perceive them to be,
they are beyond our ability to fathom and explain. "For your thoughts are
not My thoughts and your ways are not My ways," as God tells the prophet
Yeshayahu. And so it is in this vein this that Jews have understood the
Godly relationship with all of humanity. The Talmud tells us that the
prophet Chavakuk summed up all of Judaism with one phrase: "And the
righteous shall live by faith." And so it is with us as well.
Shabat shalom.
Rabbi Berel Wein.
Text Copyright © 2005 by Rabbi Berel Wein and Torah.org
Visit www.rabbiwein.com for a complete selection of Rabbi Wein's books and tapes.
