Home Home / For Face of God Book (1994)

Note

August 4, 1994

For Face of God Book (1994)

Hidden Face of God
View The Text

This content is currently available in its original PDF format. As we expand the library, we plan to add a text version as well.

RELATED CONTENT

Note

For Face of God Article (2003)

"בקשו מלאה"ש לומר שירה, אמר הקב"ה: מעשי ידי טובעין בים ואתם אומרים שירה?" למלאה״ש לא ניתנה רשות לומר שירה, אבל בנ"י כן הריעו ב"אז ישיר", ולמה? מפני שבנ״י נשאו על שכמם סבל וענות משך תקופה של 210 שנים, הרי שמגיעה להם גם שמחת הניצחון...
Hidden Face of God

Note

For Face of God Revision (1994)

What is the paytan trying to tell us? We know, of course, of the anachronisms of the piece. The framework about the tyrant and his daughter is also probably a convenient literary fiction. But what's his point? I believe that a careful reading will yield the message: the martyrdom of these giants – and by extension any suffering – is not to be simplistically interpreted as punishment for any specific or even general sin. גזירה היא מלפני as the Divine response is sufficient evidence that the suffering is decreed by God for His own reasons though they seem quite arbitrary to humans, even such spiritual giants as R. Ishmael.Moreover, the only one to mention the theme of suffering as punishment is—the tyrant, who declares his sadism as punishment for the Jews in place of their ancestors who sinned by selling Joseph into slavery! (Indeed, this may even have been a disguised polemic against Christianity which held that we are guilty of deicide, etc.)
Hidden Face of God

Speech

The Face of God: Thoughts on the Holocaust (1986)

1. In my attempt to formulate a Jewish approach to the Holocaust, it should not be expected that I will venture an answer to the ancient question of צדיק ורע לו (“the righteous whom evil befalls”), the vexing problem of the suffering of the innocent and the prosperity of the wicked, one that puzzled such Biblical giants as Samuel, David, and Jeremiah. The problem of theodicy—“justifying” the ways of God to man, offering rational explanations for the ethical and philosophical dilemmas presented by the disjointedness and inappositeness of conduct and circumstance, the quality of one’s moral life and his fortune or misfortune—has a long and honorable history. But there is no one theodicy in Judaism. From Job to the Sages of the Talmud, from Maimonides to Luria to the Besht, there is only one constant, and that is the question of צדיק ורע לו, the righteous who is afflicted with evil. The number of answers varies with the number of interpreters. No one approach has official, authoritative, dogmatic sanction in Judaism, although each has something of value to contribute. And the question remains the Question of Questions for Judaism, as it does for every thinking, believing human being. How, then, shall we approach the problem? Let us begin by dividing it into two parts: first, the universal problem of suffering, the cry of צדיק ורע לו, why should the innocent suffer, intensified in the Holocaust by its unprecedented magnitude and cruelty. In kind, the Holocaust mystery is a continuation of the ancient question of evil and suffering—more urgent perhaps, but essentially the same. The second part is not universal-metaphysical but national-theological. The Holocaust is not only a human challenge to God’s justice and goodness, but a Jewish challenge to His faithfulness and promise. The absolute novelty of the Holocaust lies in its threat to the continuity of the Jewish people as such. It not only outrages man’s ethical sensibilities, but it throws into disarray most of our n…
Hidden Face of God