Parshah Musings
And Yet I Believe

"G-d, didn't you promise that if we have faith things would get better, not worse? How can you justify all the pain and destruction you've visited on the world? Why are you punishing us so?"

Paraphrased, this was Moses' complaint to G-d at the end of this week's Torah reading.1 G-d had sent Moses as a messenger to spread the glad tidings of the approaching redemption. Instead of the situation improving, rather than the salvation eventuating, the pains and suffering of slavery had increased. Pharaoh had grown resentful of the longings for emancipation that had swept through the nation and responded by intensifying the discipline.

Was Moses expressing a lack of faith with his complaint? Was the leader of the Jews rejecting his G-d for behaving so capriciously? G-d forbid. While Moses refused to accept the evil he was witnessing and complained vociferously to G-d, this did not affect his innate belief in G-d, nor his absolute confidence that all G-d's actions are for the ultimate good.

Intellectually, no one has the right to rationalise away the suffering of others. If anyone ever seeks to justify the presence of evil on this world, to extend an explanation for the Holocaust, terrorism or natural disasters, get away from that poseur as quickly as you can. Emotionally however, this desperate demand for revealed Divine justice does not preclude one believing in Him, because, despite, and independent of His actions.

Never accept or make peace with the tidal waves of evil which wash over our worlds from time to time. But never let them bring you to reject our G-d who, for reasons best known to Himself, caused them.