Katrina nonsense
I barely know where to begin on this one. Over 1,000 people died, many more suffered, and there are self-satisfied frum people cheering that it is Divine punishment for the hitnatkut, and waiting to see how high the body count will go? What kind of nonsense is this, really?
When people point "punishment" fingers, I constantly refer back to Avraham's defense of S'dom and Amora (B'reishit 18:23ff.) Avraham jumps right in and tells Hashem He can't destroy the righteous with the wicked! And God agrees!
There are other examples, too. In the rebellion of Korach, before the earth swallows Datan and Aviram and their followers, Hashem tells Moshe to give people who don't want to participate in the evil a chance to get away, and he does (Bamidbar 16:23-26.) And when Shaul HaMelech goes to destroy Amalek, he gives the Keinites the chance to leave before he attacks (Shmuel I, 15:6.)
There are times it seems the good are swept up with the bad, just as we face the problem of Tzadik V'ra Lo. But the the basic pattern is that in a direct punishment of evil people, good people should not suffer.
But this is not even what happened here! How were ANY of the people of New Orleans involved in the Hitnatkut that they should be punished? I'm willing to bet that most of the poor people who suffered worst were Democrats, and despite the fact that some frum people hate all Dems, it was Conservative Republicans named Dubya and Condaleeza who pushed Sharon into the hitnatkut. How did they suffer? In fact, since Bush is an oilman, when you look at the price of oil how can you say he suffered at all? True, his ratings are down; but he is in his last term anyway, and plenty of other things he has done are contributing even more to his ratings drop.
So why are the people of New Orleans being punished? Because they are black? That opinion is beneath contempt. Because they are homosexuals? I've dealt with that already, and as someone pointed out in another blog, in that case San Francisco should have been hit. Because of the licentiousness of Mardi Gras? In that case, Rio should have been hit. Because, as one person said, they don't know Torah? They're not Jewish! And where are the Sh'lichim being sent to teach them at least the B'nei Noach? If it's that important and it's not being done, Torah centers are to blame and should be hit.
According to one report I heard, as many as 12,000 Jews were affected by the devastation of Katrina. Are they being punished, too? Maybe because they didn't make Aliya. Or maybe analysis will reveal that they are all eirev rav (today's favorite excuse for hating our fellow Jews), not "real" Jews, and deserve whatever they get. Or maybe because they chose to live so near a center of evil like New Orleans (of course Lot did the same thing, and he was rescued twice, once by Avraham and once by God.) In other words, there is no logical reason to say they were punished.
The fact that the earth is bursting to the seams with people means that the normal course of physical changes to the Earth, driven by the physical rules with which Hashem created it, will cause more catastrophes than in previous ages. The strong possibity that mankind is stirring up the atmosphere with global warming makes it even worse and makes it, at least in part, a self-inflicted punishment.
There is nothing wrong with looking for reasons that things like this happen; Rav Shlomo Riskin spoke about the tsunami in his pre-Pesach shiur in Yerushalaim. He quoted a Gemara (sorry, I don't have the source) that spoke of tsunamis as caused by God's tears over the suffering of His people. NOT as punishment, and not to say that our suffering will stop just because He is crying; like any good parent, the punishment may hurt the parent more than the child, but it still has to be done.
When we look for reasons, it should be within that positive moral context: we should try to derive from it more of what Hashem requires of us in the world and how to fix it, not rejoice at the suffering of others.
When people point "punishment" fingers, I constantly refer back to Avraham's defense of S'dom and Amora (B'reishit 18:23ff.) Avraham jumps right in and tells Hashem He can't destroy the righteous with the wicked! And God agrees!
There are other examples, too. In the rebellion of Korach, before the earth swallows Datan and Aviram and their followers, Hashem tells Moshe to give people who don't want to participate in the evil a chance to get away, and he does (Bamidbar 16:23-26.) And when Shaul HaMelech goes to destroy Amalek, he gives the Keinites the chance to leave before he attacks (Shmuel I, 15:6.)
There are times it seems the good are swept up with the bad, just as we face the problem of Tzadik V'ra Lo. But the the basic pattern is that in a direct punishment of evil people, good people should not suffer.
But this is not even what happened here! How were ANY of the people of New Orleans involved in the Hitnatkut that they should be punished? I'm willing to bet that most of the poor people who suffered worst were Democrats, and despite the fact that some frum people hate all Dems, it was Conservative Republicans named Dubya and Condaleeza who pushed Sharon into the hitnatkut. How did they suffer? In fact, since Bush is an oilman, when you look at the price of oil how can you say he suffered at all? True, his ratings are down; but he is in his last term anyway, and plenty of other things he has done are contributing even more to his ratings drop.
So why are the people of New Orleans being punished? Because they are black? That opinion is beneath contempt. Because they are homosexuals? I've dealt with that already, and as someone pointed out in another blog, in that case San Francisco should have been hit. Because of the licentiousness of Mardi Gras? In that case, Rio should have been hit. Because, as one person said, they don't know Torah? They're not Jewish! And where are the Sh'lichim being sent to teach them at least the B'nei Noach? If it's that important and it's not being done, Torah centers are to blame and should be hit.
According to one report I heard, as many as 12,000 Jews were affected by the devastation of Katrina. Are they being punished, too? Maybe because they didn't make Aliya. Or maybe analysis will reveal that they are all eirev rav (today's favorite excuse for hating our fellow Jews), not "real" Jews, and deserve whatever they get. Or maybe because they chose to live so near a center of evil like New Orleans (of course Lot did the same thing, and he was rescued twice, once by Avraham and once by God.) In other words, there is no logical reason to say they were punished.
The fact that the earth is bursting to the seams with people means that the normal course of physical changes to the Earth, driven by the physical rules with which Hashem created it, will cause more catastrophes than in previous ages. The strong possibity that mankind is stirring up the atmosphere with global warming makes it even worse and makes it, at least in part, a self-inflicted punishment.
There is nothing wrong with looking for reasons that things like this happen; Rav Shlomo Riskin spoke about the tsunami in his pre-Pesach shiur in Yerushalaim. He quoted a Gemara (sorry, I don't have the source) that spoke of tsunamis as caused by God's tears over the suffering of His people. NOT as punishment, and not to say that our suffering will stop just because He is crying; like any good parent, the punishment may hurt the parent more than the child, but it still has to be done.
When we look for reasons, it should be within that positive moral context: we should try to derive from it more of what Hashem requires of us in the world and how to fix it, not rejoice at the suffering of others.
posted by meturgeman | 8:15 PM
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