IYOV 4

Previously on IYOV: Bildad just explained to IYOV that for g-d to let “fate” or “nature” or whatever he is calling it do harm to people this would make g-d evil, and IYOV is probably being pained for his own good like a rose being replanted.

So this is how IYOV argues back, when g-d made the world (last week) he made it so that everything physical in this world naturally deteriorates, nothing lasts forever and everything ages, he did this for some very good reasons like maintaining bechira and stuff like that but that is how he designed nature. So if in a few years time, all the stars in the universe run out of hydrogen forming millions of black holes, red dwarves and fat monkey, leading to the destruction and implosion of the entire universe (thus creating the ultimate philosophical question if the whole universe explodes and no one was there to hear it would it make a sound, yes it would sound like this cabbbooooghghgmm!) would anyone call that evil on g-d’s part, well not really that’s just the nature he put into the world that nothing lasts forever. So it if by the same principle a earthquake hits a mountain killing thousands is that evil on g-d’s part or is it nature, and even more so if one guy (miniscule in perspective to the universe) was given many pains not from the hand of g-d but just because that’s the way nature works that wouldn’t make g-d evil. As you can see IYOV is struggling with two contradictions as I said earlier. He is being punished and g-d can’t be evil.

Now IYOV answers Bildad’d idea of how a tzadik can be hurt for his own good, he shows there are five possibilities for this and none of them fit IYOV (a lot of this logic has questions one could ask, some given in the book I have but IYOV’s logic still has validity)

1) The suffering was needed for a good outcome, which will give the tzadik a reward – this is like working hard in a field and you get pain but the end of the year you get food, but IYOV’s suffering was not natural and could have no natural connection to reward.

2) The reward is given for the suffering and is directly proportionate to it – if so why are so many people telling IYOV to strengthen his heart and take the suffering with joy, he should let the suffering truly effect him so that he should get more reward and the pain can be over sooner.

3) The pain is to make the person pray and do teshuvah getting him more reward – first he argues how do you expect an innocent man to beg like a villain, and then he says if g-d didn’t listen to my good deeds why would he listen to my prays, and how can pray CHANGE the mind of g-d and infinite being (an age old question there are a few good answers).

4) It is a test that you will be rewarded for passing through- but if you die, where is the redemption? The test was to trust in g-d and he didn’t actual help in the end.

5) Being punished now so that one doesn’t sin later – not vary fair, to get punished for a sin one may do later. (Interestingly this idea does come up in Judaism in concept like bes sora umora the rebellious son and in chagiga 5a, and we see the opposite by Yishmoel and the well. if you want me to talk more about it, or any other subject that I have just touched upon please email me, and I would be more than happy to write something about it)

IYOV finishes off with the age old paradox of how can we have free will if g-d knows what we are going to do, please no one tell me the analogy of the guy watching a replay on television because it doesn’t answer the question and embarrasses the question, of course the guy on television has no free will and you are not watching free will take place again, in truth freewill is one of the hardest concepts to understand for a few reason. Daniel Rowe calls it one of the few things impossible to prove that everyone just has to know for themselves, that it exists. (Again if anyone wants me to explain the problems with free will and some of the thoughts I have come up with please email me)

Hope you are enjoying IYOV please email me with any questions.

IYOV 3

Hey guys here is another Divar Torah on IYOV

So when we left of we had IYOV denying freewill, saying we all get a fixed path at birth and we can’t change what happens so we have no free will then along came Elifaz.

Elifaz mentions how he saw a prophecy “a spirit brushed my face” he talks about how all punishment comes into this world due to sin, and IYOV is probably having a very intense fast punishment to atone for all his sins that will be over soon, and one day he will have nothing left to fear as all his sins will be absolved, and he will walk with no fear of man or beast.

Elifaz hints to an interesting idea that again I saw in my book about how much control we have over our own lives. He says it is impossible man has no control over his life and impossible that everything is dependent on the free-will of man. We see people who tried so hard to do something and then ended up doing the opposite like Yosef’s brothers who tried to kill him and made him a king, and we see people shoved into positions like shual hamelech who was made a king with little of his own effort, and we see people who tried really hard for something and then achieved it like rabbi Akiva, all three levels of the spectrum. In truth most of our lives will be a bit of both like the man who digs and finds treasure he can never argue it was his digging that made him rich because hashem put the treasure there for him and put the idea in his head to dig there, but no one can say he did nothing to get what he has. Elifaz tells IYOV of many cases of the strong rising against the weak and rain and things like that to show hashgacha in the world.

IYOV answers this in a few ways he says:

Iif you could feel my pain you would know that no sin could cause this.

If hashem wanted to send a prophecy should he not have given it to me?

What is the point of g-d punishing me for sinning? Why is sinning bad because it means I’m not completing my purpose on this earth, but I can’t complete my purpose on this world if I’m suffering all day long and can’t get anything done. It’s like a king who throws his workers in jail for not building a bridge in time, at the end of the day the bridge won’t be finished better to just let them finish it late.

Finally IYOV argues it is too late in his life for things to get better as he is old and will die soon. Here he seems to be arguing the soul is not eternal and there is no world to come.

IYOV finishes his speech saying how can g-d really be looking at every single person to the detail that you describe? Man is but nothing, g-d doesn’t take that much interest in us.

Now Bildad answers IYOV, I must be honest with you I’m doing this with the Malbim explanation in my book and I don’t really see how it fits in the text so much, but it’s very clever and the Malbim says it so its defiantly true. To explain this to you lets first go back to one of IYOV’s argument:

-Bad things are happening to me

-G-d is good and does only justice

-Must be another system in this world which isn’t just but is random, fate.

So Bilad argues as follows IYOV you agree that g-d is good, so it would also be an injustice for him to hand over power to an unjust system. IYOV has two possible answers either g-d isn’t good which he can’t say because of a more fundamental logic, or g-d didn’t create fate but it was there already, but that would mean g-d is no longer all powerful which also can’t be true. So Bildad has disproved IYOV’s idea but now he has to answer his question why do bad things happen to good people. Bildad explains like this, imagine a gardener who sees a rose (represents a tzadik) growing among some rocks so what does he do, he pulls it out and replants it in a better area where he can look after it. This would be very painful for the rose and other flowers (represents a rosha) around it would feel lucky as they survived, but in the end of the day the other flowers don’t make real roots as it’s too rocky and they die young. The rose however is taken to a personal garden where his roots grow strong and after a long healthy life his seedlings (represents tzadik’s children) are planted in the garden and looked after as well. You see here sometimes when a tzadik is put through traumas it is not always for a punishment sometimes it’s to help him, often this can be seen in a physical sense that someone loses out somewhere but really gains in the long run, but sometimes it is in the spiritual sense, e.g someone is to connected to a physical thing so Hashem him by shaking him off it or something similar. The idea here is to trust that all g-d does is good as he is perfect and does no evil.

Hope you all have a lovely shabbous and please email me back with any questions (and even if you don’t have questions if you just want to say hi or talk about the weather or something)

IYOV 2

Earlier tonight I was complaining to one of the people doing daily nach that I have so much to write I can’t fit it all in, so he told me to just write more often. So I will but if it’s too much for you guys feel free to ignore me. Again I would like to say, a lot of this is from the book by Rabbi Eliezer Parkoff.

Ok so yesterday the Saton got to IYOV’s body and this time it really got to him, this time he didn’t bless hashem like he did the first time. His wife voiced her opinion which wasn’t very supportive for him and now his friends arrive to comfort or debate with him.

With perek three IYOV shows his philosophy I hope to show it to you in logical steps for you to truly appreciate it. And maybe even understand it.

Firstly he comes to the conclusion ones lifetime has more pain in it than happiness this idea has sources in Muslim philosophy and has its hints in the gemora in some ways. The gemora brings down this:

There was a copher (heretic) called Elisha ben Avura or as he was later known acher. He wasn’t ever really the best pupil in the yeshivah, but one day he saw a father tell his son to shoo away a mother bird and take the eggs. The boy did fell of the ladder and died acher said this, here are two mitzvos both of which hashem said lengthens ones days (nonering parents and shluch hakan sending away the mother bird), and this child dies young. With that he said zu torah zu zchora? (This is torah and this is its reward?) And he gave up Judaism years later his grandson answer this question saying: if ones life is 70 or 80 years at the end it feels like a second so what difference the extra ten years and most of ones life is hard and painful anyway so this can’t be what the torah meant when it said lengthen your days, it must mean something else i.e. olam habo.

This is a clear source of a jewish idea of overall suffering in this world and it has a kind of logic to it, everything you get in this world you loss as eventually you will die so if not before then you will loss everything, the logic of joy and sadness in this world is only with improvement and deterioration as things we already have we don’t appreciate and pains we already have we are used to. As a lot of the things we get in this world we don’t realise at the time in order to appreciate them (our bodies are health two massive things both given to us at a point in our life we can’t remember) so since we start off above zero and we go down to zero and joy and sadness is only movement therefore total joy must be negative. Also since “time flies when your having fun the positive seem much smaller than the negatives which seem drawn out so over all it seems all bad. Did you follow that? It has a few logical flaws, you can talk to me about it or email me but a lot of people see the world that way and it’s not too foreign to Jewish thought we believe happiness is in the world to come so this is not such a crazy thing to say. (perkai avos perek beis last mishna) This is the opposite of rabbi Akiva who used to say everything hashem does is good.

Now even if you don’t agree with the previous bit the next bit stands look at IYOV he is having a lot of pain:- WHY?

PUNISHMENT – but IYOV is righteous

G-D is a big BULLY – g-d is ultimately good (another topic to prove but even so IYOV believed it)

IT’S LOGIC ACTION REACTION – now we don’t believe in this too much, we believe things are controlled by g-d but this does have some effect on the world it’s the idea that because of other events it lead to IYOVS pain by no evil or good simple cause and effect, but it’s not possible here as some of IYOV’s downfalls where quite spectacular like fire coming down from heaven.

SOME ONE ELSE’S BECHIRO IS CAUSEING YOU PAIN – again not such an easy topic happy to discuss it if people want but again couldn’t be here due to the fire from heaven stuff

Finally we reach IYOV’s final logic PREDETERMINATION. IYOV curses the day, this means he curses the day he was born, he curses the stars and the destiny he was born into, he comes to the conclusion there is a predetermined life for all of us irrespective of our bechera (free will), therefore it doesn’t matter if he was good or bad but stuff happens (as they don’t say because they use a ruder word) now this has to be incorrect and Iyov’s friends will answer him back soon but until now this is where we stand It’s how IYOV faced the contradicting logic’s of g-d

IYOV has a simple claim if I was born to suffer I would be better off having died in the womb.

We see somewhere else a similar dilemma Avroham was told to sacrifice his son, and a few years ago hashem told him that his son would be a great nation, seemingly a contradiction Avroham has to deal with. Now Avroham didn’t ask or probe or query he did it and he is massively rewarded for it. None of us can imagine either of IYOV’s of Avroham’s position but we can compare them.

I hope you all have a great Yom Tov if any of you have any question on any of the ides here, any of the theories of pain I didn’t go into them much and I didn’t have a long time to think up too many others so please put forward your own, and please email me with any questions or ask me to clarify something clearer. The thing earlier about how most of ones life being bad shouldn’t get you down I have whole other things about happiness but al lot of people argue for many other reasons and people support it for other reasons but you can appreciate why IYOV thought so. And even people who do believe it can still be solid Jews with the idea that the next world is where we reap the benefit.

IYOV 1

Ok hello everyone I hope you have had a lovely succus so far. Due to lack of supply unfortunately I (Benjy Goldberg) will be writing the diveray torah on IYOV. I am basing a lot of this on a book called “mission possible” by Rabbi Eliezer Parkoff and I lot on my own ideas feel free to question and argue with me on anything that seems weird or wrong. I do have a lot of ideas on subjects like these, but there won’t be enough time to cover most of them just with these weekly instalments. I would also like to apologies in advance for all the many spelling mistakes I will definitely make.

The man theme in IYOV is reward and punishment this is not a simple subject, we are told in the yom kippur davening the story of the ten martyrs,(ten of the greatest jewish rabbis who were all brutally killed) in this tefillah you see how even the angels don’t understand what hashem is doing when he punishes people. So I don’t expect we will unlock the secrets to g-d’s infinite calculations over the next four weeks. An interesting thing to notice about that tefillah and many horrific events over time, none of victims complained about the punishment they only mourned over the death of the other great leaders, the same way a death of a relative often causes much grief for their loved ones, while for them it could be reasonably painless and peaceful. But the fact of the matter is often people unfortunately do suffer and more than not, it’s hard to understand why.

When our story starts IYOV has everything, plenty of wealth, a peaceful family and a good name in the community. He is a tzadik that seems to have no faults. Then the saton comes in the picture, now the weirdest thing here is it seems that g-d and the saton are playing a game with IYOV’s life, there is a Christian idea of a bet between g-d and the devil, and we must be sure not to think that to be the case here. This is merely metaphorical in no way does hashem compete with anyone. Supposedly on a very basic level the saton as the accusing angel is proposing a test for IYOV and hashem lets him do it but only on his possessions not himself.

The shock is fast and extreme, IYOV in the space of five minutes losses everything his flocks and his family all from extraordinary circumstances. IYOV automatically rips his cloths tears out his hair (over the lost cattle because it is against the torah to tear out hair because of a death) and says “naked I came out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return there.” Iyov understood that everything is hashem’s and that even though he may have worked for something in truth it is all from hashem, and hashem owns it all, so he simply says “hashem has given and hashem has taken away” he uses the four letter name of hashem to show rachamim (mercy) saying nothing in this world is mine and hashem has rights over all of this so he has no room to complain.

It then says “...IYOV did not sin...” he had passed the first test

It is important to note that IYOV did mourn, and it did not count as a sin.

There are two stories I would like to share with you that connect to this whole discussion. First a story of a Rosh hayeshivah who used to have a very big gemach for charity where many people would come to borrow money. One day he decided to invest this money and buy a lot of wood and sell it overseas. The boat was gone for many days the rabbi moved on with other thing. One day news came to the yeshivah the boat had sunk and all the rabbis tzedokah money had gone with it. No one wanted to be the one to have to go and tell the rabbi, finally one boy who was close with the Rav, offered to give over the bad news and no-one objects.

The boy knocks on the rabbi’s door and enters. “Rabbi does one have to thank good even for a bad thing that happens” he asked. The rabbi replied “yes”, “but what if it was really bad, like someone died” the rabbi gave him a funny look and said “yes even still”. The boy asked again “ok, but what if it was really really bad and you were really really upset”, now the rabbi was getting feed up and the thought the boy was just mucking around. He said “yes! Why are you wasting my time I thought you were a good boy.” Finally the boy said “but what if it was really really really bad, like if for example all your money that you had saved for tzedokah and you used to buy woods to sell overseas had been lost in a ship wreck.” The rabbi gave a smile stood up and gave the boy a hug and said “yes even still. boruch hashem, and thank you for telling me in such a way”.

The next story is about a young boy called Moshe. It was Moshe’s tenth birthday and he got up early ran downstairs and there on the kitchen table was the present he had asked for, the new RC racer 2009, the best remote control car that was out. He was ecstatic and played with it for a whole hour before he had to go to school but before he left he turned to his six year old brother Yakov, and told him not to touch the car and asked his parents to guard it for him till he came home after school.

After school Moshe ran home and couldn’t wait to play with his new car but as he turned the corner of his road he stopped, he saw his house, all the blinds were shut, and all the lights were off. He came up to the door and it was open inside he saw his father sitting on the floor in the dark.

“Moshe come over here I need to tell you something” the father said in a quiet, slow voice.

“What’s wrong daddy” Moshe said as he came to sit down next to his dad

“Today after you left we let Yakov play with your new race car, he was playing outside and he didn’t really know how to use it and by mistake it went into the road, he tried to get it but he didn’t look, so didn’t see the van...” the father had tear in his eye and Moshe began to cry “...he didn’t see the van and...and...and the van ran over your new car” with that the father brought out from behind him a mangled ball of broken plastic which was once Moshe’s RC racer.

Moshe was thrilled he had thought the worst, when he heard this he ran upstairs and burst into Yakov’s room, Yakov screamed “please don’t kill me” and was in complete shock as Moshe came and gave him a massive hug.

These stories show a look on the happy side approach which is not always the answer but often the things that upset us are small little things, and sometimes there nothing at all just things we invented in our heads. Sometimes a bit of thought and we can see through the darkness.

Have a lovely shabbous and enjoy the rest of succahs I think it’s a bit ironic that we are starting IYOV right in the middle of the chag of simcha, but it was probably meant to be showing us how we take the g-d and the seeming bad from hashem as he knows best for us.