30.02 Elaboration (pps.20-31)
hard cover page 29
taking six weeks to make a pair of trousers, while it took God no more than six days to create the entire world, the tailor parried. “Yes Rabbi,” he said “but just see what a world created in a hurry looks like104The question for those subscribing to the theodicy of an imperfect world reigned over by a perfect Divine is: Why does omnipotent God not intervene in this imperfectly crafted world?105 Did God not show the inclination and power to do so in biblical times?106
One response is the Maimonidean theory of evil and Providence.
If a man frees his thoughts from worldly matters, obtains knowledge of God in the right way, and rejoices in that knowledge, it is impossible that any kind of evil should befall him while he is with God. and God with him. When he does not meditate on God. when he is separated from God, then God is also separated from him; then he is exposed to any evil that might befall him; for it is only that intellectual link with God that secures the presence of Providence and protection from evil accident.107
Stitskin elaborates:
In this light Maimonides interprets the Book of Job. The bible describes Job as a good, virtuous man, fearful of God when tragedy befell him. But the text does not say that he was an intelligent, wise or clever man. It was only after he had attained a measure of enlightenment, wisdom and the realization that man’s highest good lies in an intellectual fellowship with God that his affliction came to an end. In the ultimate situation, when man’s encounter is rooted in an intellectual fellowship with God- in-Essence, he is finally relieved of all the accidents of time and space.108
Maimonides’ views in this area are paralleled in Ibn Daud’s Emunah Ramah.109
Another response often encountered is that the need to maintain man’s free will precludes the possibility of Divine intervention. We deal with this theme in the following section.
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——————- NOTES ——————-
104 Glatzer, The Dimensions of Job, p. 221.
105 See Schulweis, “Suffering and Evil,” p. 215.
106 See Schulweis, Evil and the Morality of God, p. 138.
107 Maimonides, Guide 3:5.
108 Stitskin, Eight Jewish Philosophers, p. 164.
109 See Ibn Daud, Emunah Ramah, pt. 2, Basic Principle 6, chap. 2, cited in Bleich, With Perfect Faith, p. 424. “. . . he who entrusts his spirit into the hand of God is supervised, since he tries to enter into the section of the notable substances, and the notable substances have supervision over existents in this world in general and over the human species in particular. Behold in all respects [the human species] is singled out by providence in great measure because of its diligence to entrust its spirit with Him. As we have said, ‘If one comes to cleanse himself he is helped.’ ”
~continued~
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