There was a tragic story about a year ago that took place in Utah. A seven year old girl, who had opened the door to an aunt’s car, climbed in and asked her for a ride to school. She was turned down because the aunt was in a hurry, not having time to drive five miles out of her way. She then climbed out and closed the car door. The relative then drove off. But the young girl’s coat had gotten caught in the door and was then dragged to death. The aunt did not realize she was dragging the young girl until she was stopped three miles later by a witness.
This got me to thinking again about the most perplexing of philosophical questions, the question of Tzadik V’Ra Lo. Now it is likely this girl was not Jewish. Bit the scenario cannot be escaped. The torturous death that this young minor child endured before she finally died is simply beyond human comprehension.
Of course we have our own similar tragedies in our long history as Jews that we can reflect upon such as the Assarah Hurgei Malchus, or perhaps the most perplexing question: that of the holocaust and all the humiliation, torture, and finally death suffered by millions of Jews including many righteous people.
But every time something like this happens I hear myself asking, “Why?” I then always immediately answer that ultimately we cannot know God’s plan for the world. It is not for us to know. There is infinite justice in creation, but we cannot see it.
It is one thing to pay lip service to this principle and another thing to have the kind of faith that allows you to accept it. Assume for a moment that this girl was Jewish had been on the bus in Jerusalem during one of the many suicide bombings there. Imagine this young child who was killed in this way first suffered the most painful of deaths, slow and agonizing... perhaps first burned over ninety percent of her body... suffering beyond human description or even the ability for anyone to comprehend... and then finally dying.
One can perhaps attempt to theologically explain the mental anguish suffered by mothers or fathers or other family members at the sight of seeing this kind of suffering by a child. One can perhaps try and say that it is in some way, atonement for sins that are known only to them and God... even if the parents are very righteous people. No one, after all who has ever lived on this earth is without sin. We do not know the individual circumstances of any individual are and cannot, therefore, make judgments.
Nor are we permitted to make such judgments. I am merely saying that in some way we can explain it in theological terms. Even the holocaust can be explained this way but because of the sheer numbers the human mind cannot really grasp the totality of it. None-the-less, in a philosophical sense we can at least understand the principle of a divine plan wherein God’s justice is ultimately meted out both in this world and the world to come for every single soul ever created.
But at the same time we can we say that the generation of the holocaust must have deserved what they got? Too many innocent people it seems, got the same torture that everyone else did... the righteous together with the evil... together with everyone else. Yet the philosophical rationale exists. And once you start talking in terms of millions, you lose perspective and focus.
But then there is the “Power of One”.
How can anyone even begin to understand the dragging death of one innocent seven year old girl by a relative who was unaware of what she was doing? This illustrates better than anything the nature of the classic question of Tzadik V’Ra Lo. There is no philosophical rationalization for the torture and death of a 7 year old girl that can only have been decreed by God. One cannot attribute this to evil the way one could the Assarah Hurgei Machus, or the holocaust. Jews tortured and killed at the hands of their fallow man, while still theologically perplexing, still have an evil human perpetrator... the Romans in the former case and the Nazis in the latter. But for a minor child to have died in this way without any evil human hand begs the question: Why? What possible justice is it for this child to have died at all, let alone in this torturous way?
To say she was merely a vehicle for punishment of Parental or other family members’ sins ...that the mental anguish of thinking... and rethinking what must have been the suffering of the last few minutes of life for this young girl is unsatisfying in the extreme. Is this sufficient reason for this event to have been decreed by God? Parental punishment cannot explain the torture this young girl must have endured before she died.
If one is honest one can only say that this type of event is enough to test the limits of anyone’s faith. All we can do ...all we MUST do as believers, is go on with our lives believing with complete faith in the ultimate justice of the Almighty and remain with the question unanswered.
...and be more perplexed then ever.
