EE & R, 3_18: Between the Torah and the Prophets: The Unknowable Ways of God
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3. Between the Torah & the Prophets – Can Man Truly Know Hashem?
Moshe’s complaint – “Lord, why have You done evil to this people?” (Exodus 5:22) – foreshadows his later quest to understand Hashem’s ways: “Let me know Your ways” (ibid 33:13). As Chazal express it, he sought to know: “Why is there a tsaddik who prospers and a tsaddik who suffers, a wicked person who prospers and a wicked person who suffers?” (Berachos 7a). He sought to grasp divine justice – the principles behind Hashem’s reward and punishment. Yet this knowledge was withheld from Moshe. He was told, “I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will show mercy on whom I will show mercy” (Exodus 33:19), in denial of his request to discern divine justice. As recorded in the name of Rabbi Meir: “One [request] was not granted to him, as it is said: ‘I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious’ – even though he is not worthy; ‘And I will show mercy on whom I will show mercy’ – even though he is not worthy” (Berachos 7a).
Moshe was denied not only knowledge of Hashem’s essential goodness, but also knowledge of the rules that guide His actions, the moral order. We have explained why Moshe could not know Hashem’s goodness; now we seek to understand why even His ways remained unknowable. What prevented Moshe from gaining knowledge of the pattern of Hashem’s actions in the world – even as His essential goodness remains elusive?
Before we attempt to understand why an answer was denied to Moshe, we note an intriguing feature of his question. Moshe did not ask why a tsaddik who does not deserve it would suffer, but rather why there are some tsaddikim who prosper and others who suffer. He sought the explanation for the variety in the experiences of tsaddikim, the fact that some tsaddikim enjoy what is their deserved reward, in accordance with their good deeds, while others suffer despite their goodness.
If the ways of Hashem were always unfathomable, the master would have had no question – why should we expect for the ways of God to be comprehensible to man, to whom He owes no account? Yet His ways are, in fact, occasionally just and fair. There is much in reality that is right and good by our mortal metric, suggesting that the ways of God are, in part, modeled on man’s morality. And yet so much remains unfair, creating a stark contrast between what aligns with justice and what does not. It is this discrepancy that gives rise to the tension Moshe sought to resolve: If God acts in accord with the moral order known to man, He should do so consistently; and if He does not do so consistently, then why does He ever? According to Rabbi Meir, this request was not granted; Moshe remained in doubt.
To understand why Hashem’s ways remained hidden from Moshe, we turn to another statement of Chazal. Rabbi Yosi illuminates the mystery of divine asymmetry by teaching that the difference in outcomes stems from a difference in the tsaddikim themselves: “A tsaddik who prospers is a complete tsaddik, and a tsaddik who suffers is an incomplete tsaddik” (ibid). A complete tsaddik experiences Hashem’s manifest goodness in line with his righteousness, while an incomplete tsaddik remains vulnerable to suffering despite his virtue.
What is the nature of this incompleteness? It cannot refer to a few sins for which the generally righteous tsaddik deserves his suffering, for if that were the case, his experiences of suffering would be just and fair, and would raise no moral problem. Clearly, the incomplete tsaddik doesn’t deserve to suffer according to the metric of human morality, his few sins notwithstanding, but does so nonetheless, in violation of what the human mind considers to be right and proper. An incomplete tsaddik does not merit that Hashem act toward him exclusively in ways he can comprehend. But if not as expiation for sin, how does this incompleteness explain the tsaddik’s experience of inexplicable suffering?
Our study has already introduced us to a great tsaddik who feared he might suffer despite his righteousness, who holds the key to unlocking the enigma of the suffering tsaddik: the patriarch Yaakov. He deserved good yet couldn’t be certain that he wouldn’t experience evil. Assured of Hashem’s protection – "Behold, I am with you, and I will protect you everywhere you go” (Genesis 28:15) – the noble man was nonetheless “greatly afraid and distressed” (ibid, 32:8), anxious lest “the sin” cause Hashem’s promise to be revoked. The root cause of Yaakov’s fear should illuminate the mystery of suffering due to incomplete righteousness.
As has been explained at length, “the sin” of Yaakov refers simply to a deficiency in knowledge of Hashem: For people with incomplete knowledge of Hashem, His ways remain ultimately unpredictable, and they are liable to suffer even when they deserve not to. This, then, must be the nature of the “incomplete tsaddik” who suffers undeservedly – he is lacking in his knowledge of Hashem.
The link between lack of knowledge of Hashem and the commission of some sins – and its implications for repentance and the standing of the penitent relative to the perfectly righteous person – will be explored further in this work. For now, we can discern a rule about Hashem’s ways: Their order depends on knowing Him. Those who know Him will know the reason of His ways, while those deficient in divine knowledge will remain perplexed by their own experiences.
Indeed, this rule is implicit in the language of Moshe’s request to know Hashem’s ways: “Let me know Your ways that I may know You.” The ways of Hashem are ordered and made comprehensible to man only insofar as doing so leads to knowledge of their Architect. For He owes to man no account of His actions. There is no reason He should limit His ways to what man can fathom – except if that will make man know Him, in His essence. Hashem conforms His ways to human moral sensibilities only for the sake of that union.
Thus, it becomes clear why Moshe, who attained the sublime doctrine of Unknowing, was necessarily denied knowledge of Hashem’s ways as well. The more deeply Moshe entered into the unknowing of Hashem’s essence, the more inscrutable Hashem’s actions became to him – leaving him face to face with evil at the very dawn of his mission to lead Israel to their unknowable God.