Haazinu

Parshas Haazinu, the song of which Moshe spoke in last week's Parsha,  is the song of the history of the nation, for just as musical compositions contain decrescendos ‎& crescendos, so too the history of the Jewish people has its diminished periods, times of calamity, that will be followed by the joyous crescendo of the great finale, the ultimate redemption (Torah Treasury) 

One of the stanzas in this song is הצור תמים פעלו כי כל דרכיו משפט, The Rock, perfect in His work, for all His ways are justice. However, it's difficult to accept this, for all too many times, we see the righteous one begging for a piece of bread to calm his hunger & a coat to warm himself, while the wicked one has all that he needs. This is the age old question of why does the tzaddik suffer while the rasha indulges? 

This is exemplified by the Chofetz Chaim’s wife, when their poverty got to her, asked her husband why the neighbor who is an ignorant boor, whose children are rude & ill-mannered  gets taken care of by Hashem. They’re wealthy & have all that they need. We, who you are totally sanctified in Torah with children who are fine & good mannered, yet we live in abject poverty! Where is the justice?   

The Chafetz Chaim then asked his wife, would it be fair that that person whom Hashem didn't give much intelligence, ‎who never experienced the light of Torah & who wasn't successful in bringing up his children the right way should he be punished with poverty too?  You, whose husband is a Ben Torah & you have a love for Torah & your children are good mannered & on the right path, would it be fair to make you wealthy too? Would that be fair? 
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Of course, to most of us that's a very hard level to reach to be able to think like that.  How can we come to some understanding not to question Hashem?

The אבן עזרא was once asked this question and answered with the following true story.  Two men were traveling. When they sat down to eat, one of them had three loaves of bread while the other only had two. As they sat down, a third man came & said to them, my brothers I'm starving. I have no food; please share your bread with me & I will pay you. They sat down to eat together & the three men ate the five loaves of bread. After they finished, the guest paid them five coins. The question arose of how to split the five coins. The one with the three loaves said he deserved three coins because he had three loaves while the one with the two loaves said they should split it because the guest ate from both of them equally. Not able to come to an agreement, they came to the Rav of the town.  The Rav said that the one who had three loaves should get four coins & the one who had two should only get one coin. 

When the people heard that psak, they asked the אבן עזרא what kind of psak is that?  The Rav gave him even more than he asked for? He asked for three & the Rav gave him four? When the אבן עזרא heard their question, he said, "if you people can't even understand the reasoning of a mere mortal, a flesh & blood judge, how can you expect to understand the reasoning of Hashem? I will explain the Rav’s ruling. 

Each of the three men ate a third of the bread for they ate together. If you split each loaf into thirds, you have fifteen thirds. So each of the men ate five thirds. It comes out that the one who had two loaves ate five thirds so he only gave the guest one third. Therefore, he gets one coin.  The one who had three loaves or nine thirds, also ate five thirds leaving four thirds over that the guest ate so he gets four coins. 

We have to realize that we will not be able to understand the reasoning of Hashem. All we need to do is have faith that Hashem knows best.  It was my grandmother's first yahrtzeit this week & I was reading an interview she did years ago on the war. She was asked, "how did you keep your faith in G-d during the Holocaust & afterwards? Her answer I think sums up this concept. 
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"I just kept it. Some people lost their faith, but a lot of people who didn't keep any of the laws before, became frum afterwards. I just felt that the only way that could happen was if Hashem wanted it to happen. Otherwise it would have been impossible. There must have been some reason for Hashem to do this. I simply didn't question anything. Once you start questioning this kind of thing,  you’re in trouble. I guess I just accepted things the way they were. There are some things we simply do not understand. There is an awful lot in the Jewish religion that  we just don't understand, and we cannot. Faith is what you can't see & you don't understand, but you have faith anyway!‎"


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