Beyond Our Understanding

Our generation has been forced to eat humble pie. We are living in 2025 and the advances that we have experienced in our lifetime have been unparalleled in the course of human history. From self-driving cars to artificial intelligence and everything in between, Man has felt unlimited in his quest to conquer any frontier. Nevertheless, the 7 post October era has been a sobering reality for us all. The war that Hamas terrorists unleashed on that fateful Simchas Torah is seared into our memory. The question of WHY this occurred keeps on flashing in people’s minds. The past 20 months have been particularly brutal for the Jewish People. Hostages continue to languish in the most difficult of circumstances in Gaza. These events have triggered feelings of despondency and reflection. Some have attempted to answer the question, but no one can understand why this is happening from a theological perspective. There are no prophets among us, and our faith has been challenged, and we are forced to reconcile how a just and benevolent G-d can allow such realities to put our people in peril. We are confronted with the cold reality that we do not have an answer as to why G-d allows this to occur. This weeks Parsha of Chukas begins with the words זאת חקת התורה, or This is a Chok of the Torah. A Chok is a Mitzvah that doesn’t have a rational understanding of human comprehension. While it may make perfect sense to return a lost object or honor your parents, it doesn’t make much sense to sprinkle the ashes of a burnt red cow onto someone in contact with a dead body. The notion of not finding satisfactory responses to challenging theological questions has vexed the greatest rabbis for thousands of years. Moshe pleaded with G-d to understand His ways in the world. The Talmud explains that Moshe desired to discover the reason why the righteous suffer or the wicked prosper. G-d responded that the living could not comprehend the mysteries of the universe. A finite being cannot grasp the infinite, and it is beyond human comprehension. While on a superficial level, this may be unsatisfactory, on a deeper level, there is a sense of inner peace in knowing that you can’t understand or control everything in this mortal world. The notion that we don’t comprehend all of G-d’s ways in the world is an uncomfortable but necessary truth to learn. Have a Peaceful Shabbos, Rabbi Yakov Fisch