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Sharon Colored Hashkafa
Some people took me up on my odds yesterday regarding fundamentalist rhetoric. Returning blogger and former protocols elder Avraham noted that organizations like the OU are publicizing Sharon's name for prayers.
However, in the comments Hillel pointed to invective which has already been criticized. And although Jack Wertheimer finally discovers the mi sheberach, one coworker of mine responding to an e-mail takes a more fatalistic approach:
- Don’t you think that Hashem is in charge of this. If Hashem did not want Ariel Sharon to have a stroke, he would not have had one. It is quite possible that this is part of a larger plan that Hashem has. If we pray for Mr. Sharon, will it change Hashem’s plans?
And I fully expect another pointless religious flamewar to ensue.
I'm thinking now that I was imprecise in my prediction yesterday. Due to the obvious backlash, few sane Rabbis would publicly advocate that Sharon deserves to be punished as such. But I do have a sense that it is the prevailing attitude certainly in the more right-wing communities which generally emphasize divine providence to the point of fatalism. It would not be the first time people say one thing publicly for pragmatic reasons, but privately believe the opposite. Of course, the tendencies to emphasize divine providence in general are compounded when discussing Israel - the Torah itself calls Israel a land which is under special divine supervision (Devarim 11:12).
Still, what this means is very much subject to personal interpretation and any positive statement definitively asserting why things happen requires reading the mind of God. For example, if you were opposed to the disengagement, then Sharon is being punished. If the disengagement was a Good Thing, then it's possible that Sharon fulfilled his life's mission and/or did teshuva from his earlier militant days. The problem with fundamentalism is that dogma is in the eye of the beholder.
Readers interested in actual sources in Torah for providence and evil should check out my post on Talmudic Theodicy and see the real range and limits of Torah's theology.
The stupidity of some people never ceases to amaze me. I am referring to your coworker who implies that it is impudent for us to interfere with Hashem's plans when people are sick etc.
Apart from this being completely erroneous as far as Judiasm is concerned, surely if a parent or child or even good friend of this coworker were sick he/she would be doing everything possible to move heaven so that this person whould recover.
Let's cease with this stupidity and all say tehillim for Areil ben Devorah for a Refuah Sheleima