Colorful LAJHealth logo. Contact Donate Volunteer Careers Logins. LAJHealth phone number with green phone icon. Our Newsletter Connections. Jul Who is to Blame? Years ago a senior facing a severe decline in eye sight asked to speak with me. She said, "Rabbi, I have mostly been a good person throughout my life, but once, when I was younger, I did a terrible thing. I am quite sure that I'm losing eyesight as a punishment for what I did.
In the words of Rabbi Harold Schulweis z'l , nature is amoral. Nature and science do what they will, and it is an unhealthy theology to conclude that suffering comes as a punishment.
That being said, unfortunately, she is not the first Jew to posit such thinking. According to the Rabbis, the Temple was destroyed because of sinat chinam, senseless hatred between Jews. The Rabbis felt remorse for the fact that the Jewish people were divided and fractured at that time and concluded that the Temple's destruction must have been sent as a punishment.
To this I say the following: while I reject the notion of divine punishment, I do recognize the reality of natural consequences. When people are consumed with hatred their words and actions flow from that hatred. When people are filled up with love and warmth, very different words and actions flow from that love. The consequences are often immeasurable. Sometimes there is no way to connect the dots. But all relationships are affected by emotions and emotions can take on a life of their own.
Even today, there is political and religious conflict over Jerusalem and even over the holiest of sites, the Western Wall, also known as the Kotel. Orthodox and non-Orthodox Jews are battling over how to make that place holy. There are new wedges of division between the Israeli government and diaspora Jewry over Jerusalem's holiest site.
