Suffering of the Innocent

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1. "By What Shall I Know:" Question and Covenant (Audio)

   Rabbi Chanoch Waxman | 24 minutes

   The "Covenant Between the Pieces" contains a positive promise, but it also describes a great deal of suffering. Is suffering necessary to the Divine Covenant? Does Abraham's possible questioning justify significant affliction for his descendants? An analysis of the story of Hagar, Sarah's Egyptian maidservant, helps to illuminate matters.

2. Not Without Cause Have I Done

   Dr. Tova Ganzel

   The prophet begins by describing the famine that will befall the city; then the wild animals that will pass through the land, followed by the sword, and finally, the pestilence. Describing these imminent afflictions raises the question of whether any righteous people will survive the onslaught.  And if so, might their families  also be saved in their merit, as in similar situations described in the Torah?

   The prophetic response to this question is that if indeed there are any righteous individuals to be found in the city, they alone will be saved. The inhabitants of Jerusalem will not be saved by virtue of the righteous present there. Through the comparison to Noah, the anticipated Destruction seems even more devastating than the Flood. Noah saved his entire family, but now even that possibility does not exist.

   Ultimately, there are some survivors of the destruction of Jerusalem. But they are left alive not by virtue of the righteous individuals, but because of God’s desire that the terrible actions and the resulting punishment of the inhabitants of the city be made known.

3. Human Suffering in Eikha

   Dr. Yael Ziegler

4. The Structure of the Book of Eikha

   Dr. Yael Ziegler

5. The Cry of Sodom

   Rabbi David Silverberg

6. Radak - Rav David Kimchi

   Dr. Avigail Rock

   The Radak — R. David Kimchi — was born and active in Provence, in southern France, near Spain. The Radak was a member of a family of Spanish grammarians and exegetes. Like R. Avraham ibn Ezra, the Kimchi family brought the fundamentals of linguistics and grammar from Spain to France.

   Despite the fact that Radak sees himself as a pashtan, he does not hesitate to cite derash. However, when the Radak quotes these sources, it is obvious that he has a distinction between peshat and derash.

   Two principles guide the Radak in citing Midrashic sources:

   • When it is difficult to resolve the peshat without the derash.
   • For the lovers of derash - in order to explain the text and engage his readers.

   The view of the Radak is that the Torah is not a historical tome. Those stories of the Patriarchs which have been selected to put into the Torah with all of its details must fulfill one criterion: teaching a moral lesson.

   Just as one may learn from the positive acts of the forefathers, so one may learn from their negative acts. The Radak does not engage in apologetics; instead, he writes explicitly that the narratives which describe the negative acts of the Patriarchs have been written in order to help us avoid this sort of behavior.

   The Radak points out consistently that the Torah often uses repetitious language, not because each word introduces new meaning, but because the verse seeks to stress the significance of a given issue. This view stands in stark contrast to that of Rashi, who argues that generally speaking, one must assign meaning to every word, as there cannot be any redundancy in the biblical text.