it is on no one's free will to choose if anyone lives or dies, no one, except G-d. If I choose to do something evil, there is no guarantee that it will happen. If I take out a gun an want to shoot someone, i made the choice, and I will get the consequences for my wrong choice, but whether that person gets hurt is totally in the hands of G-d. If G-d designated that this is the day this person is to die then I just might be the messenger (using my own free choice). If I decide to not do it then he will still die, by a different means, whether a heart attack, stroke, car accident, stray bullet, etc... that exact time. If it was not decreed that he should die on that day, then no matter how hard i try i will not succeed. Either the gun will misfire, a police officer will spot me, or a many other things will go wrong. TheShmuz.com has a lecture entitled free will that discusses this.

what free will do the incurabley mentally ill, for one example, have? Don't respond that they may lead to a cure. Why are they so afflicted in the first place?

So why does God seemingly play a role in protecting some and not others? And in doing so, why is there no relationship to apparent good or evil of the individual? Does God not play any role in the daily activities of man? Or is He only present in history?

The word is Divine Providence and as far as I know, we Jews believe in Divine Providence, and this means, God wrote the story. We pray on Yom Kippur to be written in the BOOK of LIFE for another YEAR, so who do YOU think writes the script here? As painful as it must be, I am so sorry, to inform all of you hat you're wrong. And I know because I actually have the PROOF on paper, of a life of not a little but MASSIVE synchronicity, as in God is talking to me, every step of the way. So.. go to Jerusalem and pray at the Wailing Wall, with me, holding hands in spirit and soul, and pray to God to change this ancient story. Because we're all part of the same story. How hard is this? Very. When it comes to terror. So, I know, and will repeat as Anne Frank: I know it will all come out all right. She KNEW what I know. She just sinply did, and there's a reason THAT Diary is extant and a living loving document, a testament to us all, of something... MORE.

G-d allows many painful things in this lifetime. We cannot always understand, but we trust G-d. It will be different one day. All the pain, all the tears, and all the suffering will be gone. G-d has promised a glorious future where the evil ones will never again hurt another human being. My gratitude for ever for our Wonderful G-d.

G-d rules this world, and nothing can happen without his will being such to happen. Then we are troubled, but how could a kind and compassionate all powerful G-d let such a monstrous act occur? Similarly but on a whole different scale how could G-d have let the holocaust occur with many millions of deaths of innocent, and upright, kind, and good people. We do not, we can not understand G-d's ways, it is therefore imperative for us to strengthen our recognition and understanding that there is indeed a benevolent and loving father in heaven who watches over all this world and nothing occurs with his will, and all he does is righteous. He gave us the gift of life, he breathed into each one of us a g-dly soul. He treasures us far beyond all else. We are his children, He is our father. Know we cannot understand how such a massacre could occur,(we feel that if we were in control we would run the world differently), we weep, and that is correct to do, but we must strenthen our faith in the one and only G-d who is benevolent in all his ways. May it be a comfort to all those who have lost the dear ones in this horrible tragedy to find comfort in their knowledge that their loved ones were and always will be bound to G-d. May you find comfort in your distress by knowing that it was from G-d that they were taken and in such a way.

With freedom comes responsibility. When God created the Universe it operates by certain physical laws. If you jump off a cliff, you die. So at what point do we take responsibility? Is God supposed to stop every murder on the planet? With every tragedy we learn, maybe now there will be more safeguards in place preventing people like this from getting guns and more effective ways of warning people should a situation like this occur again. We are learning how to cure diseases maybe we'll someday find a cure to whatever it is that inspires people like this to do evil. How does God help people? Through other people, like the Holocaust survivor who sacrificed his life for others. What's better, an acorn or an oak? The acorn dies and becomes something else, well, maybe we become something else too when we die, but the difference is we have some say in what we become in the next world by our actions. Do we become something beneficial or something useless?

His wording for this article was helpful to me and I
learned from it. We know Hashem is everywhere, and
somehow we "expect" Him to intervene when man's
intention is to do evil onto others. This article
reinforces the notion that man has free will and it is
that free will that Hashem permits us to always have
and maintain, regardless of its outcome. So where
does the responsibility belong to somehow prevent such
an occurrence? Personally, with my "20-20 hindsight",
I believe other people involved with the murderer, way
before his terrible evil act took place, should have
done more in the way of psychologically helping him,
and/or taken more drastic measures to prevent him from
even attending the college. Perhaps too, most people
are more trusting than they should be, and the
security has to tightened and highly maintained
everywhere; as at airports, so too especially at
educational institutions in the US and around the world.

It is very challenging when I read an article like the one above. Why you may ask, well let me tell you. The Rabbi does not explain at all what happened to the free choice the 32 human beings had? I am pretty sure they didn't want to die in a hail of evil bullets held by a mentally unbalance person.
It is so simplified when you use the balance of Good and Evil. i have talked with some of the very learned Rabbi's and even they do not fully understand the going on in a situation like this and where is G-D's role. So please do not again simplify it, to make everything come out like a Rose when really we or most of us are trying to just working with the the thorns and how to smooth them out so it doesn't hurt so much.

Joel, I fully agree with you. Thanks much.

it is on no one's free will to choose if anyone lives or dies, no one, except G-d. If I choose to do something evil, there is no guarantee that it will happen. If I take out a gun an want to shoot someone, i made the choice, and I will get the consequences for my wrong choice, but whether that person gets hurt is totally in the hands of G-d. If G-d designated that this is the day this person is to die then I just might be the messenger (using my own free choice). If I decide to not do it then he will still die, by a different means, whether a heart attack, stroke, car accident, stray bullet, etc... that exact time. If it was not decreed that he should die on that day, then no matter how hard i try i will not succeed. Either the gun will misfire, a police officer will spot me, or a many other things will go wrong. TheShmuz.com has a lecture entitled free will that discusses this. Hope I was helpful

According to Blech:
"Yes, sometimes there are things that happen in the world that profoundly upset the Almighty. But He allows them to happen nevertheless. Indeed He must often restrain Himself. For if God were to always interfere to prevent us from going against His will we would never be capable of really doing good, because we would simply be powerless to commit its alternative!"
and
"So God was in Virginia Tech. And it should give us some comfort to know that God also wept with us. His silence was far from indifference; it was absolutely necessary by the very nature of the great gift He shares with us -- the freedom to act in accord with our will."
As I read the article again, I thought to myself, where have I read this before. And then I remembered – a famous and oft re-printed essay From the Editorial Page of The New York Sun, written by Francis P. Church, September 21, 1897 excerpted here:
"Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist. … Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus! … There would be no child-like faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence.
"Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if you did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. "
So, if it makes people feel better to believe that God or Santa Claus help people feel the world nicer, and to ignore actual horrors, so be it. I think that believing a fact, despite all evidence to the contrary, just because it makes you feel better is more often than not destructive. It may make me feel better to "believe" that it won't rain on my picnic this weekend, but it would be wiser to check the weather reports (and bring an umbrella if indicated).
Can someone explain to me how Blech's argument and the famous "Santa Claus" piece differ in any way?

My son was in the building adjacent to where the shootings occurred. Although he personally was not acquainted with any of the victims, the grandson of my mother-in-law's close friend was murdered.
My son Jesse who has always been sensitive and compassionate called home to say he did not know how to respond to total strangers who came up to him weeping "My friend was killed" other than to embrace them and say heartfelt "I am so sorry". Of course I am so grateful to H'Shem for my son's life, but also I weep for the parents of young Mr. Cho. Not only must they bear the ostracism of society and being shunned by former friends and neighbors, but they also have lost a beloved son. We have no way of knowing what is being worked in the hearts and souls of the parents who lost their children, nor do we know what is being forged in the minds, hearts and spirits of those who survived.We can only have faith that G-d is working in the midst of this horrendous tragedy to draw souls back to Himself, to strengthen those who were weak, to break the proud, to restore the faltering. Sometimes the shock of the loss of one life causes many to better appreciate the frailty and preciousness of this great gift.
May we all be more loving, more compassionate, more forgiving, more thankful for each moment and each loved one.

was a very interesting article; really puts things into perspective.

I keep checking back at this discussion, and find it to be as silly and meaningless a discussion as I can imagine.

I had written previously to pose the following question: "Even assuming that an omnipotent God cannot interfere with human free will, why would a God who can interfere with inanimate objects not have made the gun jam?"

This question received no response. This whole discussion is an entirely closed discussion. Almost every writer tries to explain why God would do this or that, (or cannot do this or that) with absolutely no evidence or basis for any of these suppositions. One could just as easily substitute for the word "God", the words "Tooth Fairy" or "Easter Bunny", (One cannot argue or even discuss the proposition "I believe the Easter Bunny could hide the eggs so that they cannot be found, but cannot interfere with the free will of a determined egg seeker.") and the discussion would make as much sense, or have as much legitimacy.

A simple rhetorical response to the theist's question "How do we know that maybe 132 wouldn't have been killed had not God intervened?" Is the question "How do we know that 30 or 31, or 32 lives wouldn't have been additionally spared had not God intervened earlier."

I, personally, am more comfortable believing in a Godless and random universe than I am in worshipping an omnipotent God that could have saved lives and families but elected not to, or who did so lethargically.

An open discussion would include, from believers, at least the possibility that there is no God (or no Tooth Fairy), or at least a direct response to those who doubt.

You say you'd be more "comfortable" believing in a G-dless universe. Your "comfort" doesn't explain existence. You'd have to stick your head in the sand to avoid the anthropic principle, the "apparent" design of everything. So, that's less realistic. Here, they're grappling with understanding that reality.

Seung Hui Cho was not a master of his own fate. Rather, he was mastered by severe mental illness that drove him to murder. Therefore, should we also ask where was God when those who knew that he was unstable could have acted to stop him? If one knows a person is unable to control his impulse to commit an evil act and does nothing to stop him, isn't he an ultimately an accessory to the same evil?

Yes, where are we in our walk with God. HaShem had this man commit this act because it sends a message to us. Also, HaShem knew all these victims while they were in the womb, and what would befall them in later life, and it was in his grand plan that they would live their lives out and meet this end. There lives were not cut short. We rejoice in the life that they had. The message is to living, as hard as it is to fathom. Yes, we must check out that we do not mock, and beat up, and ridicule. We should take this as a message to try and live our lives in holiness. Everyone take a moment and give the downtrodden and mocked a little more love. This will not happen again here, if people are able to learn. I am sure the people of Virginia are able to rise up and change their character a bit.

I DIDN'T AGREE WITH EVERYTHING YOU SAID BUT WILL BE A GREAT BASIS TO DISCUSS THIS HORRENDOUS AFFAIR AND ITS MEANINGS WITH MY NINE-YEAR OLD DAUGHTER

the messages are very insighting.

I read R' Blech's article on "Where was G-d at Virginia Tech" and although it cleared up a few things, it raised some other questions in my mind. If I understand correctly, R'Blech explained that man has free will to do bad, and although G-d may not interfer with his choice there are consequences. So the evil person gets punished, the victim gets rewarded in a way that G-d sees fit, but what about the family and friends of the victim. Yes, it may be comforting to them to know that their loved one is not suffering, but what about their pain that they will feel every day of their lives, for example, not being able to see their child grow up and all the nachas they will miss that they used to have. It seems like the people who are left behind suffer the most.

Also, I can't believe that G-d would let a person be killed just because of someone else's free will. There must be a reason why one student showed up for class that day and was murdered, and why another student skipped that day and was saved. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I've always thought of it as that Hashem won't let someone be murdered without a reason-it must be that G-d doesn't let any random person fall as a victim, but that G-d chose that person to be the victim. I hope this is clear, and if there is any response I'd love to hear it.

there are times God seemingly punishes collectively. sometimes an evil decree is thwarted and sometimes not and we rearely are told why or even know it happened.we have free choice yet God knows what we will choose.

How do we reconcile this idea that murder (among other evil deeds) is against the will of Hashem, but He allows it to happen to maintain free will, with the idea that *everything* that occurs is the will of Hashem (i.e., every blade of grass and every leaf are governed by a heavenly angel that direct its destiny)??

Your theory of God and free will which enables God to sit by and watch holocausts and massacres is irrational. A parent allows a child free will. But if the free will leads to dangers, self-injury, injury by others, and dangerous behaviors, the parent intervenes and does everything in his/her power to prevent ill-fated results. We're questioning why the VT killer's parents did little or nothing to intervene in their child's psychopathology === they allowed him, instead, to entertain "free will". So did they take on the role of God in simply standing by, weeping, and allowing his psychosis to lead to massacre? What kind of parenting is that? God created us in HIS immage and stands by while we suffer? What kind of nonsense is that? And what kind of parenting and protector? Please! Give me a break.

Where was G-d when the first murder was committed? Man has been committing atrocities since Cain. It makes for great print to discuss where G-d was and why He didn't prevent all the calamities of this world. It only shows how arrogant man is that he would pretend, in all his conceit, to know the Mind of G-d. It is about time that one understood that when murder is committed , that the blame be put squarely where it belongs, on man, that the question of where or why about G-d be put to rest and let the rabbi(s) be the first to start. To ask such a question may look good, but it is an exercise in futility. Let's admit that we don't have all the answers, especially this one, no matter how much we may want to concede that 'we have come quite far' and trust in G-d.

Everything Rabbi Blech wrote has good sources amongst Jewish scholars and philosophers. The question he did not touch on is the power of prayer which, of course, implies that G-d can certainly respond. He can cure the incurable, heal the unhealable and do anything that He wills.
The argument is that He chooses to not intercede in order to protect the freedom of choice we are given. And yet He can and does intercede in miracles that are every day with us.

So what is the answer?
Why not now?
Why then? Why not for the victims of VT? The Holocaust? 9/11 You name it. Etc.

We simply do not know.

The Torah begins with a Bet to show us that we must deal with the things we do know. Todo justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with Him.

Taryag Mitzvot.

Lifnim Mishurat Ha-din.

Kdoshim Tihyu.

Ner La-Goyim.

Be human and remember that we are created in His image.

I think your "free will theory" is a good theory but thinking about it another way, if G did prevent some of the 32 murders how would we know it? Maybe he did prevent some! I like to think that during the Columbine massacres, G saved some lives by making the killer let live his friends. Also, it is maybe a bit optimistic but being 15 i think i should be, G had decided to go on another part of the wordl where bigger massacres and wars were happening, trying to think of a way to stop those, so maybe those 32 students died for G to find a way to help in Darfur.

The Rabbi's comment that "God also wept with us" really resonates with me. I have intuitively always felt that we have been given a gift in being born as part of God's creation & plan. The details of the plan may not be clear, but His objective in perfecting this world is. It's also clear to me that this process of perfecting the world unfortunately requires that suffering be allowed to take place. Whether it's required or not in God's recipe is unknown. But I accept that God allowing suffering to occur (as a consequence of free will) is necessary for this perfection; there is no other way. As such, while the process is difficult, God knows this and cries alongside us during these trials. The consolation perhaps is knowing that we are all truly part of his plan, and that good will ultimately come from it.

is this explanation good enough? If it is then the fammalies of these victims should be consoled to know that God loves them and their deceased children, and that is why he made them die. If he is omniscient he knew it was going to happen and if he is omnipotent he even made it happen. If he is benevolent he didn't want it to happen, but it di happen. The article states that this is a gift from God. That no matter how many are murdered it is worth it. What about the millions that have over centuries died due to earthquakes and natural disasters. These evils are not due to mankind rejecting good. These are acts of God. But i suppose we must concede that God loves us and allowing murder or even Him killing is just God acting in mysterious ways.

Very nice. Every time something like this happen People should ask Where were G-d's Commandmets instead? This masacre make me think what could have driven the young man to do that? The news said people around him made fun on him,loughed at him...Oh Oh WARNING(moking G-d's image is a very dangerous thing to do) Not nowing the Maker is a great mistake.If you don't know G-D's rules,Laws,Commandments, for life We should not say anything before the Almighty. G-D asked me son what is wrong with My Creation,Is there anything I did not do right in creation? I said "no, everything that thou created is perfect my LRD, there is nothing wrong in thy mesurement. It's just that we misunderstand Thee.

I find it disturbing when bad things happen & the explanation is G-d has given us free will. If we are created in G-d's image how can we be evil?
I believe in G-d & I realize I can't begin to comprehend G-d's ways. However, as a parent there are times when you have to allow your children to express his/her free will and suffer the consequences. But there are other times when you must interfere because the consequences are too great.
What I don't see is G-d's interference. Again I know the explanation is often that G-d's hand is often hidden. But, just like a parent at times has to be obvious when guiding a child perhaps if G-d's hand was more obvious we wouldn't behave so badly.
Obviously this is too long a discussion for here.

Mark G aught to, if he has the guts to speak to some Holocaust survivors & ask them where G-d was. Many will tell you he was with them & that's why they survived. Perhaps the hero of the Virginia massacure, the Israeli professor, perhaps this act is the reason he survived the Holocaust - to save his students. After 120 years he'll have to ask G-d that question.
Thanks for the article.

I was thinking a little more about what I wrote.
Perhaps you can say that they did not send out the email right away, because that would give them a bad name and not help too much anyway. Also to arrest people in teh estreet because there is a high security alert would also result in complaints. Therefore, I was thinking, tha twe see that The Ribonno Shel Olam, arranged a rather painless situation - in which there was no time for confusion and panic. Very often, confusion is the most painless thing. There are great lessons here I'm sure. These comments are not the only thing of course. But they carry meaning also. p.s., I don't know whaty I checked in two days ago, but if you do post any part of these comments, please don't include the name. Thank you
Keep up the great work!!

I needed to understand, once again, where God is when there is tragedy. This article was concise, clear and I absorbed every word and it brought me the understanding I needed. Thank you Rabbi.

The question is not: Where was God, but rather, Is God there? The answer is no. Any God that allows such senseless evil to occur is either evil himself and unworthy of worship, or absent from existence. Either way, worship is a waste of time. The 'free will' argument is a copout. If God is Omnibenevolent, then the existence of evil is inconsistent with God's nature. Evil exists (defined as gratuitous suffering), therefore what we typically think of as God, does not exist. Your prayers are in vain.

how can it be that we human beings have free will and then, at the same time, NOTHING (not even tragic events such as what happened at VA tech) happens without it being His will???

how is it that Hashem designs the reality of EACH AND EVERY individual person according to his/her particular needs and the needs for the rectification of His soul and that He CHANGES the things that are to happen according to a person's prayer, and belief in Him?

MY ANSWER: GOD DEFIES OUR LOGIC; HE IS NOT LIMITED BY AND THUS IS TOTALLY BEYONG RATIONAL LOGICAL UNDERSTANDING. HE IS ALL-POWERFUL- NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE OR INCONCEIVABLE FOR HIM; HE DOES NOT FUNCTION WITHIN THE CONSTRAINTS OF THE HUMAN MIND AND NATURAL LOGIC AS WE DO!

Sir, All the medical, scientific, psychiatric and psychological "discoveries" are attempts to prove the Biblical saying " the parents ate sour grapes and the childrens teeth are set on edge." It is a desperate last ditch effort to prove that evil does not exist. CNN played this murderer`s hate speech over and over again. There was nothing "mad" or crazy about it or his appearence. He was just consumed with hatred. His face distorted, contorted with the hatred that contort the faces of the Palestinian Arabs and other Muslims screaming "Death to Israel, death to America" and burning and destroying everything that they covet, but are incapable of achieving.
A pre-teen hacking through the throat of a man while the adults scream "Allah u Akbah" cutting peoples throats before TV cameras, hogtying people and slicing their bodies, including their private parts, hundreds of times? Somebody please tell me, do all these people have disfunctional frontal lobes?
All those who refuse to see the EVIL staring them in the face and refuse to call it what it is,"EVIL" but go looking for the "SOUR GRAPES" their parents ate, are responsible for the triumph of evil.

This country (U.S.) is in the process of tearing itself apart from within. Smoked for years and then got a heart attack? Sue the tobacco firms. Burn yourself with hot coffee, sue the restaurant. But take responsibility for our own actions, heaven forbid!

Cho had no business being on the campus. He had all of the indications that he had a mental disorder but the blasted Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) said that we can't hospitalize those who don't want to be hospitalized. All kinds of forewarnings from his childhood screamed "I'm in need of a lot of help. Please, someone help me before I do something." But our idiotic politically correctness says that we can't discriminate against someone who has a mental disorder.

That kind of thinking is made all the more by the morons who refuse to pay on an equal basis for physical and mental health.

No, we wait until the fuse is set aglow and people die because we certainly don't want to make anyone feel out of place.

Where was God? Shaking his head saying, "Here we go again. People will do terrible things and then ask where I was. What do they expect me to do?"

Did God know this was going to happen? Of course, but in his wisdom he doesn't interfere with the stupidity of mankind. After all, we've got free will, don't we?

Mankind wants free will but also wants a daddy to keep us from harm's way.
If I was God I would go off to a distant place in the Universe and say, "Let there be light."

Perspective is everything. If we believe the world works according to God's plan, we wonder why things malfunction. But if we believe there is NO grand plan and that like plants and animals (and I don't mean it derogatorily but in a sublime way), we are born and we die, then we find nothing questionable, we just keep moving on.

Perspective is everything.
We could mourn for the young 24 year old Virginia Tech student who was shot dead, and feel sad that she had a whole life ahead of her. Or we could celebrate the fact that she had 'at least' 24 years of life compared with the 5 year old kid diagnosed with leukemia and dying fast.

Perspective is everything. We could mourn the brave Professor and lament his death. Or we could celebrate the fact that he found such a wonderful use for his death.

Everyone who is born has to die some day. Period.

Great point

It's like on one side, we don't want bad things to happen, and on the side, we want free will. But if we have free will then we need to understand that both good and bad things will happen depending on what people choose.

but it's comforting to know that if something happens, G-d sets things right by giving martyrs blessings in the next world or giving them another chance at life in this one

God's Kindness and Wisdom is great..Far from taking revenge of peoples bad actions, gives First the opportunity of ''regreting'' and ''forgiving''' even by repeating bad actions, only one Chance is the last.Besides holding back the ''Evil''-the sometimes tremendous Evil..is a chance to test our faith.show to us his Almighty and Gifts at the end: The more you have suffered the more may be you will be rewarded..no matter in what way..Thus He gives us the opportunity of being architects of our destiny, and gives ''in proportion''.God means :Being tolerant and Fair..at the same time..as HE IS FAIR at the end....

Following every disaster (Virginia Tech, 9/11, etc.) come the inevitable stories of the individuals who would have been at the scene of the tragedy, but were spared by a fortuitously late train, a missed alarm clock, sixth sense, or the like.

It seems odd that such individuals, and their families, routinely praise the God that was looking out for them, without damning that same God for failing those who died, or suffered.

It seems that to theists, God is given a pass on what seems to me the absurd premise that the tragedy was due entirely to the gift of free will, something with which even an omnipotent God cannot interfere.
You can hardly turn a page of the bible without finding episodes in which God works miracles to resolve fairly modest grievances.

One wonders why this same God hasn’t pulled out this bag of tricks in the face of the holocaust, the Virginia Tech shootings, 9/11, (or any of a host of other hideous circumstances)?

Even if you believe that an omnipotent God couldn’t have interfered with the gunman's free will, don't you also believe that God can (or at least used to) interfere with inanimate objects? Why are you content to believe that an omnipotent God (who created the universe, parted the waters, turned staffs into snakes and burned magic bushes) couldn’t have made the gun jam?

It seems as if the posters and commentators here are laboring (and sweating visibly at that) to thank God for all that is good and to excuse him from all that is bad.

Of course one can define "A" as the subset of all things that are good and "B" as the subset of all things bad. If, as appears to be the case here, you equate subset "A" with God, that is fine, I suppose, but doesn't that seem quite inconsistent with the notion of an omniscient and omnipotent God.

The murderer had free will to kll the students. But they had no free will in being murdered.

I sometimes wonder when things like this happen if maybe there was Divine intervention that we did not see. Maybe 132 could have been killed. Only 32 were and we don't see the 100 that were saved. Why only 100 saved instead of 132? I have no clue. Only the Almighty knows. I just try to have faith that the Almighty knows best, although I have been known to ask, 'Could you please offer a logical explanation for this?!'

If God exists and is our Father - Avinu, than he is an absentee parent. In the real world he would be charged with child neglect.
The explanation of his absence would be viewed in family court as a copout.
If there is an Almighty God, than the only viable explanation for all that transpires is simply; we just don't have an answer as to why things happen the way they do.
An alternative explanation is that WE are the creators of our destiny. WE are responsible though or actions, in this and previous lives, for what happens to us. This is our previous lives' Olam Haba.

not infrequently we hear,"why do bad things happen to good people?"
Perhaps, We should also ask, Why do Good things happen to us bad people?"
If I am honest with myself I know that I have the potential to do, to speak, to think evil. It is only by the Grace of God that we are what we are and that we have any 'goodness' at all.

God is were he has slways been waiting to be invited into the situation. He gave us free will and when people decide to live outside of God devastation happens. It started in the garden someone decide not to follow what God said and do what pleased them I HATE when people use God as the fall guy (escape goat)! There is one God, one faith, one baptism, and one human race if we can get that concept in us.

Comment On Article: I agree that God is infinite and we are mortal and we cannot always understand the reason that God does things. Judaisim believes, that everything that God does in creation, is intertwined (cause and effect)with many other aspects of the world and we cannot just pull out one brick of the world, so to speak and only focus on that for all our answers. God does intervene, who has not expected something bad to happen and when it doesn't and we thank God and the same when something good happens to us. As we are not prophets, no one can answer exactly why question sure on for any given tragedy. Read books by Rabbi Avigdor Miller, Rabbi Yitzchock Kirzner,
Rabbi Dr. Abraham Twerski M.D., check out the Artscroll web site for some of the best books on judaisim and jewish philosophy, in english. All the Best !

Comment On Comments: Just because we don't understand or disagree in our mortal capacity with something that God does does not mean he doesn't exist.
It is true that there is holiness (don't get this confused with some
vague new age, secular humanist,touchy feely, power of the cosmos, energy source, subjective - all a jew needs to do is be some sort of nice guy and then he can do whatever he wants, and he is meeting all his jewish obligations) from God in everyone and therefore we need to watch our behavior. A jew is given torah and mitzvahs as the God created way to connect to him (not as some arbitrary rules of dos and dont's).
Again check out the Artscroll (Artscroll.com)or Feldheim web sites for some of the best publications on jewish thought. Hatzlocha Rabba ! Good Luck !!!

I was raised Jewish, but have not practiced any religion as an adult to qualify my next comments. What about the possibility that that there is not and never has been an almighty God looking down upon us, but that God is an energy of good that is in all of us. Where is the devil is an energy of evil that is in some of us. The VT killer had all evil in him and no good. The concept of God as an all powerful being has always been a difficult one for me to grasp. An older Jewish man once said to me that he thought God was the good in all of us, and that made the most sense to me.

As someone who has strong doubts concerning the existance of Gd but tries to live as if there is a Gd, I remain unconvinced by your argument. A rabbi with whom i am personally acquainted recently commented to me that he found the atheists' creed to be completely illogical. Respectfully, I don't see how your explanation could even begin to win over a doubter such as myself, let alone a non-believer.

Why didn't the powers-that-be at Virginia Teach remove the student from the university when all indications proved him unstable - for his own sake as well as the entire student body.
I consider them accessories to the crime and even more culpable than the student himself.

It is absolutly thruth that, the Almighty. Have a solution for any event
that overcomes our knowledge. And will never permit, evil obtein any spiritual benefits, in apparently dramatic situations. The Almighty will reward thouse people that have been sacrificed or massacred, by evils plans.

"To save one life is as if you have saved the world".
the Talmud

To Save One Life

Written in loving memory for,
Professor Liviu Librescu of Virgina Tech


The Heaven's proclaimed: "A man has sacrificed himself
so that others may live!"

G-d replied:
"There is more to it than that."

"How so?" asked the Heavens.

"Turn around" G-d said.

There upon Professor Levi ben Isidore, the man who
sacrificed himself for others, appeared.

"Why have you done this?" asked the Heavens.

The Professor spoke...

To save one life is to have saved the world
A sacrifice done no matter the pain that is hurled
And to love of others, more than ones own
Is the act of true wisdom only the bravest have known

To stand up to the conflict no matter the pain
To say, "I am the one to make the difference today"
To do so only because others did need
Shows man's image was created within the Highest of
creeds

Yet,

The sorrow and loss that the world must now know
Is that hatred and killing leaves the Garden unsown
And the Temple we long for gets pushed farther away
When we destroy G-d's Children day after day

For teaching is noble and learning divine
Within each of our moments our lives are defined
But no matter the pain in this life that is hurled
Living the lessons we teach show we are G-d's Great
Pearls
Just as saving one life saves a whole world
Just as saving life saves a whole world
Saving life saves a whole world.

and the Heavens wept....

In Lasting Memory,

Eric S. Kingston & Family

Eugeno, there are a billion wayts God could make something happen witouht disruputing free will. the person can choose, but not be successful, god can just make it totally inconvenient for Him to want to choose it, and he ahs the whole world at his Hands. But somtimes, as in this case, he was saying, God wanted to teach us that we're responisble. out of love.

I think this is an apt article and that HaShem is surely weeping with the friends & families of the victims.

At the same time, I wrestle with the idea that many of these people who commit this type of premeditated killing are suffering from mental and psychiatric disorders, such as psychotic depression, schizophrenia, and bipolar disorder and so perhaps were labouring under non-existent or highly damaged free will.

While it is possible and common for someone suffering from depression or bipolar to have insight into their own condition and so have some free will left, to allow them to resist doing something bad they may be tempted to do,
the hallmark of schizophrenia is a complete lack of insight into their own illness.

In cases like that of Andrea Yates, who heard voices telling her to kill her children, and went through with it),
saying the person ahd free will when they were obviously psychotic and lacking insight means the person DID NOT HAVE FREE WILL.

I suspect (because who could know) that the free will that HaShem was hoping would be exercised was that of the persons surrounding the shooter prior to him going to the Virgina Tech with the guns and ammo.

The reports I have read say that his friends noticed and were alarmed at his behaviour, but seem not to have known what to do. The people in his creative writing clas also were afraid he might act out his violence drenched stories and plays. I don't know if he lived at home but nowhere have I seen anything mentioned about his family being at all culpable - if he lived with them they must have noticed changes in his behaviour - and they would have been legally able to sign him in to a psychitric facility for observation and possible committment. He and his victims would still be here if someone had taken that decisive action. They and the doctors who saw him for depression should have signed him in
for a stay at the local psych hospital
and then people would still be alive.

I don't think it's just the shooter's responsibility in these cases of mental instability and obsessions with violence. It is everyone surrounding an unbalanced person's responsibility to use our functional freewill to intervene as much as possible and then HaShem will help us as he helped the Egyptian princess reach Moses in the floating baby basket, even if it was out of reach.

Because we're willing at least to try.

I have prayed to Hashem to not let the deaths of these 32 souls be in vain and that legislation prohibiting the sale of weapons to mentally unstable people be enacted and family members be required to send psychotic people in for assessment and that EVERYONE be tested for psychosis and psychopathy, as part of normal medical care, to prevent this sort of abominable thing from happening.

This did not have to happen. There are tests that can spot the kind of aberrant thinking, behaviour and beliefs that leads to this sort of violent crime. Tests like the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory or MMPI, can test for behavioural markers like "External Locus of Control" (where a person thinks others can make him do things, where a person's perception is that others have control over him and believes themself less able to exercise responsibility for their actions.)

Also SPECT studies can show damage to areas of the brain, as well as dysfunction within the brain that can lead to abberant behaviours. If someone has damage to certain parts of their frontal cortex, for example, they will have bad impulse control. In effect they are driving with faulty brakes - faulty ability to USE their free will.


If people were all tested parents and others could correct for such erroneous beliefs, and also brain damage and improperly functioning parts of the brain, which is what HaShem gave us to control much of our behaviour.

I am not saying for sure that the shooter was non compos mentos when he armed himself to the teeth, nor that he necessarily had a gummed up frontal cortex, but if he was, and or if he did, then, he would have had at worst no free will, at best impaired free-will to exercise at the time of the shooting.

Only HaShem knows these things now - but if tests were mandatory we could have known and stopped thisand similar cases, like that of Kimveer Gill in Montreal last year at Dawson College. he too had writings that were morbid and dark - there was time to stop these two demented young men from committing what they did. They both gave lots of warning but people either did not know what to do or did not try.

For more information on SPECT studies, see Daniel G. Amen, M.D.'s book, "Healing the Hardware of the Soul, how making the brain-soul connection can optimize your life, love, and spiritual growth" published by The Free Press (Simon & Shuster) 2002. ISBN: 0-7432-0475-1

Just like we do not question parents' actions when we are little, so it's absolutely foolish to question G-d for reasons why things happen. G-d is infinite and we are finite. If we find out an answer for half of the questions we have in life--Baruch Hashem. While we do ask G-d to intervene on our behalf, we do not pray to have Him intervene at our whim. Yes catastrophies are hard to explain emotionally. But clearly many of them are a direct result of G-dlessness of some people.

God also allows evil as a wake up call to stand against our moral decay.

Could it be that the Supreme Court of these United States was about to permit partial birth abortions. Did God remove his restraining hand on evil so that the slaughter of innocent victims on campus would wake them up to the same kind of slaughter they would be permitting only coming out of the womb.
Did the fear of God hit them and they changed their minds about having innocent blood on their hands and on our nation ???
Shalom and Blessings
Reg

Rabbi Blech has never spoken with God or received communiques from God & has no way of knowing if God intervenes, directly or indirectly, in the affairs of the world. In fact, not a single religious leader on the planet knows a thing about God other than what s/he has been taught to believe. To speak about God's role, or lack of one, in regard to the massacre at V.T.--or the impossible-to-fully-comprehend genocide we have agreed to call the Holocaust--is to pretend to know what can't be known by anyone, be s/he a brain-dead victim of disease or war-zone carnage . . . or another Einstein, Freud, Spinosa, Maimonides, or Vilna Gaon. Isn't it time for clergy of every religion to cease speaking for God--for the silent, unknowable, unmeasurable, & ever-elusive God?

If "God was in Virginia Tech", where was he during the Tsunami? In natural disasters, with tens of thousands killed, there is no room for "free will" anymore.

Rabbi Blech is correct: "The problem would be unanswerable if this world was the only place reward and punishment could find expression." But here and now in this realm of time and space we do have a choice: DEUT 30:19 "I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live:
DEUT 30:20 That thou mayest love the LORD thy God, and that thou mayest obey his voice, and that thou mayest cleave unto him: for he is thy life, and the length of thy days: that thou mayest dwell in the land which the LORD sware unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them."
Incidents of horror like Virginia Tech. reinforce our need to cling to the One loving God of all creation. It serves as a wake-up call to serve God in all sincerity. Forgive us and help us to follow you oh Lord with a true heart!

Moses needed help in convincing Pharo to "Let my people go". Did God not intervene on behalf of Moses and the Jews by sending ten plagues unto Egypt until Pharo decided that the "Jews' God was more powerful that his own? Were we not taught about God parting the Red Sea to allow the Jews to escape a masacre by the pursuing Egyptian army? Where was God's restraint by allowing mankind, the Egyptians, to choose good from evil?

To quote Rabbi Blech 'Could not God too find a way to intervene to save at least some of the 32 victims'
Could it be that God DID intervene and there may have been MORE than 31 victims? Just as He intervened in the Holocaust... remember, Hitler wanted to rid the world of ALL Jews... and he did NOT succeed. We do have the free will to obey or not obey God, but we also have the power to ask for His intervention.... that His will be done on earth as it is in heaven... Are we using that free will He gave us to intercede against the faces of evil on this earth?

eugeno,
You claim that if you you pray, g-d can
hear you and intervene and stop the edict. That's true some of the time. But Eugeno, who do you pray to? Let's say as a jew you pray to Hashem and everytime a jew prays he gets answered, right? What about a muslum or a christian? If they prayed would they get answered? if god would answer only jewish prayers or if g-d would answer everybody's prayers right away what kind of life would we have?! There would be no freedom of choice! Everyone would know that there is a g-d and if they would not behave there would be repercussions. Life as we know on earth could not exist in that fashion. It would not be life it would be torture!

Rebbe,

Might I humbly submit that you may be stretching terminology to interface with general and non-Jewish readers. The Satan itself is an angel [malawk] and is just as much a mindless instrument of the Almighty's will as we would be if we did not have free will -- which is the entire point of your article. Please, I understand that you are trying to reach the broadest audience, but please be careful not to blur the lines of Torah principles and of our beliefs.

Eugeno, we often pray for miracles but we are not guaranteed them. If the answer to every prayer was "yes.", the Almighty would be no more than a genie, and far less than a loving parent if he solved all His children's problems for them. A loving parent teaches a child how to find the solutions, he doesn't fill in the answers to the homework.

I am a christian, but I share with you the belief in one God,and the question is always asked of why God permits such bad things to happen, was very eniighting your expanation.Thank you!

I stronly believe that any student that is sighted as strange.& not scociable. Should be councled By the rules of the Univercity. It is in the best interest of the individual & all the people around him or her. AS I titled Who New?
If we whent by these rules maybe, Just maybe This might have not happend. No One can fortell the future. Mentle i'llness is an unstable problem in the human mined It's like Nitro Gliserin An unstable element that can blow anything to bits. My heart goes out the all the ffamilies of the studentd & Faclety members who were involved in the masacar. & last but not least To the family of the shooter.May G-D give them strenth & comfort in the yers to com.

Rabbi Blech, you disturb me. You have either created your own, or accepted someone else's, creation of G-d. Your excuses for G-d's apparent non-intervention and His tears shed are demeaning of Him.
Those of us who are sane can only treasure 'freedom of choice' without which our lives would be as interesting as the lives of other life forms i.e. feeding their hunger and thirst.
The loss of human life in its past history is enormous but viewed against the fact that today with over 6 billion on planet Earth who are able to find food, water, material for clothing and housing provided every day from the same Earth that previously with less than 1 billion population saw millions dying of starvation and other privations SHOULD SHOW THE AUDACITY of any human that would dare to ask 'Where was G-D?'

Dear Rabbi,

"Abel returned once more as none other then Moses."

What is/are the source(s) for this.

Thank you

I think Eugeno has a good point.But in Virgina Tech i really dont think they where "that" relgious.So they didnt really pray to g-d for good health etc?And in the holocaust if one jew does something bad then the other surffers from it.We are one.

you said that if people die before they should.They get another chance.But Ive studied in religious school in israel and one big rabbie ,dont remember who said that this generation nobody lives another life..this is the last generation before the end of the days,i am i wrong?So i do agree that a human has the right to choose between good and evil.But for the people who was murdered,they cannot enter anotherl ife in the future,because its the last generation.Maybe you can say that they needed to fix something in their previous life time,thats why it happeneD?

It's disgraceful that Virginia law didn't allow students and faculty to carry concealed handguns on campus.
If the Holocaust survivor or someone else had had a loaded handgun (or rifle), then likely there would have been fewer or even no deaths and injuries. I just renewed my N.R.A.
membership for 2 years. G-d bless America and support the 2nd Amendment.
This scenario very likely wouldn't have happened in Israel.

Sunday, 4/22/07

Whenever major tragedy of epic proportions involving people who kill innocent people as happened at Virginia Tech, the obvious, pressing questions involving God and God's hand, are emergent. If God is able to prevent tragedy or to mitigate our suffering, then surely this is why we pray, not just in praise of creation or our particular joys. However, the paradox exists that such massive tragedies keep happening. I just read what Einstein had to say about free will and that was, he did not believe in it. He was a determinist and he said his views of life and the universe are tempered by the awe he perceives in the massive and endlessly amazing order that exists. On the other hand he believed we must act in moral ways and exercise that "apparent" choice. Now Einstein was not alone in understanding that God is all knowing and that all that happens is known. I have heard many, many rabbis express this point of view. So, yes, there is a paradox here and a troubling one and much as I would like to believe in total free will, I don't. I also am experiencing a life of total visible synchronicity or connects which simply cannot be random. I am recording these things and parts of the Diary are now at The Hay Library at Brown University in the Mel Yoken collection. I invite others to determine if what I am experiencing could be random and if not, what does this say about free will and determinism? These are troubling and ongoing questions but not answered. I would also say that, perhaps, in order for this story, meaning the "greater story" that involves our lives here, maybe we freely gave up our "free will" to come down. I am saying that there is an issue and it is very deep and profound but no, I cannot believe we are puppets. Rather I believe this entire greater story is about love and that, as Anne Frank wrote so eloquently, "It will all come out all right in the end."
This does not excuse egregious acts on this planet and we must act according to moral precepts at all times.

The writer's assumption of the existence of an afterlife and reencarnation as a consolation for the tragedy of Virginia Tech, is of doubtfull validity.
The crueltyof this so called all powerfull entity make me wonder of it existence.

Everyone is given a certain level of free choice. For you R' Blech, murder is not part of your free choice - you would not kill. For this man it was also not part of his free choice - not to kill. Free choice, is when the playing field is fair, 50/50 chance of making the right choice. There was no 50/50 chance for this man, he had a mental illness. People who knew him, knew that something bad would happen. VT is not a good example to use as a lesson in Bchira.

God was living in the hearts of Professor Lebrescu and his assistant. Their classroom was the ONLY one with no dead student names printed in the newspapers. Professor Lebrescu lived with God. God lived in his heart. He made a split second decision to sacrifice himself to protect his students. His assistant likely didn't need to think either about doing the right thing.
My question is, why does the human refuse to slaughtered the innocents merit endless attention, and an innocent Holocaust survivor who had more than paid his dues in the world, and yet sacrificed his very life to save his students, not given more than passing comment by the Media?
Professor Lebrescu lived the Torah and the Talmud and was the highest example of choosing good with his God given free will.

If God prevented every mishap, every catastrophe then we'd be in Heaven - in the perfect world.

Daven so we may enter it soon.

A miracle that more weren't killed.
"Could not God too find a way to intervene to save at least some of the 32 victims?" Who says there weren't many others he did save. How about those that are in the hospital and did survive.

From the news reports I read there were so many signs that this man was crazy indeed! Perhaps if the choices we made as human being were different this wouldn't have happened. Why not look at ourselves rather then blame the Almighty? Let's start more sentences with "I" or "Me" rather then "You" or "Them". Let's take responsibility for our actions and stop blaming it on others.

God doesn't perform open miracles as he did in the past. We should daven more and be thankful for all of the wonderful miracles that he does perform, the miracles of saved lives, near misses that aren't all over the news. Only the things that did happen are on the news and then we blame God. This should be an eye-opening for what he does for us. It is our responsibility to prevent future shootings, future catastrophies. Baruch Hashem, the teacher survived the holocaust. He will enter Gad Eden with having saved lives. Thank God the world now knows how amazing Jewish people are that they would risk their own lives to save others. How much news time did that get?

Thank you. Please let's all daven more powerfully then the day before.

Your argument is all well and good, i.e. that God can, of course, intervene if He so chose to do so, but this would negate our free will etc.etc.

However, one of Maimonides 13 principles of faith is a belief in the coming of the Messiah - acting on God's behalf - where the nature of this world will supposedly be transformed. Justice will be meted out in this world and Free Will will no longer be possible.

The critique therefore remains valid. After the Shoah why should we have any confidence that the Messiah will come?

Rather - and with apologies to Maimonides - surely God created the world as it is - in a neutral state -with man's potential to either do good or do bad and He has left us to get on with it.

The Messiah is therefore mankind's choice to reject bad and do good and so when we ourselves eradicate evil within society, we can then be said to have achieved a messianic society, which God, from his vantage point, will approve of.

The free will argument falls apart for a number of reasons:
1. It assumes a world of suffering with free will would be preferable to a world without free will, yet without suffering.
2. God's utter inconsistency in when he likes to interrupt free will throughout biblical history. He destroys pharoh's free will and allows the Jews to walk free of Egypt, yet he turns a blind-eye to 6 million of us at a later point in history.
He floods the entire world, killing all of us (and hence taking away our free will). He punishes our free will, for example the woman turned into a pillar of salt for looking back on burning Sodom.

You cannot have it both ways, either God does not disrupt and stop suffering because of our free will, or he must stop it all the time. According to your article he can pick and choose which atrocities he intervenes with, guess he must have not considered the holocaust good enough grounds for a quick reduction in free will; a miracle if you like.

the heroic efforts of israeli dr liviu libresca in holding the door closed as others escaped -- G-d was in this ====== augustine e johnson, usa

WHEN WAS THE FIRST AND LAST TIME YOU HAD WORDS WITH G.......AND WERE GIVEN A REPLY.......?

"Sorry, sir, your logic is inconsistent with the way most of us address our interventional perceptions of god."

In his statement above - a Freudian slip perhaps - Eugeno reveals the crux of his problem with R' Benjamin Blech's comments, regarding the horrific tragedy which occurred last week at Virginia Tech.

The reason why Eugeno disagrees so adamantly with Rabbi Blech, is because he [Eugeno] worships a "god", and not the One and Only G-d, i.e., HaShem. As a result, Eugeno has a pagan philosophy, i.e., a perspective outside the pale of Torah. Consquently, Eugeno is oblivious to Torah truths, because of his self-imposed ignorance, and/or rejection of HaShem and His Torah.

I have to disagree with Eugeno, prayer and mankinds freewill to do evil are not incompatable. Yes, we pray, but do we not pray not that people will not make a decision, but that their plans will be thwarted or at least lessoned. For the students of Livui Librescu, another free will decision to do good saved their lives. Maybe it was G-d who granted him the strength to do that. Those whose lives were cut short by the free will of a mad man, will likely have another live. Sometimes, G-d acts through his messengers.... through people like Dr. Librescu.

God commissioned Liviu, to save the lives of his students. This was pre-determined By God many years ago. God preserved Liviu all his life for this one selfless, monumental act. Now count the lives lost, if not for God's intervention.
So you see, God was there.

Forgive me if I speak out of turn, but
it is my belief that God spared
Professor Liviu Librescu the horrors
of the Holocaust to save the lives of
his students on Yom Hashboah, 2007.
May his soul Rest in Peace.
Shalom.

A very good and true article.
What is your basis for the statement"just as Abel returned once more as none other than Moses."

Cho had the weapon.He had a chpoice to shott or not. BUT the students had no choice! G-d is not fair. Your wrong, Rabbi

We Americans are blessed with the 2nd Amendment: under The Constitution, we are allowed the choice to bear arms for our own self-defense [one nation, UNDER GOD....]. If just ONE, only ONE student, had in his or her backpack, a legal, right-to-carry pistol; then he or she could have stopped the psychopath BEFORE HE FIRED HIS FIRST SHOT.

Sorry, I don't buy the where was God? anxiety bit. I, you, we, all have the right to choose Life or Death, in circumstances like this. Yes: choose your future actions: become firearm- educated, become firearm - wise, become firearm responsible, and stop hate criminals before they kill you and your loved ones.

This, as well as explanations of where God,was ath the time of the Holocaust,
are typical copouts, with the convoluted
plots. With, or without God, It was "evill", perpetatrd by men, on innocent men.There is no explanation or justification for such events.

I disagree with "eugeno", as there is nothing wrong with the writer's logic. The problem IS: How could anyone have known *in advance* what was going to happen at VTech unless they had some prophetic foreknowledge? How could anyone have imagined this would have happened beforehand and then prayed for G-d to intervene and therefore stop it??

In the local paper, it was said that the young man who killed his peers and himself PERFECTLY fit in with a "mass killer" profile. Nothing was done to help him when all the signs were there.

In addition, and most frustratingly to me since I have been the target of bullying myself, parents do nothing....absolutely NOTHING to stop bullying, which is the absolute cause of acts like Columbine and VTech. I say parents because it is not the school's job to instill respect and kindness in children...it is the PARENT'S. American parents are too busy buying their kids $200 IPods and cell phones to be worried about HOW their children are getting along with others at school. And once they are independent and in college...it's way too late.

The signs and causes were THERE, and people consistently ignored them. It wasn't a time to pray in my humble opinion, it was time to reach out and nip the problem in the bud.

I'm not certain I agree with your conclusions. As a physician, I am trained to help people. Our technology and general advancement of knowledge enables us to do greater good than otherwise would have been possible. We have the capacity to use this information for good or evil. This is the gift we have been given. G-d also has choices. There are times when mankind cannot be left to his own devices. Now seems to be one of those times.

When praying to god, don't we ask god to intervene with the free will of others than ourselves in order for the prayer to be answered?

In an "answered" prayer, if god can intervene in an ordinary petition(note our expression of a fulfilled prayer, "thank god,") then why is it too much to expect god to intervene in major catastrophes such as Holocaust, Darfur, Rawanda, Columbine and Virginia Tech?

Sorry, sir, your logic is inconsistent with the way most of us address our interventional perceptions of god.