{"id":1970,"date":"2014-12-30T10:42:32","date_gmt":"2014-12-30T15:42:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ramchal.wordpress.com\/?p=1970"},"modified":"2014-12-30T10:42:32","modified_gmt":"2014-12-30T15:42:32","slug":"theodicy-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/2014\/12\/30\/theodicy-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Theodicy (3)"},"content":{"rendered":"

The point that will made over and over again later on that the righteous will get their just reward in the Afterlife is first stated in the Sifre<\/em> (53) [28].<\/p>\n

The Babylonian Talmud (Berachot<\/em> 7a) argues that righteous people who suffer do so because their parents weren\u2019t righteous, so they (the righteous children) pay that price — when the children have followed their parents\u2019 examples to one degree or another, that is; and that the wrongful who do well do so because their parents were righteous, so they (the wrongful children) reap that benefit — when they too have followed their parents\u2019 examples to one degree or another. As such its point is that things are not always what they appear to be, and that while some may seem to be righteous or wrongful, they aren\u2019t often or fully so, and that there are other factors to take into account.<\/p>\n

Elsewhere the Babylonian Talmud (Shabbat<\/em> 30b) agrees with the Sifre<\/em>\u2019s reference to the reward in the Afterlife but adds that one would in fact prefer his punishment in this world to the one he\u2019d otherwise have to suffer in the Afterlife, so one shouldn\u2019t raise the issue of how \u201cunfair\u201d suffering can be.<\/p>\n

And finally it indicates (Ta\u2019anit<\/em> 11a) that point of the matter is that the righteous suffer in the world because of the minor sins they\u2019d have committed (though they\u2019ll be rewarded accordingly in the Afterlife), and the wrongful are rewarded in the world because of the few good things they did (though they\u2019ll be punished accordingly in the Afterlife). This doesn\u2019t seem to explain exceptional<\/em> \u201cunderserved\u201d this-world reward or punishment, but perhaps the case can be made that it would seem to imply that some Afterlife reward or punishment will be exceptional too.<\/p>\n

Footnotes:<\/p>\n

[1]\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 What\u2019s interesting there is the characterization of the people who point out that the righteous often suffer in this world as people who \u201cfold their arms (over their chest)\u201d in underserved satisfaction, thinking they\u2019ve made a profound and original point, when they\u2019ve not.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

(c) 2014 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman
\nFeel free to contact me at feldman@torah.org<\/a><\/p>\n

———————————————————-<\/p>\n

AT LONG LAST! Rabbi Feldman’s translation of Maimonides’ “Eight Chapters” is available here<\/a> at a discount.<\/p>\n

You can still purchase a copy of Rabbi Feldman’s translation of “The Gates of Repentance” here<\/a> at a discount as well.<\/p>\n

Rabbi Yaakov Feldman has also translated and commented upon “The Path of the Just” and “The Duties of the Heart” (Jason Aronson Publishers).<\/p>\n

Rabbi Feldman also offers two free e-mail classes on www.torah.org entitled “Spiritual Excellence<\/a>\u201d and \u201cRamchal<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The point that will made over and over again later on that the righteous will get their just reward in the Afterlife is first stated in the Sifre (53) [28]. The Babylonian Talmud (Berachot 7a) argues that righteous people who … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1970","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-kabbalah-jewish-thought-ramchal-torah-hashkafa"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1970","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1970"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1970\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}