Reflections on the Pigguah

By Charlie Carnow


G-d replied [to Moses] "There is a man who will arise many generations in the future, his name is Akiba b. Yosef. He will exegetically infer mound upon mound of halakhot (laws) from each and every tittle."

He [Moses]returned to G-d and said, "Master of the Universe, you have a person like this and [still You choose to] give the Torah through my hands?" G-d replied, "Silence! This is according to My plan."

Moses said, "Master of the Universe, you've shown me his teaching (Torah), show me his reward." G-d said, "Turn [backwards and you may see it]. Moses turned around and beheld [the Roman torturers] weighing his [Akiba's] flesh on the market scales. He said to God, "Master of the Universe, that was his Torah and this is his reward!?"

G-d said, "Silence! This is according to My plan" (Babylonian Talmud, Menachot 29b, translation, Visotzky).


     As eight young students of Torah lie dead, I could only think of this narrative in the Talmud, and our concept of G-d implied by the story. In those day the sages asked, how could Akiba, a man who dedicated his late life to the task of spreading the wisdom of the Torah, suffer such a hideous fate? Despite the danger brought by Roman domination of Eretz Yisrael and their decree against Torah study, Akiba declared that a Jew could not live without Torah.  He compares the Jews to fish; just as fish in a raging stream could not survive without water, a Jew cannot survive without continuous growth in his Torah studies. How could a man who believed that redemption would soon come to the Jewish people and who trusted completely in G-d, end his life with his flesh being raked by the Romans, as he sang the shema?

    Today, how can 8 students learning in a yeshiva, only in their late teens, be gunned down as they pursued their religious studies in a place that for the first time in two millia, operates under Jewish sovereignty? If G-d does not slumber or sleep, as stated in Pslams, where was He when these eight students were gunned down in the middle of a holy act by a man who believed he was doing the will of G-d? Why religious murder, why suffer it in Jersualem, Tel Aviv, and Hevron and in every place where the religious doctrine and hostile impulse have been used to justify the destruction of human life?

    One point where G-d addresses this problem lies in the book of Job. Job was a righteous man who lost everything in life and complained to G-d about this injustice. G-d fiercely responded to him, "Who is this who darkens counsel, speaking without knowledge...Where were you when I laid the earth's foundations, speak if you have understanding." It is in this answer, and in the answer of G-d to Moses, that we realize that there is no answer.

    And another question, why an impulse for prayer at a time when G-d was, at first glance, not apparent? Jewish communities throughout the world, including the Jewish community at USC, gathered from all faces of the Earth to pray for the families in mourning.  The solution may be because we have with no answer to that question and must rely on faith.  It makes me remember a never-ending paradox: though all is foreseen, man has free will to change the world he inhabits. Like those by the Yeshiva who ran to act that day, preventing the terrorist from causing more harm to the young boys, we must charge with action. We might study for our brothers who cannot absorb their minds with Torah thoughts any longer. As suggested at the memorial service, while we do what little we can to ease the burdens of those families who have become victims of terror, through our support, the question of why good people suffer has no answer because we can not bring our brothers back.

    Rav Kook, the founder of the Mercaz Harav yeshiva said, "The purely righteous do not complain about evil, rather they add justice. They do not complain about heresy, rather they add faith. They do not complain about ignorance, rather they add wisdom. " None of us can claim to be purely righteous, but why not committ to his dictum?  It will not bring our brothers back, but it may open a window and  bring light to this broken world. May the memory of the fallen, Neria and Segev, Avraham and Yehonatan, Ro'i and Yohai, and Yonadav and Doron, be a blessing, and may our pursuit of this question and the questions of our Jewish faith honor their memory forever.

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