hello my dear fellow classmates,
so today we learned that the reason why god destroyed the world by bringing the Mabul was that the people didn't act Bezelem Elokim and didn't follow the hierarchy of the world. Then we learned how the reality of the people changed after the Mabul. After the Mabul, their commandments and Hashems expectations of them were stated instead of simply implied and assumed. Before the Mabul, there was an assumed morality that Hashem had for the people and he therefore never stated his expectations from them in a straightforward manner. Clearly, the people didnt have this assumed morality and were therefore sinning. My question is the following: is it fair that god decided to destroy the world because the people sinned if their sin wasn't truly "their fault" since they were never told to not act in such a manner? If one is never educated and its just assumed that he should know the information is it fair to expect him to know the information.
That is a wonderful question! I guess God saw that his implied morality did not work therefore he had to start all over, like when you teach something to someone assuming he knows certain material, but once you realize he does not you have to put him in a lower class and teach it to him. I dont understand why God just put those commandements in right then, instead of killing everyone off and then putting the morals in as obvious, but it is possible that people were already so used to their ways and filled with that negative part that it was not worth it.
ReplyDeleteCarmit I think that is a really good question. It doesn't seem fair to punish people for something they didnt know. And I liked what Sharon said how Hashem had to start over- it reminded me of what happened in the midbar when Bnei Yisrael just were not capable of going into Israel and as a natural consequence rather than a punishment, they had to wander in the midbar for 40 years in order to create a new generation that would not have the slave mentality so that they could thrive in Israel. I guess we see a pattern here that sometimes it is not a punishment but a natural consequence so Hashem has to literally start over.
ReplyDeleteCarmit-
ReplyDeleteI've been asking myself these questions a lot in Chumash lately. For example, with Chava how does is she supposed to know not to follow the snake and that the snake is bad? Could it be that G-d saw that even with commandments the people would sin, so He just killed them anyways? Doesn't that get rid of a person's free choice? This is something that is hard to fathom, and I would be interested in learning more about this topic. However, I have come to accept the fact that we cannot understand everything that G-d does.