Thursday, January 25, 2007

Ta'anis 18b - G-d's Executioner

Famous question of Rambam (Teshuva 6:5) - Why did g-d punish mitzraim, they acted as his agents to make the Jews suffer. Rambam says that Hashem was gozer on the nation not an individual. Ramban (lech licha 15:14) says that they were more oppressive than Hashem's decree. The Ra'avad says that in the larger plan G-d always uses wicked people to carry out wickedness and then punishes them for the wickedness they carried out. The Ramban also echoes this idea (although he doesn't seem to use it as an explanation for mitzrayim) "if it is decreed against a man on Y.K. to be killed, the thieves who murder him have cannot defend themselves by saying they did what was decreed against him, bec. although the victim was killed for his sin, his blood will be revenged from the killer".
The source of this yesod is the story of Turaynos. Lulaynos and Papus say to him that we are guilty of dying for our sins. Nevertheless, our blood will be revenged and you will be punished for being G-d's agent to murder us.

2 comments:

Yossie Schonkopf said...

http://audio.simpletoremember.com/tatz/How-Ones-FreeWill-Affects-Others.mp3

a facinating shiur related to this topic by Rabbi Tatz. Interesting, he mentions there a halachic source with a real case concerning how one mans free will can effect others.

Yossie Schonkopf said...

you can download the shiur by going to the site
http://www.simpletoremember.com/audio/Rabbi_Akiva_Tatz.html