Olmert’s Cancer and the Propriety of Linking Punishment With Sin

Elliot Resnick writes:

Rav Shlomo Aviner said that one may not state that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert developed cancer because of his present or future policies regarding Jerusalem, the settlements etc.

He said that man does not know the reasons of the Almighty and that, after all, everyone knows that bad things happen to good people and vice versa.

Furthermore, he said, by blaming Olmert’s illness on his policies one is committing the sin of distressing a fellow human being.

Finally, he recognizes that the motivation of linking Olmert’s illness to his policies may be noble, for it may inspire people to repent for their own misdeeds. However, he makes the astonishing claim (forgive my language) that "this generation will not repent out of fear. This generation will only repent out of love. This is all explained by our Master, Rav Kook…."

I have a hard time knowing where to begin.

Identifying sin where one sees punishment is so basic to Judaism that I find it difficult seeing people pretend that doing so is wicked. The Ohr HaChayim famously said that the Jews of Spain were expelled in 1492 because they devoted too much time to the study of secular philosophy. During the Holocaust, many rabbis wrote letters in which they prefaced their description of current events with the phrase "ba’avonoseinu harabim — because of our many sins."

Many are the stories kids read growing up of the evil person who raises his hand to strike a tzaddik only to to discover his hand paralyzed in mid-air. Are we to suppose that his paralysis is unrelated to his sin of raising a hand to a holy man? Are we supposed to make no inference one way or the other?

Yes, bad things happen to good people, but that is a question (and an exception), not the rule.

Making a personal declaration to an ordinary person that he or she is suffering because of this or that sin seems cruel. However, Olmert is not an ordinary person; he is the prime minister of Israel, representing the Jewish nation to the whole world. Surely different rules apply.

Rav Aviner’s final assertion that people only repent out of love is staggering. Does he not know a whole array of people who repent for all sorts of reasons? Rebuke worked for thousands of years but mysteriously works no longer? Every mussar shmuess worthless? God’s tochacha (in Leviticus and Deuteronomy) no longer effective?

I do not know whether Olmert developed cancer because of his policies. The issue doesn’t terribly interest me.

I do know, however, that tampering with Yerushalayim is playing with fire, and that letting portions of God’s mountain (Har HaBayis) be destroyed by Muslim bulldozers probably does not ingratiate one with God either.

I also know that, Olmert aside, seeing God’s hand in current events is straight, traditional Judaism. If people wish to move away from this tradition, let them at least first acknowledge it. Don’t pretend it doesn’t exist.