Disclaimer: The opinions expressed here are that of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of the Union for Traditional Judaism, unless otherwise indicated.
Over one year COVID-19 has caused a worldwide loss of $80 billion in Gross Domestic Product and the loss of more than three million lives, according to reliable estimates. Nonetheless, the most momentous year for natural disasters measured by both frequency and severity was the period between December 2004 and November 2005. In late December 2004 an Asian tsunami killed more than 220,000 people in fourteen countries, making it one the deadliest natural disasters in recorded history. In August 2005 Hurricane Katrina ravaged New Orleans and the surrounding areas, causing $125 billion in damage and leaving tens of thousands of residents stranded or homeless. And in October 2005 a massive earthquake rocked Kashmir resulting in 90 thousand dead, 138 thousand injured, and 35 million homeless.
To compassionate observers, the scope of the casualties was profoundly tragic. But to those who believe in the goodness of an omnipotent God, the catastrophic loss of lives and property was unconscionable. How is it possible that a caring and all-powerful God would allow for the death and destruction of innocents?
For some contemporary rabbis the answer was clear: naturals disasters are punishment from God for human wrongdoing. According to Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel Shlomo Amar, the 2004 tsunami was punishment from God for baseless hatred, lack of charity, and moral turpitude. And according to Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef, Hurricane Katrina was punishment from God for an absence of devotion to Torah study. These eminent scholars are not theological outliers. Rather, they are representative of stream of Talmudic thought that holds that: “There is no death without sin; and there is no suffering without wrongdoing.” What is left for Jews to do is not question God’s goodness (which is beyond reproach) or God’s power (which is absolute) but to discover the sin the disaster was intended to punish.
Accordingly, Rabbi Noson Leiter ascribed Hurricane Sandy in 2012 to the acceptance of same-sex marriage, Rabbi Moshe Sternburch ascribed the 2015 earthquake in Nepal to improper conversions to Judaism, and, most recently, Rabbi Lazer Brody connected COVID-19 with Sabbath desecration or assimilation. Other rabbis in the Haredi world connected COVID-19 to immodest dress. And even the otherwise rationalist Rabbi Natan Slifkin ascribed COVID-19 to the “sin” of humanity’s failure to take proper precautions against such viruses.
Not all Jewish thinkers attribute death and suffering to sin. The Babylonian Talmud includes at least thirteen other explanations. Among them is the simple recognition that suffering and death are the way of the world. Thus, contemporary Rabbi Dr. Ralph Zarun, dean of the London School of Jewish Studies, rejects the idea that COVID-19 is punishment for sin, explaining that: “it is what it is.” Instead of identifying the sin at work, the pandemic should compel humanity to shift perspective and do some self-examination. Rabbi Shlomo Aviner sees the pandemic restrictions as a benefit: lockdowns bring families closer together. Rabbi Israel Ba’al Shem Tov, the founder of Hasidism, and his successors, earlier stressed the idea that even in evil there is good. The same notion surfaces in the writing of Rabbi Jonathan Sacks who wrote in 2005 that all natural disasters remind us of our vulnerability and encourage us to “rescue a blessing from a curse.”
Historically, natural evils (like tidal waves, earthquakes, and disease) were far less a concern for Jewish theologians than moral evils (like murder). Consideration of natural evils is largely absent from the Bible or Rabbinic literature. Rabbis were more concerned with addressing the legal problems resulting from physical impairments like blindness than theologizing on their origins. Moses Maimonides concedes the existence of natural evils but is far more interested in human misconduct. Concern over natural evils in a world presumably created by a beneficent God re-emerges in the early modern period. Spinoza, for instance, would explain that the laws of heredity that govern the natural world cause birth defects, rather than impute them to the impotence or cruelty of God. And Rabbi Harold Kushner would argue that natural laws, not God’s will, that is at work in the world.
That there is no consensus among Jewish thinkers on how to approach natural evils in general or COVID-19 in particular is not surprising. After all, there are precious few – if any – ideas with which all Jews agree. Neither is the absence of a consensus worrisome. Quite the contrary: it shows the vibrancy of Jewish theology in trying to cope with matters of ultimate concern. Further, the ardent attempt to account for evil in the world reveals the fundamental Jewish concern for the values of justice and goodness and the drive to pursue them.
Rabbi Wayne Allen, Ph.D. is the author of Thinking About Good and Evil: Jewish Views from Antiquity to Modernity (JPS, 2021). You can see a video with Rabbi Allen discussing this book here. Further biographical information is below.
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Born and raised in New York City and currently a resident of Toronto, Rabbi Wayne Allen has blended a career of service to the Jewish community as an ordained rabbi with his academic pursuits. Rabbi Allen is recognized as an expert both in Jewish law and in 18th century British moral philosophy. The books he has written and those he has edited are distinguished by the inclusion of philosophical analysis and historical context, adding an extra dimension to the more traditional forms of responding to questions on Jewish practice. He is a panelist for Jewish Values On-line, an Internet site devoted to providing authoritative answers to questions on Jewish life.
Rabbi Allen has traveled extensively and has led groups to Europe and Israel, lecturing beforehand on the history of the communities to be visited. He has served as a faculty member at the American Jewish University where he taught Jewish law, at California State University Long Beach where he taught the History of Modern Jewish Thought and Zionism, and at the University of Waterloo where he taught Theology After the Holocaust. He has also been invited as a guest lecturer at York University in Toronto and at the Pardes Institute in Jerusalem.
Rabbi Allen has served as a scholar-in-residence at synagogues in St. Louis and Ottawa and currently teaches at the Community Hebrew Academy of Toronto where he serves as chairman of the Rabbinics Department.
Samples of Rabbi Allen’s teaching are accessible on his website, www.rabbiwayneallen.ca.
Rabbi Allen's published books, available from the UTJ Bookstore are: