Re: because of mixed dancing

[Robert Cohen <rlcm17...>]

Though I, too, winced at the foolish and rather obnoxious statement 
regarding the supposed cause of the wedding hall disaster, I must humbly 
respond to sister Lori's post here.  For the fact is that a cosmology of 
"cause and effect"--or, as it is usually referred to, reward and 
punishment--is very much a part--a basic part--of normative traditional 
Judaism.  (Read the second paragraph--after the "V'auhavtau" 
paragraph--following the Shema.)  Obviously each of us believes what (s)he 
believes (or tries/struggles to), and this belief in particular is very hard 
for many of us Baby Boomers to subscribe to.  But to simply dismiss it as 
Lori does is, I think, highly inappropriate in a Jewish context.

That being said, I certainly share Rabbi Lau's belief--he seems, btw, to be 
a rather good-hearted man--that expressing this speculation (that the 
disaster resulted from mixed dancing at the wedding) was inappropriate and 
wrong--and I would add, even thinking it, in a sense, is wrong.  Because:

1) A secondary but important reason (for not saying it) is that his words 
caused pain, and one's words should carefully be chosen to comfort mourners, 
not increase their pain.  This may have been Rabbi Lau's rationale, though 
obviously I don't know that.

2) An even more profound reason, I believe, is that although Judaism may, 
and indeed (however problematically for some of us) does believe in reward 
and punishment, the way in which that plays out in this world (and/or the 
next?) is by definition in G*d's hands, and utterly beyond our 
understanding.  To assert that one knows that B resulted from A (aside from 
being an instance of logically fallacious reasoning by converse) is the 
utmost arrogance--just as it is arrogant to assert, as others have in other 
discussions here, that one knows what G*d wants or how G*d works.  The rabbi 
who made this statement was, I believe, essentially denying, in that 
statement, the existence of a G*d whose workings are beyond our 
comprehension--which is the only G*d Judaism knows.

In response to such a catastrophe, I believe, it's foolish as well as 
arrogant to assert that one knows why it happens--and also foolish to 
dismiss any such possibility as ludicrous (though I understand why one would 
wince from this particular explanation, as I did).  The Jewish-wisdom 
response to the question why (in a spiritual sense) this, or any such 
disaster, occurs (aside from the rigorous investigation that is obviously 
needed, in a society that actually sets itself up for this sort of buildings 
accident) is what one of my own rebbes frequently said about many things we, 
and he, don't understand:

Who knows?

--Robert Cohen


>From: MaxwellSt (at) aol(dot)com
>Reply-To: jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org
>To: World music from a Jewish slant <jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org>
>Subject: Re: because of mixed dancing
>Date: Sat, 2 Jun 2001 10:51:38 EDT
>
>Then it makes you wonder what the Satmar Rabbi did wrong to incur the
>punishment of losing his daughter and granddaughter to a fire, caused by
>lighting yontif candles....
>
>There are those people who see the world in terms of cause and effect.  
>They
>wear very tight, smug little glasses.  They are not deeply loved except by
>their own fanatical followers.

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