TESTS FROM GOD—WHY?

Fitting in to our previous discussions of providence, particularly of how it could be that misfortunes befall people who are apparently righteous, Rambam raises the issue of a nisayon, a trial from God. His contemporaries, apparently, explained such trials—situations where God places someone in a difficult situation—as God setting that person up for greater reward later on. In this view, the person in no way deserved the trial, but God brought it upon him or her anyway.

Rambam notes that such a view runs counter to the verse that declares God a "God of faithfulness and lacks iniquity (‘el emunah ve-ein `avel). A God who would trouble the innocent for no good reason would not match that description. Further, he notes a statement of Hazal that says "there is no death without sin and no suffering without iniquity (ein mitah be-lo het, ve-ein yisurim be-lo `avon—all right, I admit, I had to look that one up). If so, it is impossible to believe that there is undeserved suffering which will be rewarded later.

In looking up that statement of Hazal, I noticed that they eventually reject that statement. R. Ami, an amora, made the original declaration, but the gemara eventually finds a Mishnaic source that refers to people who died be-etyo shel nahash, as a result solely of what happened with the serpent in Gan Eden. If the statement is rejected, why does Rambam cite it as support for his view? I suspect that Rambam believes that while it might be rejected as a blanket statement about death (and even perhaps about suffering), it still expresses a view that Hazal follow in the large majority of cases, so Rambam felt able to cite it as partial support.

TRIALS AS WAYS OF UNCOVERING INFORMATION

Rambam goes on to note, however, that the common view is also not the most reasonable understanding of the word nisayon. Generally, a test or trial is for the purpose of discovering something about the person being tested—his or her understanding of a topic, faith, or whatever. In our cases that would suggest that when God tries people, it is in order to find out if they really are as faithful as they seem. So, for example, God "tried" Abraham to find out if he really would be willing to sacrifice his son to him.

The problem with that view, which should be obvious to those who have been following Rambam’s views here in the third section, is that God is omniscient, so that He should not need to find out whether we are really faithful, etc. In fact, Rambam’s view is that there is no change in God, so that it is meaningless to discuss God’s "finding out" anything. Once again, therefore, Rambam has to find some reasonable explanation for the notion of a trial or test.

THE FREEWILL/OMNISCIENCE PARADOX AGAIN

As an aside, I would note that the notion of freewill would suggest that there might be information that God does not have about a person. If people really have freewill, they might act differently than God "knows" they will, making the results of a test less predictable than Rambam pretends. In that sense, and without defining God’s knowledge, since Rambam has already declared it impossible, I could imagine God "testing" people to see whether they will in practice live up to ideals they have carried internally in theory. In fact, I believe there are Midrashic sources that refer to a test as a potter banging his pots to test how strong they are, but only banging them hard enough to reveal their strength. That would have been an option here, but not the one Rambam took, perhaps because of his commitment to strict omniscience and the unchangeable nature of God.

TESTS TO TEACH OTHERS

Rambam’s primary answer—true of all the tests in the Torah except for the man (the manna, the special food God rained down for the Jews in the desert), which we will get to in a moment—is that a test is really there to demonstrate something to other people (not, apparently, to the people involved, although I will have more to say about that later as well). To use his first example, the test of a false prophet, someone who urges the Jews to worship other gods and performs miracles to support his contention, is to show the nations of the world the Jews fidelity to God. Seeing miracles and yet holding fast to faith feels, perhaps, like a test for those Jews, but is actually intended to teach a lesson to those who see the Jews’ reaction to this person.

The giving of the Torah is now a trial along the same lines. After God speaks to the entire people, they approach Moshe, unable to bear the direct Divine voice, and Moshe says that God did it to test whether they love God or not. Rambam expalains the passage as meaning that God wanted the Jews to be able to distinguish the original matan Torah, where they actually heard the Voice, from later incidents. Had the question of balancing Torah law against later (false) prophets been simply a question of whether Moshe beat out someone else (and a name clearly springs to mind), many people might choose the later name, the false prophet. Events at Sinai were calculated to demonstrate, once and for all, that we did not hear Moshe’s report of a Divine Voice, we experienced the Voice itself, as a legacy for all time. Once again, the trial is there to teach others (later generations of Jews as well as non-Jews) the falsity of all prophets who preach against Torah law.

A TEST TO BENEFIT US LATER

There is, however, one time that the Torah seems to explicitly define a test as for the purpose of providing a later benefit to people. Regarding the man, the Torah says that God provided the Jews with the man to try them. In terms of a trial, Rambam can easily explain the purpose of the man—it demonstrates to all religious communities that those who devote themselves exclusively to service of God will receive their sustenance in a non-natural way.

When the man first comes down, Rambam notes, God says that it is to test whether the Jews will follow the Torah or not. There, too, however, Rambam explains that as teaching the Jews a lesson, the sufficiency of service of God, that if they serve Him they will be physically taken care of, etc.

But the Torah also says that the man was to try us to benefit us in the end, a concept Rambam has firmly rejected. Here, Rambam suggests either that it continues the same trend as before—that knowing that serving God can provide physical sustenance and relief from fatigue, etc., is a benefit we get from that experience. Alternatively, he suggests that the word nasotekha means to accustom, which he proves from a phrase elsewhere in the Torah.

If the verb can mean to accustom, he explains, the trials of the man were to get the Jews used to a lower standard of living in the desert, which would benefit them in the contrast to the comfortable lives they would later enjoy when they arrived in Erets Yisrael. As Rambam notes, it is better for people to have ups and downs in their quality of life, since if they are always well off, they will not fully appreciate the goodness in their lives.

THE WEAKNESS OF THE INTERPRETATION

For all that Rambam has claimed that trials are always to teach lessons to others—and we’ll get to Aqedat Yitshaq, the Binding of Isaac, in a moment—the verse about the man presents a problem he does not seem to have fully solved. Especially if we accept the possibility that the man was to help the Jews appreciate the Land of Israel more fully, it seems uncomfortably close to the theory that God sometimes gives misfortunes to people in order to reward them at the end.

I would suggest, perhaps, that Rambam really meant to combine the two—the man teaches a lesson about complete service of God, that it will lead to God giving food to sustain that person. On the other hand, that food contrasts with the natural food they can get in the Land of Israel by working that Land. If so, the man taught two lessons at the same time: the theoretical possibility of being supported completely by God, and the greater comfort (in a positive sense) of working the Land ourselves. If that were true, the Jews would enter the Land of Israel aware of the need to balance their service of God and their working of the Land; the proper balance will insure blessings such that their food situation is taken care of, yet by working the Land themselves they will live in the greater comfort the experience of the desert was there to make them appreciate. As with so much of this section, though, I note that this is my thought as to how to strengthen what seems like a weak section of the chapter.

THE LESSONS OF THE AQEDAH

In what sense, then, was the Aqedah teaching others a lesson? Rambam says it teaches two lessons, one about fear and love of God, since it was clear to the whole world that Abraham placed service of God even ahead of his clear connection to Isaac, the son he had longed for for so many years. Interestingly, Rambam imagines that the three days journey to Har HaMoriah was a time for Abraham to reflect and consider what he was about to do, thus demonstrating to people that he had not hastily slaughtered his son, but after considering the action carefully, he nonetheless decided to do so.

Second, the Aqedah teaches that prophets are absolutely certain of the information they receive in their prophecy. Rambam has earlier said that he thinks prophecy is not a fully rational experience, but involves the imagination as well, stirring up a vision that is the prophecy. Nowadays for sure, if someone had such a vision, they would (if they were in their right mind) hesitate to act upon it, particularly if the vision called for them to do something apparently immoral. The point of Abraham’s trial was to demonstrate to all that prophets are so sure of the reality of their vision, that they are willing to act on it even at great personal loss. (In the insanity of modern society, this point perhaps does not sound as valuable as Rambam saw it, since we have heard of many people confidently acting out their visions, even to the point of suicide; nevertheless, that’s what Rambam says).

DOES THE PERSON ALSO LEARN FROM THE TRIAL?

Rambam does not discuss whether the person involved in the trial learns anything. For example, did Abraham learn from the Binding—were his horizons expanded in any way? If not, then Rambam’s explanations haven’t helped all that much, since God is using an innocent person, making that person suffer through difficult times as an object lesson to others. I suspect, and prefer to believe, that the subject of a trial also learns from the experience---perhaps that person learns about the strength of his faith, or finds new faith he or she did not know he had. Even if we hold that view, Rambam’s basic point remains the same—trials are not to inform God of anything, nor are they solely to provide compensatory reward at the end. Rather, they are there to teach important object lessons about God, the nature of religion, and so on.