{"id":137,"date":"2006-10-06T00:16:46","date_gmt":"2006-10-06T00:16:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/summametaphysica.com\/ge\/102000-person-to-person\/"},"modified":"2018-04-23T21:03:03","modified_gmt":"2018-04-23T21:03:03","slug":"102000-person-to-person","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.summametaphysica.com\/ge\/102000-person-to-person\/","title":{"rendered":"1020.00 PERSON TO PERSON (pps.155-158)"},"content":{"rendered":"

hard cover page 155<\/p>\n

Over the millennia, man has often suffered most terribly. The price of freedom has indeed been a high one. Much of the suffering has been way beyond the ken of those who did not experience it.<\/p>\n

When tragedy strikes, the aggrieved individual must first be comforted. Any attempt to explain away tragedy is fraught with peril, particularly on a person-to-victim level. To the family which has buried a youngster killed by a hit-and-run driver, there is little solace to be found in any quarter. While the family is in intense mourning, bystanders can only extend their hand in empathy and compassion.<\/p>\n

However there are, as well, circumstances when a philosophical response is appropriate, if not mandated. The aggrieved, or the witness, may then find some small measure of consolation in the concept that reality need not negate his religious optimism, nor negate his belief in core doctrine. The Divine attributes of omnipotence, omniscience, and benevolence are intellectually defensible.<\/p>\n

The witness to this tragedy, and ultimately the family itself, trying to reconcile the God of Israel with the severe tragedy of the youngster killed in the hit-and-run, may possibly find some measure of solace in the themes presented by this study. If there were no potential for tragedy, there would be no potential for triumph or growth. The two come wrapped inextricably together.<\/p>\n

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hard cover page 156<\/p>\n

And if there were no potential for growth and quest for ultimate potentiality, there might have been no creation at all. No triumph at all. No stars at all. No children at all. No love at all. No laughter at all. Literally.<\/p>\n

The aggrieved may find some comfort in the concept that his pain is, rather, part of the high price humanity pays for its freedom, and for the possibility of ultimately realizing its full potential; that the individual’s tragedy was unlikely to have been punishment, and at the same time did not occur for naught; that while the particular tragedy was not part of a specific Divine plan, the allowance of tragedy in general is a cosmic necessity, and on that level may be considered part of an ultimate schema. For man must operate at an increasingly higher level of freedom if he is to have bona fide potential for a higher good-in his quest towards ultimate potentiality.<\/p>\n

Quest for potential is central to the Divine and central to creation. Unfortunately, the allowance for potential pain, however gratuitous and arbitrary, is apparently necessary to the cosmic order.<\/p>\n

It is not that the cosmic order needs occasional tributes of pain and premature death. On the contrary, the cosmic imperatives would be maximized if all children could somehow live forever. The loss of the youngster to the hit-and-run tragedy is a very real cosmic loss. Cosmic quests, as well, are truncated by the loss of the youngster.<\/p>\n

The cosmic order does not necessitate pain per se<\/em>. It does necessitate, however, the possibility of pain. This was the “ransom” paid by “life” in its escape from the bottomless cosmic void. Man chose the Tree of Knowledge\/Potential at Eden. He rejected zero-growth.<\/p>\n

And as the battered, but still quite powerful, starship of mankind continues its zig-zag odyssey towards the infinite, the harsh price man pays for the possibility of reaching his destination is the potentiality for tragedy and pain. There would seem to be no alternative.<\/p>\n

The gods, if gods there be, cannot lift us to their side; we must make the painful climb ourselves.582<\/sup><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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582 <\/sup>Kaplan, The New World of Philosophy,<\/em> p. 243, expanding on Buddhist and Nietzschean doctrine.<\/p>\n

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True, suffering and tragedy is personal and unique. And it is difficult to say how we ourselves would react to our own theodicy formulation in the face of overwhelming personal tragedy\u00e2\u20ac\u201d nor do we wish to find out. And perhaps it is not even of consequence. Regardless, core doctrine, historical reality, and the dictates of logic, in concert with the mandatory internal intellectual cohesiveness of Judaism, almost inexorably lead us to our formulation as a viable philosophical approach.<\/p>\n

As paradoxical as the situation may be, theodicies are generally more appropriate for the witnesses-near and far-to tragedy, than for the more direct victims in the throes of their sorrow. The victim to tragedy has entered his own universe, which outsiders may penetrate emotionally long before tapping in to intellectually.<\/p>\n

Buddhism would posit the wisdom that he who has been shot by an arrow has no use to inquire into the name of the archer, but rather must extract the arrow, heal the wound. Many rabbinic theologians would seem to posit that the arrow-shot victim’s challenge does not go beyond finding out how to extract the arrow within the framework of health and halachic requirements.583<\/sup> Inquiry into questions of ultimate justice and purpose on the part of the arrow-shot victim, according to this viewpoint, is not appropriate.<\/p>\n

However, philosophy and religion cannot isolate the victim into an airtight compartment. The tragedy of one individual, just as the spiritual upliftment of one individual, in varying degrees affects the whole. The whole, consequently, has an “interest” in the individual’s suffering, transcending the immediate halachic response.<\/p>\n

The victim of a remote and forgettable tragedy is at the center of concentric circles of “interested parties.” Aside from the Divine “interest,” these interested parties range from family, through friends and acquaintances, through witnesses and fellow- countrymen, through the remote party a thousand years later who never even heard of the country in which this nameless victim to tragedy belonged. Yet, all ultimately have an “interest” in the response to this nameless tragedy.<\/p>\n

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583 <\/sup>See also Soloveitchik, “B’ sod hayachid v’hayachad,” p. 233.<\/p>\n

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hard cover page 158<\/p>\n

Thus, ultimately a philosophical response is in order, if not Divinely mandated as well. At that point, the vitality of the religio- philosophical response is a crucial question.<\/p>\n

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Any attempt to explain away […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":695,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":[],"yoast_head":"\n1020.00 PERSON TO PERSON (pps.155-158) - David Birnbaum Summa Metaphysica I<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.summametaphysica.com\/ge\/102000-person-to-person\/\" \/>\n<link rel=\"next\" href=\"https:\/\/www.summametaphysica.com\/ge\/102000-person-to-person\/2\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"1020.00 PERSON TO PERSON (pps.155-158) - David Birnbaum Summa Metaphysica I\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"hard cover page 155 Over the millennia, man has often suffered most terribly. 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