The Ultimate Cause of Events

I recently simultaneously read a book reviewing the failures of the Israeli security community leading up to the Simchas Torah massacre of October 7th and the section of the Torah referred to as “the tochechah.” This section of the Torah is a Divine warning to the Jewish people of the consequences of not observing the commands listed by God in the Torah. As I switched back and forth from the book about the failures of Israel’s security establishment to the book of Torah in my hand, I couldn’t help thinking that the book about October 7th was missing a section on the role of God in the massacre.

People are obsessed with understanding the cause and effect of events and phenomena they witness in the world around them. The most basic factor that separates the instincts of an animal from the intellect of a human is the ability to think abstractly about events and phenomena to understand their cause and effect. Humans apply abstract thought to understand events while animals are unable to mimic this ability.

Every event has multiple causes, and these causes are generally layered. There are the most apparent causes in the one extreme and the most esoteric at the other extreme. For example, when observing a person injured after being hit by a car, the most apparent cause of their injury was the car but move a little more abstract and one can attribute the cause to the carelessness of the driver. Even more investigation will find the person was hit by the car because the driver’s instructor didn’t emphasize the consequences of inattentiveness sufficiently. Ultimately, the cause of all events will be the system that God introduced to set up the world.

One of the fundamental principles of the world is that God rewards those who follow God’s commands and punishes those who don’t. This is a view shared by most religious people of the world, but the different religions have varied understandings of how Divine reward and punishment works.

Christian and Jewish views of Divine reward and punishment are very different. I’m not a Christian scholar, but from my limited studies and observation, the Christian view of reward and punishment is very concrete. Christians understand the God observes and judges and metes out sentencing immediately based on God’s judgement. Reward and punishment are impossible to escape, and it is incumbent upon people to follow God’s word, so they’ll merit reward and avoid punishment.

The Jewish view of Divine reward and punishment is nuanced and abstract. Jews fully believe God will reward and punish those deserving but Divine consequences for action are not immediate, don’t necessarily correspond with expectations, dreams, and fears of the people, and don’t always seem just at first glance.

When examining Jewish history, one finds moments of triumph and tragedy. Very rare is the moment of Jewish history that simply is – and isn’t a moment of consequence. A fundamental principle of Jewish history is that the moments of triumph and tragedy are determined by God’s judgment of whether the Jewish people have been observing or disregarding God’s commands. God promises to protect the Jewish people from all harm and enable their success if they live their life according to God’s commands and warns that he will punish the Jewish people if they lead their lives by other values.

While each individual human enjoys free choice and the ability to determine their own future, as a nation, the Jewish people have that same ability. The Jewish people’s success or failure isn’t determined by random or outside factors, but by their choice of their relationship with God. If the Jewish nation decides to follow God, they will determine their fate as successful but if they decide to set a path inconsistent with the Torah, they will have sealed their fate to failure.

The overriding principle of Jewish history, present, and future is that the Jewish people determine their future – not random or outside factors. The nations of the world can stand against us, but their success isn’t determined by their intentions or efforts. If the Jewish people’s relationship with God is strong and healthy, God will save the Jewish people’s efforts to annihilate them. If the Jewish people’s relationship with God is weak, they will suffer tragedy at the hands of their enemies.

This has been the story of Jewish history.

Divine reward and punishment are a complex topic to understand. It isn’t easy to look at events occurring to the Jewish people and determine whether the event was an act of Divine reward and punishment. It is difficult enough to determine whether events were caused by Divine intervention or were a result of general Divine providence, let alone whether they are acts of Divine reward and punishment.

Reward and punishment work on two different levels. The first level of reward and punishment expresses itself naturally. When the nation (and individuals) makes smart decisions, decisions that are consistent with the Divine wisdom of the Torah, it is natural that the nation will experience better results. The opposite is also true. When a nation or individuals make foolish decisions that are inconsistent with the Divine wisdom of the Torah, it is natural that the nation – and individuals – will experience worse results.

The second level of reward and punishment is dependent on Divine intervention and specific Divine providence. When the Jewish people act in a righteous manner, in ways consistent with the Torah’s values, God intervenes positively in the nation’s future, protecting them from harm and increasing their success. When the Jewish people act in a sinful manner, God interferes negatively with the Jewish people’s destiny, ensuring their failure and tragedy.

⁠As the Jewish people experience success and tragedy, it is crucial that they look inwards to their own actions. They must examine whether their actions were smart and consistent with the values of the Torah. If they are, the Jewish people can be confident that they will continue to succeed. If the Jewish people see their actions fall short of the Torah’s values, they need to act and improve their lives.

After clarifying that the ultimate cause of events that affect the Jewish people and the land of Israel is God’s judgement of the Jewish people’s actions, it is crucial that the Jewish people recognize that it is God that is controlling events. The Jewish people must recognize that God determines whether the Jews should experience success or tragedy. The recognition of God as the ultimate cause of events will express itself by people articulating God as factor more so than any other factors contributing to events affecting the Jewish people and the land of Israel.

God doesn’t determine whether the Jews should experience success or tragedy in a random manner but rather based on the Jewish people’s actions and their actions’ consistency with the commands and values of the Torah. If the Jewish people are acting in a righteous manner, consistent with the Torah, God will cause them to succeed and if not, God will cause them to fail with tragic consequences. It isn’t only incumbent on the Jewish people to recognize that God is ultimately the cause of events in Israel and to the Jewish people, but that it is the Jewish people’s actions that determine how God judges them, and therefore a major factor in the events that affect them.

Whether it is a downturn in the economy, political events, or war, Jewish people tend to focus on secondary or even superficial causes rather than the ultimate cause – God and divine judgement. The misdirection leads to the Jewish people to be distracted and lose sight of the important steps they need to take to continue their success or correct their failures.

When encountering out-of-the-usual-events the Jewish people need to be cognizant of the ultimate cause of those events, God. They need to recognize God relates to the Jewish people and determines their future based on the Jewish people’s actions. The Jewish people need to direct their attention and actions to realign with God’s commandments and values.

I recently simultaneously read a book reviewing the failures of the Israeli security community leading up to the Simchas Torah massacre of October 7th and the section of the Torah referred to as “the tochechah.” This section of the Torah is a Divine warning to the Jewish people of the consequences of not observing the commands listed by God in the Torah. These consequences are severe and should give pause to anyone considering a life inconsistent with the Torah, and to the Jewish people as a nation about the nature of any government they establish.

⁠As I switched back and forth from the book about the failures of Israel’s security establishment to the book of Torah in my hand, I couldn’t help thinking that the book about October 7th was missing a section on the role of God in the massacre. It went into detail about the strength and strategy of Hamas, and the weakness and failures of the Prime Minister, the IDF, the Mossad, and many others. It never mentioned God or the Jewish people’s commitment to God’s ways.

The more I read of each book the more convinced I became that the Jewish people have largely been taking a superficial review of the events leading up to and on October 7th. In this book and the many books I’ve read that take critical looks at the security failures they give the impression that the ultimate cause of the October 7th massacre was a security failure.

Attributing the loss of life, the injuries, and the national trauma of the Simchas Torah massacre to a failure of the political and security establishment of the State of Israel is missing the ultimate cause of this great national tragedy – God. The Jewish people are promised to be protected by God in their land, the only reason for a lack of protection is God not providing it.

It is impossible to know with certainty why God didn’t not protect the Jewish people on Simchas Torah 5783 (October 7, 2023) but we can know that had the Jewish people merited Divine protection it would have ensured that no one would have died or been injured on that horrible day. The Jewish people clearly didn’t deserve to be completely protected by God on that day.

To pretend that any person can fully understand the events of a particular day or how and why God allowed them to happen is preposterous. Without the benefit of prophecy and a direct message from God, any person pretending to know why and how an event occurred is merely guessing. Evidence has been recently uncovered to show that enemies of the Jewish people were planning a much greater attack and as tragic as the attacks of Simchas Torah were, the Jewish people were saved from a much more tragic catastrophe.

No one should posit that the ultimate cause of a success or tragedy was due solely to human achievement or error without considering the role God played in the events. While humans might never fully understand the role God played in any event, they can not definitively explain an event without mentioning God.

In this essay the point of God’s role in events and the imperative of the Jewish people not to omit God’s role was stressed. As an example, the massacre that occurred on Simchas Torah 5783 (October 7, 2023) was used to show how a superficial examination of the tragedies of that day can lead one to mistakenly conclude that the ultimate cause of the October 7th massacre was a political and security failure of the State of Israel.

This essay posited that ignoring the role of God and the Jewish people’s commitment to God’s commands as a factor, and the ultimate cause of the Simchas Torah massacre is a mistake. The ultimate cause of all events that affect the Jewish people is God’s judgement of the Jewish people’s actions.

As a caveat to the main point of the essay that ultimate cause of all events that affect the Jewish people is God’s judgement of the Jewish people’s actions the principle was explained that without prophecy and a direct message from God, no one can truly know why or how events occurred.

The question remains that if it is impossible to fully understand God’s role in any event without prophecy and a direct message from God, yet God and Divine judgement is the ultimate cause of any event, how can any review of events lead to understanding how to ensure better results in the future?

Any superficial review of events that ignores God’s role will lead the Jewish people to believe that the continuation of achievements or correction of mistakes alone will ensure the success continue or tragedies don’t repeat themselves. This can have tragic consequences. Although it is impossible to fully understand God’s role in any event, successful or tragic, the principle that the more committed the Jewish people are to God’s Torah the more God providentially protects the Jewish people remains true.

Any review of events in Jewish history is incomplete without including the ultimate factor of God’s relationship to the Jewish people being determined by the Jewish people’s actions. These actions include acting in a manner consistent with the natural world – it is never enough to solely follow God’s Torah and assume the Jewish people will achieve success and avoid tragedy. It is also never enough to assume that solely following the natural world will guarantee success and prevent tragedy. Ultimately, the fate and destiny of the Jewish people is in their hands. It is up to them to strengthen their relationship with God and merit Divine protection.