Moral Dilemma... Please Weigh In
Not your typical Shabbat Email ramble here, but I'm struggling with a philosophical, moral dilemma, and I'd appreciate your perspective.
Imagine the following likely scenario: You're on your way to an important meeting and you get stuck in a huge traffic jam. While you're watching the minutes tick by, and trying to stay calm, you remind yourself that G-d is in control and that He is obviously is causing/allowing this to happen for a reason, etc. This kind of thinking and this belief in "Let go and let G-d" can be very comforting and helpful in lowering the stress levels.
Now imagine a similar (also likely) scenario: You're on your way to an important meeting. Except this time you are taking along an additional passenger, perhaps your teenage child. You told this person that he must be ready at 8:00 am in order to make sure that you are not delayed and miss the meeting. Well, 8:00 comes and goes and he's nowhere to be found. It's already 8:15 and you're about to leave, when he shows up. He apologizes and mumbles something about staying up very late partying so he overslept. By the time you end up leaving with him it's closer to 8:30.
As you're watching the minutes tick by and trying to stay calm, you find it very hard to attribute this one to G-d. After all, it was human negligence that's causing your stress. Or is it? What is the correct Jewish perspective on this dilemma? Can a person's negative free will decision adversely affect my life? Does G-d allow that person to take over the reigns of my life, so to speak? Or, do we say that an all-powerful G-d does not allow someone else's bad choice to adversely affect another, and that the stress that I'm experiencing is "beshert" - it's part of G-d's master plan? Maybe this individual, while misusing his free will (and he will have to suffer any possible divine and human consequences) is simply the pawn that G-d chose to allow me to go through this stress for some reason. But He is still in charge and orchestrating this event to affect me adversary...right?
If you're still following this one, I would greatly appreciate your feedback on this - thank you!
Shabbat shalom!
Rabbi Koval
