Parashat Shelah: Fighting the impulse to blame God – The Jerusalem Post

The famed French writer Alexander Dumas, author of such classics as The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Christo, tells what happened when, as a child, he lost his father:I remained thoughtful for a while. Though such a child, and unable to reason, I understood nonetheless that something final had happened in my life I reached the small rooms where arms were kept; I took down a single-barreled gun which belonged to my father, and which had often been promised to me when I grew up. Then, armed with the gun, I went upstairs. On the first floor I saw my mother. She was coming out of the death chamber; she was in tears. Where are you going? she asked Im going to the sky dont stop me. And what are you going to do in the sky, my poor child? Im going to kill God, who killed father.The impulse to punish God for the sufferings of human beings is an ancient one. After the dispiriting report of the spies, the Israelites contemplate stoning Aaron and Moses out of fury (Numbers 14:10). The verse continues, When the glory of the Lord appeared in the Tent of Meeting. In the Talmud (Sotah 35a) Rabbi Hiyya bar Abba says, This teaches that they took stones and threw them at the sky as if to throw them at God.

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Parashat Shelah: Fighting the impulse to blame God - The Jerusalem Post