In perek 8 the Chacham and Yirei Elokim argue about G-d's system of judgment. The Yirei ELokim is defending G-d's system, while the Chacham seems to be saying that G-d's system is flawed.
The Yirei Elokim says that G-d's system is that humans should try and do right, because when they die they will be punished.
The Chacham says that G-d's system is bad, because when people sin and don't get punished, they don't realize they are doing wrong and continue to sin. A better system would be to sin and get punished right away, so man would no what he was doing was wrong.
Maybe in everyday life we use a mixture of both the Chacham's and the Yerei Elokim's (G-ds) systems.
When we sin in public, we do not usually realize what we are doing is wrong and therefore we are punished on the spot as a warning.
When we sin in private, that means you know what you are doing is wrong, and punishment is not going to stop you from doing it. Therefore, G-d will not judge you for those actions until you die. Many people would say this is unfair, because G-d did not show you that you need to repent, but if you know what you are doing is wrong, there is no need for punishment, because you should know to repent.
I hear what you're saying. Perhaps the whole point of G-d refraining from punishing us in this world is to give us a chance to realize for ourselves what we have done wrong. If the minute we do something wrong we are given a slap on the tuchus, we have no opportunity to realize for ourselves that we have sinned. How could we possibly learn from our mistakes if we aren't given the chance to learn from our mistakes (on our own)?
ReplyDeleteI also get what you are saying but when you say " When we sin in public, we do not usually realize what we are doing is wrong and therefore we are punished on the spot as a warning." What are you referring to as the punishment? Also I agree that our lives have a mixture of both of the philophies. When we sin in private though in the ideal world we would have self control and would not sin in the first place. But because we live in a world where everyone sins it is true what you said about the repenting thing, I just think it is sad that before we sin we know we are going to have to repent later in time. What if we were all just perfect and no one sinned?
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