To understand or not to understand? That is the question.

This week, we finished Perek Bet in class. At least, I heard we finished Perek Bet. Anyway, in an attempt to find out what was happened in Eicha while I was sick, I asked a few people what had happened over the course of the Perek. They told me that there was a heavy emphasis on G-d as the enemy and on the destruction of babies, the most innocent creatures in existence. While I was hearing this, I was thinking about the Chacham. I was thinking about the Chachem because often, when disaster strikes, the first thing people do is try to understand what happened and why it happened.

At the beginning of Eicha, we hear about ירושלים's immense sadness. As the story moves forward, her attitude transforms from completely melancholy to immensely angry. She's going through the cycle of grief, as anyone who has been through an immense loss would know. Not only is she grieving, but she is trying to comprehend why innocent children would be killed.

In Kohelet, we talked a lot about how the various characters had trouble with finding meaning through following G-d because G-d's justice system in this world is imperfect. If they could have seen the destruction of ירושלים, and the Yirei Elokim would have told them that G-d would deliver justice in the next world, this is what they would have said:

Well, in the context, that answer would have sounded extremely absurd. In truth, I don't think I understood the problems of the characters in Kohelet until now. I know that there's injustice in the world. I didn't realize that it meant that innocent children would die in the streets as they begged their mothers for food. How are we supposed to understand that? Are we supposed to understand it?

Let's take this into a more modern context. During the Holocaust, children died of starvation in the streets in massive numbers. Still more children were immediately sent to gas chambers, where they choked to death. Why? What could they have possibly have done? It's no surprise that so many people lost their faith following the Holocaust. Even so, there were some people who maintained their faith in G-d. I wonder if their current faith has anything to do with the choice to not try to understand. I really wonder...