Is it God's Will that Innocent Children Die?

I am sure that many have heard of the exceedingly sad story of a family of Orthodox Jews whose seven children were killed in a house fire last Saturday. The fire was caused by a hot plate left on from Friday afternoon in order to keep food warm for the Sabbath. This is a common practice among the Orthodox because it keeps them from violating a commandment not to strike a fire on the Sabbath. Turning on a stove (or house heat, etc.) is considering a violation of that commandment.

As I read of the tragedy and the burials, held in Israel, I saw this about the father’s response to his children’s death:

Describing the children’s death as a sacrifice and saying that everything was in God’s hands, he said: ‘”We are only reflecting back the light. We do not understand the plan.”

Part of the response here in the US has been for others in the community to go out and buy smoke detectors for their houses. The house where the family tragedy occurred did not have working smoke detectors, nor, apparently, do many of the houses where there Orthodox live. But they are still faced with the conundrum of needing to leave on a hot plate.

Some have solved this by purchasing timers that would automatically turn on the plates in the morning. I saw this: “Rabbinic authorities have determined that timers can be used without breaking Sabbath rules.”

My response: how very nice of the Rabbis to agree that it might actually not be the will of God that more families die in house fires.

This tragedy encapsulates the challenge of seeking to fit ancient words written for a nomadic, pre-modern society to the current post-modern and highly technical world. The deeper we go into the details, the less sense it starts to make.

I’ve read much about the ultra-Orthodox community for years, as I find their commitment to keep the commandments fascinating–and fascinatingly problematic. Women have essentially no rights–and from what I’ve read, abuse is rampant. The goal is to have as many children as possible as quickly as possible. That is a good thing in a rural society where large families were necessary to clan and national survival. This is no longer the case.

There are obvious parallels between these Ultra-Orthodox Jews and the current generation of ultra-orthodox Christians and ultra-orthodox Muslims, all of whom are trying to wrestle with the same or similar texts and what they mean today.

For ISIS, it means trying to bring about the end of the world by any means possible.

For many Christians who consider themselves orthodox in theology, it means insisting on a sexual binary, ignoring more and more science that shows humanity being born on a sexual spectrum. By insisting on rigid male/female relationships only, such a stance ignores the clear scriptural understanding that it is not good for the human to be alone and denies those outside their given world-view the possibility to true human intimacy.

In a few hours, I board a plane which will eventually take me and my traveling group to the land of the ultra-orthodox Jew. I have the privilege of spending Holy Week in the Holy Land. I’m aware that I don’t fit any ultra-Orthodox Jewish man’s understanding of a religiously faithful woman.

The question is: are they right? Does the definition of “true womanhood” really mean that I have no rights, no voice, no presence, and no purpose other than to be a womb machine, pumping out babies as fast as possible?

I don’t think so. But in this case, both of us can’t be right.

And here is our challenge: to still show respect for one another without insistence that the other change. It is possibly the most difficult task humans undertake.