WHERE IS GOD?

Rabbi Rifat Sonsino, Ph.D.

Recently, I logged in to a Friday night service in NYC where the Rabbi was discussing the issue of where is God? Where is God to be found? The ancient Rabbis imagined that God is dwelling in the heavens above (“avinu she-bashamayim, our God who is in heaven) , watching over us. Her answer  was that we experience God in the acts of goodness we perform. For her, doing good deeds means acting in accordance with God’s character, which is suffused with love.  

That answer made me feel good, but, after reflection, I started to question the veracity of the statement. The proposition sounded nourishing and cozy, but I felt it was without any substance regarding the essence of God. For, right after that sermon, I happened to watch a program about the Holocaust where the question became more acute. Where was God during this unspeakable tragedy?   To say that we do not know or that God was suffering along with the victims made God irrelevant to me, for I do not need a God who is incapable of action when it was desperately needed. Besides, how does she know that God is experienced in the actions we perform? Simply to state that this is so, does not convince me of its correctness. 

For me, God is the energy that sustains the universe. It is not good or bad. It simply is. And it stands for the way in which nature operates irrespective of the people who are involved in the process. When a person carries out deeds of lovingkindness, the reward is found in the act itself, not because God approves it.  On the other hand, when evil prevails in society, it is because people act without concern for the wellbeing of humanity and not because of God’s punishment. God does not interfere in human acts. As the ancient Rabbis say it, olam keminhago noheg, “the universe goes according to its own mandate.” (Avodah Zara 54b).

 

DO WE HAVE FREE WILL? MY ER EXPERIENCE

Rabbi RiFat Sonsino, Ph. D 

Recently, I published a blog on free will and argued that , even though most of our activities are predetermined by our physical constitution and social environment,  we still have a few choices of our own in a very limited way. Let me apply this idea to an episode I had last week. 

In early February 2026, I ended up in the ER suffering from shortness of breath because of pneumonia and blood clots in my legs and lungs. So, I experienced in a very personal way the reality of free will, or the lack of it.

I first went to Marlborough hospital (MA) and then to Worcester hospital (MA) where I received great service. The staff was caring and professional. But I quickly lost my ability to act on my own for a few days. At the ICU, I was immediately hooked up to various machines. I was poked repeatedly, my arms bearing various small iv’s . Medicine was pumped into me at odd times of the day or night. I became  totally depended on my nurses to do anything I needed. I had to call in for help for every movement I made. One technician/medical student drew blood from the wrong artery, so another one had to come in to rectify the situation. Getting information about my condition took a long time. There was no privacy whatsoever. Even going to the bathroom became a whole production. I had to call one of the nurses to unhook me from all the devices and then accompany me to the John. Nurses even tried to clean me up. I firmly rejected their well-intended actions. 

After 3 days in the ICU, in the middle of the night, while I was deeply at sleep, I was moved to a regular room in the hospital. There, too, they had to get all my vitals again  (I thought they were in the computer), take more blood, and connect me  to different machines which left me once again at the mercy and care of the medical help that changed daily , with the difference that at the ICU the nurses dealt with fewer patients whereas in the regular room, I became part of a large  group of sick people who waited much longer for any medical response. After a week in the hospital, I was told that I could leave to become part of the hospital at home program. 

Do we have free will?  Hardly at the hospital. There must be another way.

I now realize that all of this was done for my well-being, but I was sorry to lose my independence, dignity  and  freedom of action. I’m glad I came to the ER but I hope I will never return. 

Your thoughts or experiences?

 

DO WE HAVE FREE WILL?

Rabbi Rifat Sonsino, Ph.D

The idea that we have free will is at the core of our ethical system. How can we be held responsible, if we are predetermined? On the other hand, If God is all-knowing and knows ahead of time how will we act, how can we be free to chose?

Throughout the years, Judaism had to struggle with this dilemma and came out with a variety and , at times, even conflicting answers.

The Hebrew Bible seems to promote the idea of free will when it urges us to “choose life” (Deut. 30:19, see Hertz, The Pentateuch, p. 882), and yet, it acknowledges that, at times, we don’t seem to have any choice in our actions. For example, In the Book of Exodus, we are told that God “will harden Pharaoh’s heart” (7:3), and thus deprive him of his freedom of action.

In the Mishnah, 2nd cent. CE, both assertions are made and, consequently, the problem is left unsolved: “Everything is foreseen, yet, freedom of choice  is granted” ( Pirke Avot 3: 15).

During the medieval times, some Jewish philosophers promoted the idea of free will, whereas others denied it. Thus, for example, Maimonides, the great Jewish Aristotelian who lived in the  12th  century Spain , defended the idea of free will by saying that “Man’s conduct is in his own hands” (Mishneh Torah, Knowledge, 3:2) based on the assumption  that  there is no resemblance between our knowledge and God’s knowledge. We do not know how God knows. Whereas Malbim, the 19th century Ukrainian Jewish bible commentator, denied that we can have freedom of choice based on the belief that “ God must have immutable foreknowledge of everything and so man has neither choice nor free will  and should not be responsible  for his actions” (On Job. 10:6:1).

Others , echoing the Talmudic statement that “everything is in the hands of heaven , except for the fear of heaven” (Ber. 33b), kept a middle position on this subject. For example, Gersonides, the 13th century French-Jewish philosopher, argued that God knows the choices which we will make but does not know the specific actions we actually carry out.

I follow the middle position and maintain that most of our deeds are predetermined by our physical constitution and our social condition, yet, we do have a few free choices among the alternatives presented before us.

What do you think?

Who is the suffering servant?

WHO WAS THE SUFFERING SERVANT?

Rabbi Rifat Sonsino, Ph.D

Recently, a friend asked me, who is the “suffering servant’ in the prophecies of Isaiah? 

Here is my answer: 

Second Isaiah, was an anonymous prophet who lived just before or after the fall of Jerusalem in 586 BCE. His writings (chapt.40-55) have been added to those of the First Isaiah who lived in ancient Israel in the 8^th cent. BCE. Chapters 56-66 are usually ascribed to a group of unknown authors called Third Isaiah. 

The chapters assigned by critics to  Second Isaiah include four  “Servant Songs” that seem to form a literary unity, even though they are spread within  chapters 40-55.  It is not clear who was the author of these songs. In  53: 3, he describes the servant as an individual who is “despised, shunned by men; a man of suffering, familiar with disease.” Hence, the reference to a “suffering servant.”

The question is : whom did the prophet have in mind when he wrote these lines? As the Jewish  Study Bible puts it, this is “one of the most difficult and contested passage in the Bible” (p. 890). As expected, throughout the centuries, various opinions have been advanced in order to solve this problem. We can break them down to three different types of suggestions: 

A.       A collective interpretation: according to some critics the reference is to the people of Israel.

B.       An individual interpretation: according to others, the reference is to an historic personality of the past. Some argued that it referred to Moses , or king Jehoiachin, or the prophet Jeremiah or even the prophet himself.  

C.      A theological/mythological  interpretation: The New Testament says that Isaiah’s prophecies were fulfilled in the life of  Jesus. (See, the Letter to the Hebrews, chp. 5)  Others, including some medieval Rabbis and the Aramaic Targum,  maintain that it refers to an idealized king or to a future Messiah. 

In reality, it must be admitted, as Boadt did, that “we may never know all that Second Isaiah actually intended by his servant” (Reading the OT, p. 429).

 

 Who is a mamzer ?

WHO IS A MAMZER?

Rabbi Rifat Sonsino, Ph.D

In Yiddish or even in Ladino the Hebrew word MAMZER means a bad guy, a real SOB. Hitler was a mamzer. Mussolini was a mamzer. Videla was a mamzer. What does it mean in the Bible and Jewish law? 

One thing is clear: In Jewish law the word, often translated as bastard, does not refer to a child born out of wedlock. 

The term MAMZER occurs twice in the Hebrew Bible: 
The first comes from Deut. 23: 3: “No MAMZER shall be admitted into the congregation of the Lord .” That is, he will not be able to marry an Israelite even in the tenth generation. The second, in an enigmatic passage in  Zech 9:6: “A MAMZER shall settle in Ashdod”. It is not clear what this word means in either case. Von Rad, in his commentary to the book of Deuteronomy, clearly states, “We do not know what is meant precisely by bastard (mamzer)” (p. 146.)

The Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible (cir. 250 BCE), says it means, the son of a prostitute. The Jewish Publication Society renders the word as “misbegotten.” The Jerusalem Bible has it as bastard, with a note saying that the word possibly refers to the offspring of a mixed marriage between the Hebrews and the Philistines. The Catholic Bible translates it as: “a child of an incestuous union.” 

In rabbinic times, the term began to assume a more concrete meaning. The Mishnah (cir. 200 CE), quoting Rabbi Akiva, maintains that the word MAMZER refers to the offspring of any marriage of near of kin (Yeb. 4:13). In other word, a person born out of an incestuous marriage. The Babylonian Talmud (cir. 600 CE) agrees with it and expands its meaning. (Yeb.76b and others). A good summary of the rabbinic position on this subject is found in The Spirit of Jewish Law, by G. Horowitz who writes that a MAMZER is “the offspring of a father and mother  between whom there could be , in law, no binding betrothal, the issue of either an adulterous connection between a married woman and a man not her husband , or of an incestuous  union within the forbidden  degrees defined in Lev. 18 and 20” (p. 264).  According to Jewish law a MAMZER has full civil rights but can only marry another MAMZER or a convert.

In my professional life I have had to deal with one or two people who caused me headaches,  but I managed to outlive them, for which I am  grateful.