וַיַּעַן צֹפַר הַנַּעֲמָתִי וַיֹּאמַר׃ - Then Zophar the Naamathite answered and said:
We begin the sixth speech in Sefer Iyov, the response of Zophar the Naamathite. As is our custom, we will first introduce the underlying concept behind his words, and then see how it is expressed in the verses. The first two disputants agreed with Iyov on his fundamental premise: it is impossible that the Holy One, blessed be He, exercises Providence while the righteous person simultaneously perishes, for this is a contradiction in terms - if there is Divine Providence, it is impossible for the righteous to perish. Their debate with him was only over the details: either he is not truly righteous, or he is not truly perishing, since Hashem will ultimately elevate him, each according to his approach.
Zophar comes along and says: I reject the premise entirely. In my view, it is entirely possible that the Holy One, blessed be He, exercises Providence, and the righteous person perishes, and there is no contradiction here whatsoever. Furthermore, there is no injustice in this at all - and that is the crucial point. Hashem exercises Providence, the righteous person perishes, and there is no injustice in this.
The Malbim explains: Zophar argues that perception - meaning the way we apprehend reality - is possible in two ways. The first is to apprehend a thing as it is in its essence, as it truly is. The second is to know a thing as it is perceived by our senses. And we all know that we have no way of knowing things as they are in their essence, but only as they are perceived by our senses. What is grasped by our senses, we recognize; what is not grasped by our senses, we do not recognize.
To such an extent that there is a philosophical school of thought asserting that things may well exist only when they are observed, and when they are not observed, they do not exist. Can one prove otherwise? A person comes along and claims: this island exists only when someone looks at it. Can you prove that when you are not looking at it, and when no camera is filming it, it still exists? It is impossible to prove this, because everything we learn is through the senses. What our senses perceive, we know exists; but no one would say that whatever our senses do not perceive does not exist - after all, who has ever perceived radio waves with their eyes? Through a receiver, yes, but not with the eye. It turns out, then, that all our perception is not an apprehension of the essence of the thing itself, but merely what I saw, what I touched, what I tasted, what I smelled, and what I heard.
Furthermore, all our knowledge stems from the senses, and our understanding of the past is always deduced from the later to the earlier. When I seek to examine how things were at the creation of the world, or what a plant, tree, or human looked like five thousand years ago, I have no way to draw conclusions other than by examining the object as it is today.
To illustrate with a parable: imagine two people. One saw a baby from the moment of birth until he reached age ten; the other had a ten-year-old child brought before him, and his investigation is to determine what the child looked like at age one or at two days old. Whose conclusions will be more accurate? Certainly those of the one who saw him in his development. The second one says: if at age ten he is of such height and weight, and every two days he grows by such an amount, then at a certain age he must have been such and such. Is this conclusion always correct? It is certainly mistaken.
A young researcher at the start of his career decided to track the development of a rabbit. Or to take a more familiar example: a baby. At birth, he weighs three kilograms, and by age ten, he reaches thirty kilograms. The researcher calculated: in ten years he multiplied his weight tenfold; therefore, at age twenty he will weigh three hundred kilograms, and at age thirty, three tons. How can you argue? After all, I measured! But the conclusion is fundamentally flawed, because you are extrapolating from one reality to another reality that you have never seen. And likewise in reverse: had he extrapolated from the changes between age thirty and forty to what changed between age zero and ten, the conclusion would be completely distorted. This is the method of deduction by which we perceive any conceptual matter: through the senses, and by inferring from what I observe now back to what existed in the past. This is a very problematic way to arrive at true conclusions.
This is precisely the mistake people make regarding stalactite caves. Anyone who has visited a stalactite cave has heard from the tour guide that the cave is three million or five million years old. Based on what do you determine this? He explains: each stalactite grows so many millimeters per year. We observe it for forty years and see that it grows one millimeter per year. If so, a stalactite measuring one meter - one thousand millimeters - is one thousand years old; a stalactite of five meters is five thousand years old, and so forth.
And where is the mistake? How does a stalactite grow? Through water seeping through limestone, where the water dissolves the rock and the stalactites form. But today there is no stream above - whereas a thousand years ago, there may have been a stream there, and then the rate of seepage was far greater. What appears to you today as a process of a thousand years might actually have occurred in two months. And while researchers once refused to admit this, today they acknowledge it, because a stalactite cave was discovered with clear documentation: residents of an adjacent settlement testified that forty or fifty years ago, there was nothing there. When examined forty years later, they found stalactites that scientists would have dated to tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or millions of years. People documented and testified that forty years earlier, there was nothing there. It turns out that such formations can develop very rapidly, all depending on the volume of fluids above. Drawing conclusions in this manner is inherently flawed.
Similarly, the Malbim writes regarding those who take bones and examine them, determining their age based on their wear and weathered appearance (nowadays, they typically test according to the decay rate of carbon-14). Says the Malbim: this calculation fails to account for one crucial factor - you do not know what occurred in the past, and one cannot draw true conclusions about what transpired back then merely from observations made today.
For if I were to take an animal bone and boil it for an entire month, and then toss it into some corner of a jungle for a scientist to find - what would he say? He would examine it, see how degraded it is, and be certain that it is an ancient bone. Yet they do not take into account that the entire world underwent a boiling process - the Mabbul (the Great Flood). Everything changed, and not merely changed: scalding waters gushed forth, and for forty days the world cooked in this cauldron. Place bones into a steaming cauldron at tremendous heat for forty days - what will the bone look like? Thus, the scientists fail to factor in the historical realities.
This is Tzophar's argument: we perceive only the external surface of things, how they interact with our senses and how they appear to us now, but we cannot grasp things in their true essence. To use a parable: imagine a person trying to deduce what a car is simply by observing it. Who truly understands it? The one who built it. He can tell you precisely what it is composed of and how it works. But the outside observer might say: "It looks to me like a living, breathing creature - look at how much steam it breathes out from the back!" What you register with your senses can lead you to completely inaccurate conclusions.
In the past, if you asked someone, "Is there any motion inside this cup?" he would answer, "None at all." Today we know that every physical object is composed of atoms - an internal nucleus surrounded by electrons and protons - and they give us the impression that something solid is there, when in truth there is virtually no solid matter. If you could condense the entire Eiffel Tower and collect only its actual matter, it would not even fill a matchbox. Incidentally, make no mistake: no one has ever seen an atom either. Not even under a microscope - it is impossible to see an atom. How then do we determine what it is? By its effects, by its fission, which releases tremendous energy, and from that we know that the root is there. Even its standard illustration is nothing more than a theory, just as radio waves are depicted as waves - who said they actually look like that? And the meaning of the word 'atom' in Latin is indivisible - the indivisible point of matter. And if from the entire Eiffel Tower not even a matchbox remains, what remains of man? Fleeting dust.
Another example: what color is blood? Red. Yet, as we all know today, it is composed of red and white blood cells. And who stated this? The holy Ari, over four hundred and fifty years ago, wrote that human blood is composed of white fluid and red fluid. Did anyone in his era know that blood contains white blood cells? From where did the Ari know this? This is the difference: one who deduces from the effect back to the cause says, "I observe with my senses and see red." But the Ari says, "I am not looking at the blood before you; I am looking at its root on High, at how it was created. And knowing how it was created, I know that it contains white fluid and red fluid, for the blueprints are in my hands." Thus, any attempt to deduce from effect back to cause is a foolish endeavor that will mostly yield flawed conclusions.
It follows, then, that even if a person comes along and says, "According to the perception of my senses I see here a righteous person, and according to the perception of my senses I see that he is perishing, and therefore I have a difficulty - how can it be that a righteous man perishes?" - we say to him: "My friend, your senses are deceiving you. Who says you are seeing correctly? You do not understand things in their essence. Had you understood them in their true essence and not merely as they appear in their external form, you would have no difficulties at all."
And what exactly is it that we do not understand? The Malbim explains: when you declare that "a righteous man perishes," you understand neither what a righteous man is nor what perishing means. First, determining that he is righteous is based solely on what is apparent to your senses. Have you entered his heart? You do not know who he truly is, only how he appears to you from the outside. Second, it is entirely possible that this man is indeed righteous in his actions, yet in the judgment of Heaven he is considered wicked, or at the very least far from being a tzaddik.
How so? Consider a person created with spiritual capacities - say, on a scale of one to one hundred - at a level of ninety-five. These are the tools he was given; this is the spiritual level he is capable of reaching. And we see him standing at level eighty-five. What do we say about him? A tzaddik! People tell stories of his wonders, and all seems well and good. But how is he judged in the Heavenly Court? As wicked - for you were given ninety-five, and yet you dragged yourself down to eighty-five. By contrast, consider a person standing at level forty - we might look at him as wicked, but in truth he was born at twenty and doubled himself to forty. Do you know how hard he worked until he reached that forty?
If so, you realize that you do not understand. Do you know with what powers he was created? What inner strengths of the soul he received? Into what society he was born? After all, these are the factors by which one can judge, and you possess none of them. And who can determine whether he perfected his soul according to the tools he received, or on the contrary - degraded himself relative to the tools he was given? Every person has his own preparation, the tools granted to him, and the potential latent within him. Therefore, Tzofar says: When you ask about a "righteous person perishing", in the very assertion of "righteous" you have already spoken incorrectly. It is not that I decide he is not righteous, but rather that you do not know whether he is righteous.
A parable illustrates this: a race between a bicycle and a motorcycle. In one day, the motorcycle traveled twenty kilometers, and the bicycle traveled ten kilometers. Who won? Certainly the bicycle. Twenty kilometers on a motorcycle - you worked at it for maybe half an hour, whereas in a whole day you could have achieved hundreds of kilometers. Meanwhile, the one on the bicycle pedaled hard, exerted himself, and achieved ten. One who looks only at the surface says: The bicycle is behind, the motorcycle is ahead, no question about it. But twenty kilometers on a motorcycle is a disgrace, a waste; you did not fulfill your potential. And this is the second point: even if we assume that he is a tzaddik and all the intentions of his heart are pure - who says that he strove and attained the level he could have reached?
The Sages taught (Ketubot 66b): It happened that Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai was riding on a donkey leaving Jerusalem, and his disciples were walking behind him. He saw a young maiden who was gleaning barley from the dung of the animals of Arabs. Notice the depths of degradation: barley, meaning there is no longer any wheat and only animal food remains; from among the dung, meaning she cannot even obtain barley on its own; and the animals of Arabs, meaning the Jewish people no longer have animals at all. The lowest possible state.
When she saw him, she wrapped herself in her hair and stood before him. She said to him: Rebbi, support me. He said to her: My daughter, who are you? She said to him: I am the daughter of Nakdimon ben Gurion. He said to her: My daughter, where did the wealth of your father's house go? He had millions; where is the money? She said to him: Rebbi, do they not speak a proverb in Jerusalem - the salt of wealth is diminution [cheser]? Just as meat is preserved by salt, so the preservation of wealth is in diminishing it and giving it to charity. And some read it as chesed - performing acts of kindness with it, which amounts to the same thing. He said to her: And where is that of your father-in-law's house? For your father-in-law was also immensely wealthy. She said to him: This came and destroyed that - the money that was lost caused the other to be lost as well. Like a person who invests part of his money, loses it, and is forced to cover the debts from the remaining portion, so too my father-in-law's wealth was needed to cover the debts of my father's house. She said to him: Rebbi, do you remember when you signed my ketubah? He said to her: Yes. And he said to his students: I remember when I signed this woman's ketubah, and I read in it a thousand thousand - a million - gold dinars from her father's house, apart from that of her father-in-law. Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai wept and said: Praiseworthy are you, Israel! When they do the will of the Omnipresent, no nation or language has dominion over them; but when they do not do the will of the Omnipresent, He delivers them into the hand of a lowly nation, and not merely into the hand of a lowly nation, but into the hand of the beasts of a lowly nation. (The deeper meaning of "Praiseworthy are you" in such a dire state will be explained on another occasion.)
And here is the point we are aiming for. The Gemara asks: Did Nakdimon ben Gurion not perform acts of charity? Was it not taught: It was said of Nakdimon ben Gurion that when he would go out from his house to the study hall, garments of fine wool - exquisite silk cloths - would be spread beneath his feet, and the poor would come and fold them up behind him. They would lay silk carpets before him, and any poor person could come, roll them up, take them, sell them, and earn a livelihood.
The Gemara offers two answers. If you wish, say: He did it for his own honor. That is to say, all that charity was mingled with his honor - so that people would say: Have you seen Nakdimon ben Gurion, what a philanthropist! This is put in extreme terms, but certainly when the Sages say "for his own honor", it may refer to something exceedingly subtle, where some slight trace of self-honor crept into the deed. Or, if you wish, say that the very spreading of the carpets - the red carpet - was for his own honor.
And if you wish, say another answer: He did not do as much as was expected of him. He gave, true, but not as much as was fitting for him to give. As people say - according to the camel is the burden: according to the size of the camel, so is the load placed upon it. A parable illustrates this: a fundraising dinner is held, and an ordinary person from the community donates one thousand shekels. Then the wealthy magnate arrives and says: What is a thousand? I donate two thousand. Who donated more? Certainly the first person. For him, with his debts and mortgage, a thousand shekels is a fortune; whereas for the billionaire, two thousand is nothing. In percentage terms, the ordinary man gave far more than the wealthy one.
In a similar vein, Rav Shteinman was asked: How is it possible that many wealthy individuals fell so drastically during the crash of the stock market and the banks, when they had been donating regularly to Torah institutions - why did charity not protect them? He replied to them: Show me the wealthy man who set aside ten percent of his profits. You say he donated a million here and a million there, but if according to the financial results he earned four billion this year - did he give four hundred million to charity? He gave four million, and people say: What an enormous sum! But on the contrary, the Holy One, blessed be He, gave him four billion, and it was fitting for him to have given four hundred million.
Notice that in this Talmudic passage we find the two very points that the Malbim emphasizes. The first - "he did it for his own honor": you say, "Here is a righteous man, so how can a righteous person perish?" Who told you that he is truly righteous? You judge according to deeds, and deeds are perceived through the senses, and the senses can be deceiving. He performs acts of charity, but what is taking place deep within his heart? How much of it was purely for the sake of Heaven? You cannot know; you are limited to external observation. And the second - "he did not do as much as he was expected to do, for according to the camel is the burden": even if everything in his heart is pure and entirely for the sake of Heaven, is that enough? At your spiritual level, with your strengths, with your potential - you could have achieved far more.
We see this in every classroom. At times, a teacher is far more impressed with one student than with his classmate. One scored an eighty, while the other scored a hundred. The teacher explains: "True, that student scored a hundred, but he did not invest any effort; he sits and plays during class, and Hashem simply blessed him with a quick grasp. But the second student - look how hard he toils, how many questions he asks in class, staying awake at night to review the material until he reached an eighty." Who deserves admiration? The one who scored eighty, not the one who scored a hundred. On the contrary, given the potential of the student who scored a hundred, that hundred is nothing; at his level, he should not merely be answering tests but composing tests, not merely answering questions but generating original Torah insights into the topics. And since he does not fulfill his potential - the observer's senses deceive him: what was fitting for him to do, he did not do.
Tzophar the Naamathite disputes the very premise of the debate: it is entirely possible that Hashem exercises Divine providence, and it is possible that a righteous person perishes, with no injustice in this whatsoever. The root of the matter is that our entire perception functions solely through the senses, and we do not perceive things as they truly are in their essence. Furthermore, our conclusions about the past, which extrapolate backward from effect to cause, are fragile and prone to error (as in the case of stalactite caves and bones that were boiled in the Deluge). And just as we cannot know an object in its true essence, so too we cannot know who is truly a tzaddik: neither his innermost heart nor the inner tools and potential with which he was created. Perhaps into the deeds that appear to us as righteous, there crept in the element of "he did it for his own honor"; and perhaps even if everything was purely for the sake of Heaven - "he did not do as he was expected to do," for according to the camel is the burden. And since we have no way of knowing who is genuinely a tzaddik, we also have no basis to challenge, "Why does a righteous person perish?"