Introduction: Elihu's Continued Words
Before us is the continuation of the words of Elihu ben Berachel the Buzite to Iyov. Elihu comes to uproot two mistaken assumptions from Iyov's heart: first - that man does the Holy One, blessed be He, a favor through his righteousness and harms Him through his wickedness, and therefore deserves an external reward; and second - that if Hashem does not immediately punish the wicked, it is a sign of an absence of Divine providence. To both of these he responds by examining the nature of the world and the nature of man.
"If You Are Righteous, What Do You Give Him?" - Possessor of All
אִם־צָדַקְתָּ מַה־תִּתֶּן־לוֹ אוֹ מַה־מִּיָּדְךָ יִקָּח׃ - If you are righteous, what do you give Him? Or what does He take from your hand?
"If you are righteous" - you become a tzaddik, "what do you give Him?": What do you have in your power to give Him from the physical matters here? What benefit could He possibly derive from them? The Holy One, blessed be He, is an entirely spiritual essence, and He derives no benefit from physical things. And even if there were such a thing that you could give - "or what does He take from your hand?" Is it truly your own that you are giving? To whom does everything in the world belong? To the Holy One, blessed be He.
And this is what we say in the Shemoneh Esrei prayer: Koneh hakol, "Possessor of all." A question is often asked: What does koneh hakol mean? From whom does He buy? And if He buys from someone, it would imply that someone possesses something that does not belong to the Holy One, blessed be He! Rather, it does not mean acquiring from a seller; instead, koneh hakol means that everything is His possession. Everything in the world belongs entirely to Him. If so, what do you have to give Him that is not already His?
"Your Wickedness Affects a Man Like Yourself" - Reward and Punishment Are Not External to the Deed
לְאִישׁ־כָּמוֹךָ רִשְׁעֶךָ וּלְבֶן־אָדָם צִדְקָתֶךָ׃ - Your wickedness affects a man like yourself, and your righteousness a human being.
If so, what purpose do wickedness and righteousness serve? Elihu tells him: Know that wickedness harms "a man like yourself." The wickedness a person commits toward his fellow man harms other human beings. And the wickedness a person commits within himself - that is, sins between man and his Creator - harms himself, for the Holy One, blessed be He, gave us a recipe for how to live properly, how to live healthily, and how to live happily. Likewise, "and your righteousness a human being" - who benefits from your being righteous? Only you. The gain is yours; there is no separate reward and no separate punishment here.
If so, how can you demand that Hashem grant you a reward, or exercise individual providence to punish the wicked and compensate the righteous, as if harm were done to the One Above? The harm is only to the wicked person and the benefit is only to the righteous person. One cannot demand an external wage, for you yourself are affected by what you do - for good if you did good, and for bad if you did bad.
This is comparable to a person who listened to a doctor and took his medication, and then returned to the doctor saying: "Doctor, I deserve a salary!" For what? "I did exactly what you told me to do!" Yet he did not do the doctor any favor - he is the one who recovered; because of this, he is healthy. So too, when a person does Hashem's will, he provides no benefit to Hashem. On the other hand, when one fails to listen to the doctor, the doctor does not afflict him; rather, "your own wickedness shall chastise you" - your own wrongdoing brings suffering upon you, and the illness remains yours.
It follows, then, that reward is the very goodness inherent in righteousness, and is not external to you; and punishment is the very evil that befalls you when you follow a wicked path, and is not external to you. As is often pointed out: when a person educates his children in Torah and fear of Heaven, he certainly receives a reward by Hashem's grace after one hundred and twenty years, but what is the greatest reward? Deriving true nachas from one's children. Conversely, a person who educates his children - may Hashem have mercy - with flawed ideologies and in environments devoid of the fear of Heaven, needs no additional punishment; such people do not even need Gehinnom - their children create it for them right here in this world.
If so, this is not a separate calculation of reward and punishment where one can come and argue, "Why do I deserve this?" or "Why am I not being given what I deserve?" The deed itself is the reward, and the deed itself is the punishment. You either punish yourself or reward yourself; you acquire perfection for yourself, or you bring deficiency upon yourself.
Societal Governance: A Rectified Society or a Broken Society
The same applies to a person who does good for his fellow: the overall societal governance will be sound. But if people commit injustice, societal governance becomes corrupted - a society that is miserable to live in, a society where people suffer. When the State was being established here, one writer famously remarked that he looked forward to seeing the first Jewish thief. Today we ask: when will we finally see the last one? The prisons are overflowing to maximum capacity, and the police no longer even investigate burglaries. A person who files a theft report does so merely for the insurance, because a squad car will not be dispatched and it is doubtful anyone will even pick up the phone. Only when lives are lost do they arrive to handle it.
And who suffers from this? You suffer from it. And if you argue, "But I am a decent person; they are the wicked ones!" - the answer is: you decent people outnumber the wicked, and you should have banded together to put an end to the wrongdoing. You failed to do so, so it is no wonder you suffer. Upon whom, then, does the complaint lie? Upon yourself. Do not come and say, "Master of the Universe, why did You do this to me?" Run your own life properly and guide your social life properly - society will be rectified, and you will be upright. Act improperly - and you will suffer.
So too we find in the verses of wisdom: "A glutton and a drunkard" - and how does it continue? "Will become impoverished, and drowsiness clothes one in rags." A person who is constantly indolent and sleeping will be left in tattered garments. "The craving of the sluggard will kill him." "For anger kills the foolish man," and "envy is rottenness to the bones." All these traits harm the individual himself. As we have discussed at length: when a person becomes angry, whom does he hurt? Himself. He may walk away feeling that all is well, while all manners of Gehinnom and punishment overpower the angry person - but who is suffering right now? You. A person who lacks calm suffers from heart conditions, ulcers, high blood pressure. From where do all these ailments arise? From failing to remain calm, from lacking bitachon in Hashem, from living in perpetual stress and chronic anger.
A Torah of Life - Here and Now
The Holy One, Blessed be He, says: Live properly as I instruct you; you are doing Me no favors, it is not for My sake. If you place your trust in Me, you live a better life; you have Gan Eden on earth. That is why, as we have noted before, the Torah does not explicitly specify the reward of Gan Eden. Look at other religions: they all promise you the World to Come after you depart from here. The Torah, however, does not focus on the World to Come, nor is Gan Eden mentioned anywhere in Tanach as the place of receiving reward, or Gehinnom as the place of receiving punishment. Why? Because the Holy One, Blessed be He, says: I am giving you a Torat Chaim - a Torah of life. The Torah I give you teaches you how to live here. Eternal reward is like dividends; it is what you accumulate, an entirely separate dimension. But what am I teaching you? I am teaching you how to live well. I do not say to you: perform a few rituals and that is all, and up in Heaven you will present a ticket to claim your reward. Rather, I say: conduct yourselves as I instruct you, and you will have a better, happier life. "And you shall choose life."
Beyond this, the Torah certainly speaks of reward and punishment - but of reward and punishment in this world. In Parashat Eikev, there is a detailed list of promises. Why? Because the Torah gives you promises regarding matters you can verify for yourself. Other religions speak exclusively of reward and punishment in the World to Come, and a person might justly ask: The World to Come? I do not know who awaits me there. Some claim Moshe Rabbeinu, some claim Muhammad, some claim that man, some say Buddha, others say Hare Krishna - and no one has ever returned from there. They tell a story of a Jew who arrived in Heaven; they asked him what he wanted, and he said, "I want to see Moshe Rabbeinu," and they showed him. Next came a Muslim, who said, "I want to see Muhammad." They told him, "Forget it, ask for something else." He insisted, "No, I want to see Muhammad." They sighed and called out: "Muhammad, two Cokes!" - and he immediately came running with the tray.
In any case, the Torah tells us: know that there is reward right here in this world. Moreover, this reward is not merely compensation, but a tool to serve Hashem better, an instrument through which you can fulfill the mitzvot of Hashem without distraction.
To summarize Elihu's words up to this point: when you live properly, the benefit is yours; when you live corruptly, the harm is yours. When the public lives properly, the benefit belongs to the public; when the public lives corruptly, contrary to Hashem's commandments, the suffering belongs to the public. Why should you complain against Hashem? Why murmur against His providence? The Holy One, Blessed be He, says: I have placed the choices in your hands - to live properly and receive good, or to live corruptly and receive evil.
"By Reason of the Multitude of Oppressions They Cry Out" - The Power Entrusted to Man
מֵרֹב עֲשׁוּקִים יַזְעִיקוּ יְשַׁוְּעוּ מִזְּרוֹעַ רַבִּים׃ - "By reason of the multitude of oppressions they cry out; they shout for help because of the arm of the mighty."
Here Elihu responds to Iyov's claim: Why does the Holy One, blessed be He, not exact retribution from the wicked? Why does He not judge and punish them? Why does He let them harm the entire world? Elihu tells him: Look, the Holy One, blessed be He, gave animals the power to defend themselves. A cat has claws; a rooster, even though it is a delicate creature, if someone comes to touch its chicks - a peck from its beak is no pleasant matter; and all the more so predatory beasts, which are truly capable of defending themselves. And if Hashem gave animals the power to defend themselves, would He not give man - the pinnacle of living creatures, the crown of creation - the power to defend himself?
Moreover, these capabilities do not necessarily have to be offensive; there are also defensive capabilities. There is a butterfly that you see on a tree and do not realize is a butterfly - you think it is a leaf, and only when you look closer do you realize there is a butterfly here. The Holy One, blessed be He, endowed it with the ability to camouflage. So too the chameleon, which changes its color according to its surroundings. You see that the Holy One, blessed be He, granted every creature the power to protect itself and guard against harm.
Another example: often animals are vulnerable on their own, but when they are in groups they succeed in safeguarding and defending themselves. A lion will not attack a pack of wolves, but if it sees a lone wolf, it may prey upon it. When they travel as a pack, it will not try, for all the wolves would pounce on it, and it would end badly for the lion. Thus we find that sometimes the Holy One, blessed be He, gave strength to the collective, so that they can defend themselves.
This parable comes to tell Iyov: if this is what the Holy One, blessed be He, did for animals, giving them the talent and strength to defend themselves - through the abilities He planted within them and through their gathering as a group to protect one another - how much more so did He place into the hands of the pinnacle of creation, man, the power to unite, gather, and join together, in order to defend themselves as a society against harmful individuals who disrupt the public peace.
Therefore, he says to him: Look, the reality is that most human beings are upright and decent. Without delving into the fine subtleties of righteousness, the point is that most people are not in and out of prisons, they are not criminals; they may have minor missteps here and there, but the vast majority of people are decent. And since most people are decent, they ought to band together, protect and defend themselves, institute laws for themselves, establish police forces, and set up such protections that if a criminal arises, they can deal with him with full severity. But people do not do this, and afterward they come and ask: Master of the Universe, why do You not destroy the wicked? The Holy One, blessed be He, says: I gave you weapons, I placed all the power in your hands - shall I do the work in your stead? Band together, the good among you, and you will prevail over the wicked, for the good outnumber the wicked.
And this is the meaning of: "By reason of the multitude of oppressions they cry out" - the Holy One, blessed be He, placed in human nature that when there are oppressed people, "they cry out"; people rally one another and band together to defend themselves. "They cry for help by reason of the arm of the mighty" - from the arm of robbers and plunderers who terrorize the public, many cry out for salvation and gather to contend with them and fight against them. Through this, they can eliminate the wicked, and people will understand that crime does not pay, and that it is unwise to harm the community, because the community will deal harshly with those who harm it.
New York was once notorious for terrible crime, virtually synonymous with lawlessness. A mayor arose there, Giuliani, who took charge like a cowboy in the Wild West, determined to eradicate crime and confront it head-on with full force. A law was passed mandating that after a person offended two or three times, sentencing was no longer at the judge's discretion; rather, they received life imprisonment. And he succeeded in reducing crime by tens of percentages. People realized that crime was simply not worth it, because next time a judge would not be able to consider mitigating circumstances - there was a set law, and on the third offense one went away for decades - and crime dropped miraculously. Elihu says to him: Hashem placed the power into man's hands to overcome criminals, and most people are decent. If so, why do you complain against the Holy One, blessed be He?
"Who Giveth Songs in the Night" - A Lesson from the Birds
וְלֹא־אָמַר אַיֵּה אֱלוֹהַּ עֹשָׂי נֹתֵן זְמִרוֹת בַּלָּיְלָה׃ - But none says: Where is God my Maker, Who gives songs in the night?
Consider the bird, which is considered a delicate creature that can easily be preyed upon - "He gives songs in the night." Hashem placed in its nature that it sings at night: birds fear predators, so they sing in the night and gather together, to be ready to fight for their lives if an enemy approaches. You see that even in the weakest of animals, Hashem ingrained in their nature the power to gather together and stand against those who rise up against them.
"But none says: Where is God my Maker?" - This bird does not come and argue: Where is the God Who made me, Who gave me over as prey to enemies? Rather: I have strength, the Holy One, blessed be He, gave me abilities, and even though they are small and modest, if we gather together our strength is formidable and we can defend ourselves. And this is an example and a parable from the animal kingdom for man, who is the crown of creation: if they can gather and defend themselves, you human beings can certainly protect and defend yourselves as well.
"Who Teaches Us More Than the Beasts of the Earth" - Learn from Creation
מַלְּפֵנוּ מִבַּהֲמוֹת אָרֶץ וּמֵעוֹף הַשָּׁמַיִם יְחַכְּמֵנוּ׃ - Who teaches us through the beasts of the earth, and makes us wiser through the birds of the heavens.
If the Holy One, blessed be He, instilled within the nature of this bird the ability to defend itself, He surely granted man far greater wisdom. "Malfeinu" means He instructs us, as in the phrase "a'alefcha chochmah" ("I will teach you wisdom"): the Holy One, blessed be He, teaches us to learn from the nature of the rest of creation. "Through the beasts of the earth" - learn from the domestic animals and from the beasts; "and makes us wiser through the birds of the heavens" - it is fitting that you also learn from the birds of the heavens and derive wisdom from them, observing how the birds band together to save themselves. In the very same way, mankind is meant to assemble and defend their lives against bandits, murderers, and violent oppressors, rather than sit back and weep, asking why Hashem does not take vengeance upon them.
"There they cry, but He does not answer" - Because of the Pride of Evil Men
שָׁם יִצְעֲקוּ וְלֹא יַעֲנֶה מִפְּנֵי גְּאוֹן רָעִים׃ - There they cry, but He does not answer, because of the pride of evil men.
Based on this, there is an answer to your question. You ask: Why do people cry out to Hashem and He does not rescue them from thieves, robbers, and plunderers? This was your claim: "From out of the city dying men groan, and the soul of the slain cries out, yet God charges no fault" - see how the murderers wreak havoc and the Holy One, blessed be He, does not intervene. Elihu tells him: "There they cry, but He does not answer - because of the pride of evil men." Why in truth do they cry out and receive no answer? Because the wicked have grown arrogant and prevailing. That is to say, instead of the good prevailing and guarding themselves against the wicked, the evildoers were the ones who prevailed. Had the wicked not grown so powerful that they do as they please with no one standing up against them, you would have succeeded in defending yourselves. But because you do not defend yourselves, the evildoers see that it works and goes unchallenged, that one can commit crimes without facing retribution. A person commits severe crimes and receives three months in prison or half a year of community service, and he realizes that crime pays. The wicked have grown arrogant, and then you say: Look, it is impossible to stand against them, and you bring complaints against the Holy One, blessed be He. But your complaint ought to be directed at yourself.
"Surely God will not hear vanity" - A Proof That Is No Proof
אַךְ־שָׁוְא לֹא־יִשְׁמַע אֵל וְשַׁדַּי לֹא יְשׁוּרֶנָּה׃ - Surely God will not hear falsehood, nor will the Almighty behold it.
Elihu tells him: What you attempt to prove from the fact that the Holy One, blessed be He, does not answer them, does not destroy the wicked, and does not heed the outcry of the oppressed is completely false and futile. From this you deduce that "God will not hear" and "the Almighty will not behold it," as though the Holy One, blessed be He, does not see the cry of the poor and helpless. "Surely falsehood" - what you are saying is false, deceitful, and groundless.
אַף כִּי־תֹאמַר לֹא תְשׁוּרֶנּוּ דִּין לְפָנָיו וּתְחוֹלֵל לוֹ׃ - Even though you say that you do not see Him, judgment is before Him, and you should hope for Him.
"Even though you say that you do not see Him" - even though you claim that you cannot perceive Him, that you do not see how the Holy One, blessed be He, exercises His providence. And from what do you draw this proof? From the very fact that Hashem does not take retribution from the wicked: here the wicked do whatever enters their mind, and I do not see His arrow flying like lightning to punish them. Elihu tells him: Know that "judgment is before Him" - the judgment stands before Him to execute justice in the earth. And how does He carry out this judgment? "Ut'cholel lo" - you were created to execute this judgment; you were created to serve as an emissary of divine providence to punish those wicked people, those wrongdoers who oppress the destitute. He formed you, He created you (cholel) for this very purpose.
His intention has two dimensions. First, a general answer: humanity was created in such a way that it has the capacity to protect itself. Second, a personal answer: you, Iyov, were a leader, you were the greatest of all the children of the East, and you should have taken action in this direction to eradicate the wicked and the criminals - and consequently, you personally would not have been harmed by them either. For Iyov himself was harmed by the kingdom of Sheba and by the Chaldeans; they were the ones who came and plundered his property. Elihu says to him: Had you taken care beforehand to eradicate all the wicked and the criminals, there would have been no marauders from Sheba, no Chaldeans, and no bandits, and you would never have arrived at the state you are in. Therefore, "ut'cholel lo" - Hashem formed you and created you so that you would act against those wicked people and wrongdoers.
"And now, because His anger has not visited"
וְעַתָּה כִּי־אַיִן פָּקַד אַפּוֹ וְלֹא־יָדַע בַּפַּשׁ מְאֹד׃ - And now, because there was no [justice], His wrath visited; yet he did not know it, despite the great excess.
"And now, because there is none" - Hashem saw that there is no justice in the land; you did not fulfill the mission for which you were fashioned and created, you did not eradicate the evildoers, and the community at large also did not band together to defend themselves and take retribution from the wicked. Therefore, "His anger visited": the wicked bandits banded together, devastating civilization and harming people, and then "the soul of the slain cries out" - people cry: Master of the Universe, why do You not save us? And you too were harmed, and Sheba and the Chaldeans plundered all your wealth. Had you eliminated the evildoers, they would not have been able to act against you.
"Nor did he know" - yet despite all this, Iyov did not know that the punishment he received came through Divine Providence, because he failed to execute justice and did not care for the community to save them from the wicked bandits; he did not realize that it was for this reason that the Holy One, blessed be He, exacted retribution from him. And therefore, "with great abundance": pash denotes multiplicity, as in pashu, pushu usgu, and in Aramaic nafish - much. That is, Hashem visited His wrath upon Iyov in great measure, in great anger, and this is why you see that his children, his wealth, and his body were all subjected to severe afflictions. And why? For this very reason: you were supposed to take retribution from the evildoers and you did not, so you were the first to suffer at their hands.
"And Iyov Opens His Mouth in Vanity"
וְאִיּוֹב הֶבֶל יִפְצֶה־פִּיהוּ בִּבְלִי־דַעַת מִלִּין יַכְבִּר׃ - But Iyov opens his mouth in vanity; without knowledge he multiplies words.
And Iyov, despite Hashem taking retribution from him for not fulfilling what was incumbent upon him, still does not realize that he is paying the price, and therefore still "opens his mouth in vanity" - speaking futile words, and "without knowledge he multiplies words" - multiplying words without understanding, raising complaints against the Holy One, blessed be He, unaware that everything that befell him was his own fault and the result of his own deeds. Had he fought against the wicked, the wicked would not have harmed him. Those who plundered his possessions did so because he failed to eradicate them from the land; his children died because he did not take to heart to repent of his sin; and the malignant boils afflicted him because he pursued pleasures and luxuries.
In simple terms: reward and punishment that come upon a person mostly stem from the person's own deeds. When a person does bad things, bad comes to him, even naturally: when a person is drawn after the desires of his heart, those desires harm him both physically and spiritually, causing him damage and bringing him trouble. And afterward, let him not cry out or let his heart rage against Hashem, but rather let him realize that he himself was the cause of all his troubles.
In Summary:
Elihu teaches Iyov two fundamental principles. First: man does not benefit the Holy One, blessed be He, through his righteousness, nor does he harm Him through his wickedness - "Your wickedness affects a man like yourself, and your righteousness a human being" - and therefore one cannot demand a separate wage; the reward is the good inherent in the deed itself, and the punishment is the harm inherent in the bad deed itself, and the Torah is a Torah of life that teaches how to live well here. Second: the complaint "Why does Hashem not punish the wicked?" is no claim at all, for the Holy One, blessed be He, gave even weak animals the natural capacity for defense and assembling together, and all the more so to man, the pinnacle of creation - "Who teaches us more than the beasts of the earth, and makes us wiser than the fowls of heaven." "Judgment is before Him, so wait for Him": you were created to bring justice to fruition. And since Iyov did not do so, neither in general nor in particular, His anger visited him - yet he still multiplies words without knowledge, instead of recognizing that he himself was the cause of all his troubles.