Think big writes:
Cantoresq:
I don’t know why I’m bothering to rubut your post (certainly not because i think I will succeed in changing your point of view, because i doubt anything anybody here says will be heard by you.) But maybe in case someone else on this public forum will be infected by your words, I will give a my point of view to consider.
You ask why she deserved the fate she did if she never fargined anyone? As Nameless said, We are not G-d and we have no way of knowing his cheshbonos.
I RESPOND:
Indeed we are not G-d and cannot fully understand His ways. But I’m sure if anyone ever asked him, R. Chaim Kanievsky would say the same about himself. Since we can’t presume to know G-d’s ways, I am against stories such as the one under discussion. They reduce the level of contemplation of the Divine to child’s play. Such drivel may have a pedagogic value when teaching seven and eight year olds, but they have no place in adult religious introspection.
This Big continues:
She may have been a very high soul who came into this world for a specific purpose and this was the way to fulfill it.
I Responde:
But we have no way of knowing that do we?
TB CONT.
As to your question of why her body did not decompose for not being jealous if she anyways could not feel jealousy, so why was she rewarded for it?: I think that is an excellent and intelligent question.
Again, as I said on the smoking blog, Yiddishkeit is not averse to questions, as long as they come from a sincere place and not from a knocking one. I don’t pretend to know the answer, and I can’t even say I believe the story without a doubt (Jews by nature are more sceptical than gullible) as unfortunately many stories make their rounds which turn out to be false or misconstrued. (But I still appreciate the message, regardless whether the story was true)
However, I’d like to propose an answer to your question, just for the sake of learning. We have a precedent in the torah for Hashem rewarding someone for something even if they were not in the position to do otherwise.
When Yaakov Avinu met up with his brother Eisav Harasha after many years, it says that all the shevatim bowed down to Eisav. Many years later, The first king of Yisroel was Shaul, who descended from Binyamin. The question is asked: why specifically from Binyamin ?(Yehuda was not going to receive it at first because the Hashem was not happy with how the request for king was made…See Shmuel Perek 10) One of the answers given is that since all the other shevatim bowed down to the rasha Eisav, except for Binyamin. Why not? BECAUSE HE WAS NOT YET BORN. Here we have another case where Hashem rewarded someone for something even though he was not in a position to do otherwise. How can we mortals try to Fathom Hashem’s Mind?
I Respond:
Forgive me, but it’s one thing when chazal make that point, and quite another when a rebbetzin does so. But your answer does address an interesting theololgical difficulty; the flip side of theodicy, [seemingly] capricious Divine grace.