Although Chazal and meforshim attribute a whole panalopy of aveiros to Nadav and Avihu, we need to take things in context. A flaw that Hashem holds a great person accountable for might be ignored in a lesser person. Why is it that Nadav and Avihu's death is mentioned at the beginning of parshas Acharei Mos, which talks about the avodah of Yom Kippur? To teach us, answers the Yalkut, that the death of tzadikim brings as great as kaparah as Y"K. "Tzadikim" the Midrash calls them -- despite their cheit.
In last week's parsha we find that even before we finish with the laws of aninus and the story of which korbanos Aharon ate and which were left over, there is a break and Hashem speaks to Aharon directly and tells him the law of not entering the mikdash or paskening halachos in a state of drunkenness. Rashi comments that the parsha being told directly to Aharon was a reward for "va'yidom Aharom," Aharon accepting the din on his children in silence.
And if the parsha would have been given later, or if we would not have a special parsha from which Rashi can derive that Aharon got a reward for his silence, would we have thought that Hashem would not give him the schar he deserved???
The sefer She'eiris Menachem answers that sometimes a person accepts tragedy in silence, but inside he is eating his kishkes out in torment. The parsha here comes to tell us that this was not the case with Aharon -- he was tocho k'boro. How do we know? Because "ain ha'Shechina shorah ela mitoch simcha." By telling us that Hashem spoke directly to Aharon and revelaed Torah to him, the it means Aharon was in a state of inner simcha -- he was capable of receiving the dvar Hashem despite what he had just gone through. When you can accept tragedy in that way, then you deserve special schar.
In current events, today is Earth Day. It is amazing how many predictions the climate fanatics and earth lovers (we all love the earth, don't get me wrong) have made that have never come true, but they are never held accountable or taken to task. The same is true for the virus models. No matter how often they update the models, they are wrong, and wrong by a lot. I don't know about you, but in my job, if I consistently got things wrong, I would soon find myself unemployed. Not these folks. No matter how wrong they were in the past, they get to take another crack at it and another crack it, and no matter how often they are wrong their "expert" opinions will be cited and their recommendations are followed by the herd.
I want to go on record with a prediction that I hope comes to be proven false: at the rate NY/NJ is going, they will not allow minyanim to happen on R"H and Y"K. If there is some enterprising person out there, rent a hotel in a state that is outside the northeast and maybe some of us will be able to get there to daven for Yamim Noraim.
Again, I hope this proves to be wrong.
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The difference is that climate change doesn't require rushing to model before we're sure of the day.
ReplyDeleteWhen it comes to people dying now, you have to make decisions based on the best information you have on hand. Even as more information is coming in and the numbers you input into your model changes. When this all started, just before we went around giving Shalach Manos, we were relying on "data" from China that we now know was totalitarian propoganda. But should we have done?
1) People will die either way. The choice is between harming millions of people by shutting everything down (destroying the economy, putting off all non essential medical services, cancelling school, etc will cost lives) vs. harming some unknown # of people by not shutting everything down (but rather acting with common sense caution). 2) Secondly, once the models have been repeatedly proven wrong, there should be a swift reassessment of whether they should continue to be relied upon and to what degree they should influence decision making. My point is that that is not happening. 3) True climate change fanatics constantly say time is of the essence. According to advocates for the latest green new deal, we have only 12 more years before it is too late, so we need to act now. Didn't we hear that from Bernie and AOC and others?
DeleteIt's not the models that are proven wrong, it's the data is more complete as more of it exists. That's how science goes. Would you have shunned using medicine to save lives back when your doctor would have talked about bloodletting and balancing the 4 humours? What about during the era of miasma theory? And what about now, when we are closer to the truth but certainly not there yet on every disease? Any finding can be proven dalse. Don't eat eggs. It's okay to eat eggs. Ignore it all because you don't know what will be disproven next?
DeleteMeanwhile, for the past several weeks the numbers coming out of those models have gone down because of the effectiveness of social isolation.
It's why Sweden and Israel have similar size population, but Sweden has ten times as many deaths. (Sweden: 1,937 deaths out of 10.23mm people; Israel 191 out of 8.9mm.)
The numbers aren't just changing because they're wrong, but because warning people about how bad things could have gotten worked to keep people indoors! The lowest model expected 100,000 deaths in the US and we're now slightly below half that (47,681). At the top of the range, the number could have been 260k. (We'll ignore the Imperial College's model as being alarmist, but it was giving numbers an order of magnitude higher.)
The question is whether the resulting poverty will end up costing more lives than the 500,000 to 1 mm we are apparently saving now. Well, let's go to the models... Oh, yeah, you don't have reason to trust those...
>>>the numbers coming out of those models have gone down because of the effectiveness of social isolation.
DeleteThe models were created factoring in social isolation.
>>> That's how science goes.
In all of your examples, the choice is between take some remedy because it's the best we have and there is a chance it will work vs. doing nothing. Present circumstance was a choice between trying to save some % of lives at the cost of other lives. That's the difference.
Chaim, they were NOT factoring social isolation. Now you're just guessing. They were even announced to us as "we had better practice social distancing, or else we can expect ... Americans to die."
DeleteThe choice is between killing people now due to increasing exposure and overwhelming our resources to treat people all at once, or letting people die because of poverty later. My point was, it boils down to which number of dead people is bigger. We are increasingly confident in our estimate of how many people we're saving in the short term. We would go through the whole questionable modeling thing to get an idea of how many people we are sacrificing in the long term. Your assumption that it is more, or even simimlar in number, needs proving.
-- "To teach us...that the death of tzadikim brings as great as kaparah as Y"K"
ReplyDeleteduring their lives, Nadav and Avihu paskened in the presence of their Rebbe; now, by their deaths, these regular kohanim would match the unique service of their father the Kohen Gadol! chutzpah!!
-- "many predictions the climate fanatics...have made...have never come true"
could they ever come true? the answer may hinge on whether or not what Hashem said >in his heart<, Bereishis 8:22, regarding climate, has the status of a binding neder (a vow to give perpetual or fixed 'tzedaka' to His creation)...
Alonzo:
Delete1- Are those two aggaditos in sync, or does your observation imply that these are conflicting sides of the same machloqes?
2- Also, whether climate change will do serious harm also depends on whether that serious harm qualifies as a mabul. We need to know the limits of what is included in the neder. The flooding caused by climate change would far from eliminate all the ground man has to live on. Even if other effects would eventually prove fatal, would climate changes other than flooding qualify as a mabul?
2- even after 49 years of reactive cerebration in a cave within a cave, pasuk "8:22" remains simply pasuk 8:22, and pasuk 9:15, pasuk 9:15...
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