Daf Ditty Taanis 21: It’s all for the best

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§ The Gemara relates another story that involves an unstable wall. Ilfa and Rabbi Yoḥanan
studied Torah together, and as a result they became very hard-pressed for money. They said:
Let us get up and go and engage in commerce, and we will fulfill, with regard to ourselves,
the verse:

‫ ד‬O‫ָבֵר‬-‫ ִכּי‬:‫ ֶאְביוֹן‬H‫ְבּ‬-‫ ִכּי ל ֹא ִיְהֶיה‬,‫ ֶאֶפס‬4 Howbeit there shall be no needy among you--for the
H‫ֶהי‬V‫ ֲאֶשׁר ְיהָוה ֱא‬,‫ ָבָּאֶרץ‬,‫ ְיהָוה‬,H‫ ְיָבֶרְכ‬LORD will surely bless thee in the land which the LORD
‫ ַנֲחָלה ְל ִרְשָׁתּהּ‬H‫ְל‬-‫ ֹנֵתן‬. thy God giveth thee for an inheritance to possess it--
Deut 15:4

“Although there should be no needy among you” as we will no longer be complete paupers.
They went and sat under a dilapidated wall and were eating bread, when two ministering
angels arrived.

Rabbi Yoḥanan heard that one angel said to the other: Let us knock this wall down upon
them and kill them, as they abandon eternal life of Torah study and engage in temporal life
for their own sustenance. The other angel said to him: Leave them, as there is one of them

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whose time of achievement stands before him, i.e., his time has yet to come. Rabbi Yoḥanan
heard all this, but Ilfa did not hear the angels’ conversation. Rabbi Yoḥanan said to Ilfa: Did
the Master hear anything? Ilfa said to him: No. Rabbi Yoḥanan said to himself: Since I heard
the angels and Ilfa did not hear, I can learn from this that it is I whose time of achievement
stands before me.

Rabbi Yoḥanan said to Ilfa: I will return home and fulfill with regard to myself the contrary
verse:

‫ֵכּן יא‬-‫ ִמֶקֶּרב ָהָאֶרץ; ַﬠל‬,‫ֶיְחַדּל ֶאְביוֹן‬-‫ִכּי ל ֹא‬ 11 For the poor shall never cease out of the land;
H‫ ְלָאִחי‬H‫ָיְד‬-‫ ָפֹּתַח ִתְּפַתּח ֶאת‬,‫ ֵלאֹמר‬,H‫ָא ֹנִכי ְמַצ ְוּ‬ therefore I command thee, saying: 'Thou shalt surely
‫ }ס‬.H‫ ְבַּא ְרֶצ‬,H‫ וְּלֶאְב ֹי ְנ‬H‫}ַלֲﬠ ִנֶיּ‬ open thy hand unto thy poor and needy brother, in thy
land.' {S}
Deut 15:11

“For the poor shall never cease out of the land” Rabbi Yoḥanan returned to the study hall,
and Ilfa did not return, but went to engage in business instead. By the time that Ilfa came back
from his business travels, Rabbi Yoḥanan had been appointed head of the academy, and his
financial situation had improved.

His colleagues said to Ilfa: If the Master had sat and studied, instead of going off to his business
ventures, wouldn’t the Master have been appointed head of the academy? Ilfa went and
suspended himself from the mast [askariya] of a ship, saying: If there is anyone who can ask
me a question concerning a baraita of Rabbi Ḥiyya and Rabbi Oshaya, and I do not resolve
his problem from a mishna, I will fall from the mast of this ship and be drowned. Ilfa sought
to demonstrate that despite the time he had spent in business, he still retained his extensive Torah
knowledge.

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§ The Gemara relates another story about a rundown building. They said about Naḥum of Gam
Zu that he was blind in both eyes, both his arms were amputated, both his legs were
amputated, and his entire body was covered in boils. And he was lying in a dilapidated house,
and legs of his bed were placed in buckets of water so that ants should not climb onto him,
as he was unable to keep them off in any other manner. Once his students sought to remove his
bed from the house and afterward remove his other vessels. He said to them: My sons, remove
the vessels first, and afterward remove my bed, as I can guarantee you that as long as I am
in the house, the house will not fall. Indeed they removed the vessels and afterward they
removed his bed, and immediately the house collapsed.

His students said to him: Rabbi, since you are evidently a wholly righteous man, as we have
just seen that as long as you were in your house it did not fall, why has this suffering befallen
you? He said to them: My sons, I brought it upon myself. Naḥum of Gam Zu related to them
the following: As once I was traveling along the road to my father-in-law’s house, and I had
with me a load distributed among three donkeys, one of food, one of drink, and one of
delicacies. A poor person came and stood before me in the road, saying: My rabbi, sustain
me. I said to him: Wait until I unload the donkey, after which I will give you something to eat.
However, I had not managed to unload the donkey before his soul left his body.

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I went and fell upon his face and said: May my eyes, which had no compassion on your eyes,
be blinded; may my hands, which had no compassion on your hands, be amputated; may my
legs, which had no compassion on your legs, be amputated. And my mind did not rest until
I said: May my whole body be covered in boils. Naḥum of Gam Zu prayed that his suffering
might atone for his failure. His students said to him: Even so, woe to us that we have seen you
in this state. He said to them: Woe is me if you had not seen me in this state, as this suffering
atones for me.

The Gemara inquires: And why did they call him Naḥum of Gam Zu? The reason is that with
regard to any matter that occurred to him, he would say: This too is for the good [gam zu
letova]. Once, the Jews wished to send a gift [doron] to the house of the emperor. They said:
Who should go and present this gift? Let Naḥum of Gam Zu go, as he is accustomed to
miracles. They sent with him a chest [sifta] full of jewels and pearls, and he went and spent
the night in a certain inn. During the night, these residents of the inn arose and took all of the
precious jewels and pearls from the chest, and filled it with earth. The next day, when he saw
what had happened, Naḥum of Gam Zu said: This too is for the good.

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When he arrived there, at the ruler’s palace, they opened the chest and saw that it was filled
with earth. The king wished to put all the Jewish emissaries to death. He said: The Jews are
mocking me. Naḥum of Gam Zu said: This too is for the good. Elijah the Prophet came and
appeared before the ruler as one of his ministers. He said to the ruler: Perhaps this earth is
from the earth of their father Abraham. As when he threw earth, it turned into swords, and
when he threw stubble, it turned into arrows, as it is written in a prophecy that the Sages
interpreted this verse as a reference to Abraham:

‫ ֶצֶדק ִיְקָרֵאהוּ ב‬,‫ִמי ֵהִﬠיר ִמִמְּזָרח‬ 2 Who hath raised up one from the east, at whose steps victory
‫ וְּמָלִכים‬,‫ְלַרְגלוֹ; ִיֵתּן ְלָפָניו גּוֹ ִים‬ attendeth? He giveth nations before him, and maketh him rule
‫ ְכַּקשׁ ִנָדּף‬,‫ ִיֵתּן ֶכָּﬠָפר ַח ְרבּוֹ‬--‫ַי ְרְדּ‬ over kings; his sword maketh them as the dust, his bow as the
‫ַקְשׁתּוֹ‬. driven stubble.
Isa 41:2

“His sword makes them as the dust, his bow as the driven stubble”

There was one province that the Romans were unable to conquer. They took some of this earth,
tested it by throwing it at their enemies, and conquered that province. When the ruler saw that
this earth indeed had miraculous powers, his servants entered his treasury and filled Naḥum of
Gam Zu’s chest with precious jewels and pearls and sent him off with great honor.

When Naḥum of Gam Zu came to spend the night at that same inn, the residents said to him:
What did you bring with you to the emperor that he bestowed upon you such great honor?
He said to them: That which I took from here, I brought there. When they heard this, the
residents of the inn thought that the soil upon which their house stood had miraculous powers.
They tore down their inn and brought the soil underneath to the king’s palace. They said to
him: That earth that was brought here was from our property. The miracle had been performed
only in the merit of Naḥum of Gam Zu. The emperor tested the inn’s soil in battle, and it was not
found to have miraculous powers, and he had these residents of the inn put to death.

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Summary

The Benefits of Righteousness: Gam Zeh Letovah

We are treated to a sequence of stories, aggadot, in today's daf. The first aggadot are related to
crumbling walls.1

1) Rabbi Yochanan and his teacher/colleague Ilfa decide to find employment instead of continuing
to be poor students of Torah. They sit by a wall about to fall and eat bread. While there, two
ministering angels decide to allow them to live, for one of the two has not yet achieved his
potential. Only Rabbi Yochanan could hear the angels. He decided to return to the study hall "for
the poor shall never cease out of the land" (Deuteronomy 15:11). Ilfa, known as the Master, was
challenged for his decision to continue to make money. He would be the head of the academy
rather than Rabbi Yochanan had he decided to return to the study hall! Ilfa tells them that he could
have answered any question about a baraita of Rabbi Chiyya and Rabbi Oshaya while tied to a
mast of a ship, falling to his death in the water if he was wrong.

2) An old man taught from a baraita that we should follow the wishes of a person who is on their
deathbed. The Gemara uses the example of a man who wishes for his sons to be given a sela every
week. If what he intended to say was a shekel, then they should each be given a shekel. Rabbi
Meir shared his opinion: "It is a mitzva to fulfill the statement of the dead."

1
http://dafyomibeginner.blogspot.com/2014/07/taanit-21-benefits-of-righteousness-gam.html

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3) Nachum of Gam Zu had his hands and legs amputated, was blind and had boils over his body.
The legs of his bed were in buckets of water to stop insects from crawling onto him. The students
asked him how this happened. He replied that he brought it onto himself. When travelling with
three donkeys and three types of nourishment, he came across a poor person begging for
food. Nachum of Gam Zu agreed to give him food but only after he unloaded the donkeys. By
that time, the poor person had died. In his grief, Nachum of Gam Zu fell on his face asking
forgiveness: May my eyes be blinded, my hands and legs be amputated, as my eyes, hands as legs
had no compassion on your eyes, hands and legs. His mind did not rest until he added, May my
body be covered with boils. When the students said "wot to us that we have seen you in this state",
he said "Woe is me if you had not seen me in this state, as this is my atonement."

4) Nachum of Gam Zu was named for his expression, "this too is for good", or "gam ze
letova". One story about this attitude tells us that Nachum Gam Zu was chosen to bring a chest
of fewels to the house of the emperor as a gift. Overnight at an inn, the jewels were stolen and
earth was placed in the chest. Gam ze letovah, he thought. Arriving at the palace, the earth was
seen as mockery. "I will kill all Jewish emissaries!" he said. Gam ze letovah, replied Nachum of
Gam Zu. He added, "Perhaps this earth is from the earth of Abraham - when Abraham threw earth,
it turned to swords; stubble turned to arrows (as interpreted from Isaiah, 41:2)." The Romans took
the chest with them when they attempted again to conquer a territory. The province was defeated
and Nachum of Gam Zu's chest was refilled with jewels. Back at the same inn, the people learned
of his story. They then brought more earth to the king's palace, but it did not lead to similar results
and the residents were put to death.

We take a break to return to more direct interpretation of the Mishna. The rabbis wonder how we
should define pestilence. A certain proportion of people must have died over a specific period of
time to name that tragedy as pestilence. Pestilence is a reason for rabbis to declare a fast. To
clarify how we should respond when calamities happen over the course of one day, the rabbis
compare this guideline to Rabbi Meir's teaching about oxen who gore more than once in a day.

Further, the rabbis discuss how to limit the spread of plague and pestilence. Of note: we are
required to fast if Gentile towns are facing epidemics. As well, we are required to fast if pigs are
infected, for their intestines are said to be similar to those of humans. Gentiles will be liable to
become infected and then Jews will be vulnerable based on our contact with Gentiles. The rabbis
use the metaphor of Eretz Yisroel as a lady - if she is afflicted, how much more so will her
maidservant, Babylonia (ie. the Diaspora) be afflicted? We learn that the diaspora is to fast when
Eretz Yisroel is faced with a fast.

5) We return to a story about the merits of ordinary people. Abba the Bloodletter received great
honours compared with Abaye and Rava. Abaye seemed jealous. He learned that Abba the
Bloodletter would do his bloodletting according to the laws of modesty. Further, he would allow
people to pay privately, so that noone would know if someone paid or not. When Torah scholars
came to him, Abba the Bloodletter would give money to them, telling them that eating healthy

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food would help the conditions that brought them in for bloodletting. Abaye sent Sages to
investigate: they were offered money, food, and mats to sleep upon.

We will learn the rest of this story tomorrow.

Each of these stories reinforce the notion of good behaviour and good intentions leading to good
results. We know that the rabbis often faced pretty terrible circumstances. Even so, the rabbis
encouraged kindness, generosity, thoughtfulness and respectful behaviour by reminding each other
that their suffering was leading toward something better.

THE STORY OF ILFA AND REBBI YOCHANAN

Rav Mordechai Kornfeld writes:

The Gemara relates the story of Ilfa and Rebbi Yochanan. Ilfa and Rebbi Yochanan suffered from
abject poverty while they immersed themselves in Torah learning. Their situation became so
difficult that they decided to leave the Beis Midrash and go to work in fulfillment of the verse,
"There will be no destitute among you" (Devarim 15:4). When they were on their way to find
work, Rebbi Yochanan overheard two Mal'achei ha'Shares conversing with each other. The
Mal'achim said that these two people deserved to be killed for leaving the life of eternity (Torah
study) and involving themselves in the temporary life of pursuing a material livelihood. The
Mal'achim added that the only reason they did not kill Ilfa and Rebbi Yochanan is because the fate
of one of them would soon take a propitious turn. Rebbi Yochanan heard this conversation and
decided to continue learning Torah in poverty and not to go to work. Ilfa, who did not hear the
words of the Mal'achim, went to work.

By the time Ilfa returned from his business endeavors, Rebbi Yochanan had been inaugurated as
the Rosh Yeshiva, a position of great prestige and wealth (Rashi). The people of the town said to
Ilfa upon his return, "Had you stayed and learned Torah [like Rebbi Yochanan], you would have
become the Rosh Yeshiva!"
When Ilfa heard this, he ascended the mast of a ship and suspended himself in the crow's nest at
the top. He proclaimed, "If anyone can ask me a question which I cannot answer about the source
in the Mishnah of any statement of Rebbi Chiya and Rebbi Oshiya in the Beraisa, I will jump down
from here and drown myself!"

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This incident poses a number of questions.

Why did Ilfa climb to the top of a ship to make his announcement? Why did he not simply go to
the top of a Beis Midrash or some other structure on land?

Why did Ilfa threaten to kill himself? The Torah forbids one from killing himself, regardless of
the amount of distress he experiences. (See BEN YEHOYADA.)

RAV JOSEPH PEARLMAN shlit'a of London quotes his father, RAV REFOEL DOVID zt'l,
who gave a beautiful explanation for this Gemara (as cited in HA'MEIR, Parshas Vayechi 5742).
Rav Refoel Dovid explained that when Ilfa returned from his business endeavors, he felt that he
was being criticized for not having attained the heights in Torah which he could have attained. He
felt that this criticism was unjust. He maintained that his choice to follow the path of "Torah Im
Derech Eretz," learning Torah while working for a livelihood, was justified. He wanted to prove
to his detractors that his Torah learning had not suffered at all as a result of his involvement in
pursuing a livelihood (as Rashi writes, "[Ilfa said:] Even though I became involved in commerce,
I did not forget any of my learning").

Ilfa was a merchant who, like the people of Zevulun, traveled by ship to faraway places to trade
his wares. (This might be why he was called Ilfa; the word "Ilfa" in Aramaic means "ship.") By
climbing to the top of the mast of the ship, Ilfa demonstrated that although he had reached the
pinnacle of success in his business, his involvement in business had not interfered with his Torah
learning.

He declared that he was prepared to answer any question in Torah that would be posed to him, and
if he would be unable to answer it he would "jump down" from the top of the ship -- that is, he
would leave his immensely successful business and wealth and abandon his Derech of learning
and working together -- and "drown himself" completely in the sea of Torah, as Rebbi Yochanan
had done. If his Torah learning had suffered as a result of his involvement in business, he was
willing to jump down from the world of business success and immerse himself in the sea of Torah.
According to this explanation, Ilfa felt no regret for the path he had chosen. He considered himself
to have chosen the correct way in the service of Hash-m, just as Rebbi Yochanan felt that he had
chosen the correct way in the service of Hash-m. How, though, could Ilfa's path have been an
acceptable one, if the Mal'achim themselves said that one who leaves Torah learning deserves to
die?

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RAV REUVEN MARGOLIYOS (introduction to Margoliyos ha'Yam) suggests that both Ilfa
and Rebbi Yochanan did exactly what they were supposed to do; Ilfa accomplished no less than
Rebbi Yochanan. The Midrash (Shir ha'Shirim Rabah 8:7) says that Rebbi Yochanan told Rebbi
Chiya bar Aba that he once owned a vast amount of real estate, but he sold it in order to continue
learning Torah. Rebbi Chiya bar Aba cried for him that he no longer had anything with which to
support himself when he would become old. Ilfa, on the other hand, may have come from a very
poor family. Had he not worked for a living, he would have had nothing at all to eat. Since Rebbi
Yochanan had what to eat and only wanted to work as much as necessary to ensure that he would
have sustenance in his old age, he made the right choice when he decided to abandon his plan to
work and instead to live off of his inheritance until it would be depleted. He would trust in Hash-
m and not worry about what he would do for sustenance in his old age. Ilfa, in contrast, had nothing
to sell and nothing with which to support himself, and thus he made the correct choice when he
decided to involve himself in business.

Why, though, did the Mal'achim want to kill both Ilfa and Rebbi Yochanan for leaving the life of
Torah study, if Ilfa's choice was justified?

Moreover, the Gemara explains that Ilfa and Rebbi Yochanan were sitting below a weak wall
which the Mal'achim wanted to topple on them. What is the significance of the fact that the wall
was weak? If one who leaves Torah learning indeed deserves death, then the Mal'achim would
have had grounds to collapse the wall onto Ilfa and Rebbi Yochanan even if it would have been a
strong wall.

The Gemara earlier (20a) says that one may not walk below a weak wall because he thereby
diminishes his merits, which become "used up" by protecting him from the danger that the weak
wall poses (Berachos 55a, Rosh Hashanah 16b). Ilfa and Rebbi Yochanan's lives were in danger
simply because they negligently sat under a weak wall. The Mal'achim said that had they still been
involved in learning Torah, their Torah study would have protected them (as the Gemara says in
Sotah 21a). Since Torah is not within the realm of nature, those who study it are freed from nature's
grasp (as the Midrash says in Bamidbar Rabah 10:8: "The only one who is truly free is one who
toils in Torah"). Once they decided to stop learning Torah and become involved in a worldly
occupation, they no longer merited Divine protection from natural calamities. Nevertheless, they
were protected by the merit of Rebbi Yochanan who was destined to become the generation's next
Torah leader.

Steinzaltz (OBM) writes:2

2
https://www.ou.org/life/torah/masechet_taanit1824/

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What type of plague will cause community leaders to declare a public fast?

The Gemara relates that Rav Yehudah was informed that a plague had broken out among the pigs
in the community. He responded to the report by calling for a public fast. The Gemara rejects the
suggestion that Rav Yehudah believed that a plague among one type of animals could transfer to
others and thus posed a danger to humans, arguing that he saw the case of pigs to be unique, since
the intestines of pigs are similar to human intestines.

There is no doubt that some types of diseases can be transferred from animals to
people. Trichinosis, for example, is a disease carried by pigs that can be transferred to humans,
although that ordinarily takes place only if the flesh of the infected animal is eaten, which was not
a concern in our case. Nevertheless, there are similarities between the internal anatomy of pigs and
humans that are known to scientists today. These similarities lead to use of the intestines of pigs
in human transplants, due to a relatively small incidence of rejection of such tissue. Rav Yehuda’s
concern was that in this specific case, these similarities may lead to the transfer of the swine plague
to people.

Based on this discussion, Tosafot take for granted that if a plague breaks out among non-Jews, the
Jewish community will declare a fast, since the possibility of the plague spreading from non-Jews
to the Jewish community seems to be obvious. Surprisingly, the Ritva disagrees with Tosafot.
The Me’iri argues that our Gemara really means to teach that a plague among idol worshippers
should be seen as potentially dangerous to the Jewish community, and the Gemara discusses pigs
as a code word for idol worshipers, based on the passage in Tehillim 80:14.

Ilfa climbed to the top of the mast of the ship, and announced that he could find a source in a
Mishnah to identify the author of any Baraisa.3 A “certain old man” came along and challenged
him to name the author of a Baraisa which discussed the halachah of how a person is to distribute
money to an orphan based upon the particular instructions which the father gave. Ilfa was able to
recognize that the author was Rabbi Meir. Tosafos (Chullin 6a, ‫( אשכחיה ה”ד‬states that whenever
the Gemara refers to “‫— סבא ההוא‬a certain elderly man”, it is a reference to Eliyahu Hanavi. In our
Gemara, this means that the one who challenged Ilfa was Eliyahu Hanavi.

Chasam Sofer points out a difficulty with using this interpretation in the context of our Gemara.
Could it be that Eliyahu did not know that Ilfa was able to name the author of the Baraisa? Why
did Eliyahu come and ask this question? The Baraisa cited is found in Kesuvos (70a), and it
presents the case of a father who gave instructions that his son be given a shekel each week,
whereas the true needs of the son were actually double that—he needed a sela (double the amount
of a shekel). Does the father want the son to get only a shekel and to struggle, or does the father
want the son to be given a full sela, and his instructions were stated in a limited manner in order
that the sons not become complacent? Ilfa had just expressed an interest to leave full-time learning
in order not to remain destitute.

3
https://www.dafdigest.org/masechtos/Taanis%20021.pdf

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His attitude was that a person should not live with deprivation, and, accordingly, his interpretation
of the Baraisa would be that the father’s words should not be understood literally, and that he
actually wants his son to be fully supported. This would not be according to Rabbi Meir, who says
that we must follow the instructions of the father literally. When Eliyahu challenged him, Ilfa said
that the Baraisa was the opinion of Rabbi Meir.

Chasam Sofer explains that, in effect, Ilfa was retracting his initiative to leave learning, and thus
admitting that the approach of Rabbi Yochanan was correct. The father did want his sons to live
without full financial support, and that they instead be trained to delve into Torah, being ready to
ignore all other calculations.

In the year 5554, the Av Beis Din of Pressburg passed away.

The city sent a formal invitation to Rav Yitzchak of Samavor, zt”l, offering him the post. Instead
of sending it to the Rav directly, however, the leaders of Pressburg chose to send it to one of their
counterparts in Samavor, Reb Yona, with a request that he deliver it to his Av Beis Din. When a
letter arrived with the enclosure and its instruction, Rav Yona deduced what it must be. Since he
had a very close relationship with Rav Yitzchak, Reb Yona couldn’t bear the thought of his Rav
moving to Pressburg. He chose to keep the letter to himself.

Time passed, and the leaders of Pressburg assumed that Rav Yitzchak’s failure to respond was
meant to signal refusal. They then sent an invitation to Rav Moshe Meshulam, zt”l, the Av Beis
Din of Tismanitz, who agreed to assume the position. When Rav Moshe Meshulam heard that Rav
Yitzchak had never sent as much as a reply, he decided to investigate. Soon afterward, Rav Moshe
traveled to Samavor.

When Rav Moshe arrived, the entire town came out to greet him, and Rav Yitzchak planned a gala
meal in his honor to which all of Samavor’s prominent citizens were invited. During the festivities,
Rav Moshe asked Rav Yitzchak, “Why didn’t you respond to the invitation to become the Av Beis
Din of Pressburg?” Rav Yitzchak was taken aback. “What do you mean?” he asked. “I never heard
from them.” Reb Yona could no longer contain himself. He blurted out, “They sent a letter but I
kept it. I couldn’t bear to think that our beloved Rav might leave us!” Rav Moshe said, “Rav
Yitzchak, the post is still yours. After all, they sent you the invitation first.” Rav Yitzchak’s
response surprised everyone. “When Rav Yochanan and Ilfa were traveling, Rav Yochanan
heard one angel say that one of them is destined for greatness. Since only Rav Yochanan heard
this, he concluded that it was meant for him. Since you, not I, received the letter, it must be that
you were destined to be the Av Beis Din of Pressburg.”

That, too, is for the best

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Mark Kerzner writes:4
Nachum ish Gam Zu was called this way because he was accustomed to saying "That, too, (gam
zu) is for the best." Once the Jews needed to send a gift of precious pearls to the Roman emperor.
They chose Nachum ish Gam Zu, because "he is used to miracles happen on his behalf." On the
road, people at an inn exchanged the precious stones in his chest for dirt from the house. In the
morning, when Nachum saw it, he said "This, too, is for the best," and continued on his way, to
present it to the emperor. When the latter saw the dirt, he was enraged, "Jew are mocking me!"
and decided to kill them all. Nachum said, "That, too, is for the best."

Elijah the prophet appeared, looking as one of the court nobles, and suggested, "Perhaps this are
magical dirt, which Abraham used to conquer his enemies." They tested the dirt in a far-away war,
and the dirt turned into swords, the straw in it - into arrows, and they have successfully concluded
the war. On return, they filled Nachum's chest with treasures as a sign of gratitude.

When Nachum came back to the same inn, the people there saw the honor awarded him, and asked
him why. He told them the story. They razed the house, took the dirt from it, and presented it to
the emperor, saying "Nachum's dirt is from the same house." However, their dirt did not test as
well as Nachum's, and they were executed.

Rabbi Johnny Solomon writes:5

While many Talmudic stories have little bearing on our daily practice, there is a story found in our
daf (Ta’anit 21a) which frightened our Sages to such an extent that it is directly referenced in the
Shulchan Aruch and continues to motivate many of us even today.

We are taught about Nachum Ish Gam Zu that he had many physical afflictions and that he lived
in abject poverty. Upon being asked by his students about the factors that contributed to his harsh
situation, he answered them by saying: ‘My children, I brought it upon myself! For I was once
travelling on the road to the house of my father-in-law, and I had with me three donkey-loads of
supplies. One of food, one of drink, and one of various delicacies. A poor man then came and stood
beside me by the road and said to me, “My teacher, sustain me!” (i.e. please can you give me
something to eat!), to which I responded, “wait until I unload (the food) from the donkey”. But by
the time I got off my donkey [and slowly unpacked my supplies and then prepared him some food]
he had died.”’ The lesson from here is that when someone is desperate, we don’t take our time for
formalities or doing things in the neatest way possible. Instead, we rush to help them.

As mentioned, this story is referenced in the Shulchan Aruch (Yoreh Deah 247:1) where we are
instructed that: ‘It is a Mitzvat Asseh (positive commandment) to give Tzedakah according to one's
means, and we are commanded about this Mitzvat Asseh repeatedly [in the Torah]. Moreover,

4
https://talmudilluminated.com/taanit/taanit21.html
5
www.rabbijohnnysolomon.com

14
there is also a parallel Mitzvat Lo Ta’aseh (negative commandment) relating to those who turn
their eyes away from those who are needy, as it says: “do not harden your heart or close your hand
towards your brother in need” (Devarim 15:7). And whoever turns their eyes away from those in
need are called wicked and are considered to be akin to idol worshippers [since they fail to pay
heed to this basic commandment from God]. And we should be very careful about fulfilling these
[commandments] because failing to do so can cause us to play a role in the spilling of blood - such
that a poor person who asks for our assistance may even die if we fail to give them immediate
relief as we see in the story of Nachum Ish Gam Zu.’

Reflecting on this law, it is worthwhile noting how, Baruch Hashem, we live in a time when
ambulance services can reach those who are sick very quickly, with local communities investing
resources to support organisations like Hatzalah to provide even quicker responses from local
paramedics.

Yet though Jewish communities have always provided for their needy, there are occasions when
our response times aren’t nearly as quick as they need to be, and what we are being taught by the
story of Nachum Ish Gam Zu is that we should be as quick to give the hungry food as we are to
give the sick treatment, because in both cases, failing to do so can cause us to play a role in the
spilling of blood.

Clearly, it is evident from all this that we should do all we can to help those in hardship in our
local neighbourhood. Yet there is a further lesson we can learn from the story of Nachum Ish Gam
Zu about keeping people waiting, which can be applied by each of us, and which I’d like to explain
by referencing a story told (see Itturei Torah, Chelek 1 p. 129) involving two great Torah leaders
of the past century.

Rabbi Leib Chasman once joined the Chafetz Chaim for a Friday night meal in Radin, but rather
than starting their meal with the ‘Shalom Aleichem’ as was the custom, the Chafetz Chaim
immediately started with Kiddush, and then provided his guests with some appetizers, and only
then started singing ‘Shalom Aleichem’.

Rabbi Chasman could not contain his curiosity and he asked the Chafetz Chaim why he had
changed his practice - to which the Chafetz Chaim answered by saying: “Having travelled so far
today you must certainly be very hungry and I wanted to serve you first. The angels – to whom we
recite the Shalom Aleichem – aren’t hungry and can wait a little.” Here too we see that when
someone is desperate, we don’t take our time for formalities. Instead, we rush to help them (nb. in
my own home, when my wife or kids are feeling tired or hungry, we do something similar).

Ultimately, by reflecting deeply on the lesson taught by Nachum Ish Gam Zu and by putting its
lessons into practice, we can give relief to the tired, food to the hungry, and support to the needy.
We can improve lives, and in some cases, even save lives. As such, it is no surprise that this story
is directly referenced in the Shulchan Aruch and continues to motivate many of us even today.

15
Sara Ronis writes:6

Dangerous deceptions, dramatic disguises, daring deeds — today’s daf has it all.

Our story of secret identities is set in Bei Lefet, a city in the Sasanian province of Khuzistan. The
Gemara opens with an air of legend and romance, telling us that Rabbi Beroka Hoza’a and Elijah
the prophethimself would regularly hang out together in the city market. As so often happens when
friends get together, their conversation would turn to discussing the people around them. Rabbi
Berkokah said to Elijah:

Is there anyone in this market worthy of the World to Come?

He (Elijah) said to him: No.

In the meantime, he saw a man wearing black shoes, and who did not place the sky-blue thread
on his tzizit . Elijah said to Rabbi Beroka: That man is worthy of the World to Come.

We learn from this story that apparently Jewish men did not usually wear black shoes and often
had their tzitzit visible. This man is not dressed as a Jew and yet, of all the people bustling around
in the marketplace, he is identified as the only one worthy of the World to Come. Rabbi Beroka,
full of questions, ran after the man to ask his occupation. But the man responded, “Go away, but
come back tomorrow.”

The next day, Rabbi Beroka met the man in the market and got some answers from the mysterious
figure in black shoes:

I am a prison guard, and I imprison the men separately and the women separately, and I place
my bed between them so that they will not come to transgression. When I see a Jewish woman
upon whom gentiles have set their eyes, I risk my life to save her. One day, there was a betrothed
young woman among us, upon whom the gentiles had set their eyes. I took dregs of red wine
and threw them on the lower part, and I said: She is menstruating.

The man tells us that he works for the Sasanian government in the prison system, but tries to ensure
that those who are imprisoned are able to live in as much safety and dignity as possible. The text
doesn’t tell us why these people are imprisoned, or whether they are guilty of a crime. What matters
to our storytellers is that the guard is sensitive to the vulnerability to sexual assault of those who
are imprisoned.

The Sasanian government was Zoroastrian, and like rabbinic Judaism, Zoroastrianism has
numerous rules regulating purity, menstruation and physical intimacy. Here the guard uses a
common taboo to the Jewish woman’s advantage, feigning menstruation to keep her attackers at
bay.

If he’s so dedicated to the Jewish people, then, why is he dressed in a decidedly non-Jewish way?
The man goes on to explain the power of his disguise:

6
myjewishlearningcom

16
I come and go among gentiles, I dress this way so that they will not know that I am a Jew. When
they issue a decree, I inform the sages, and they pray for mercy and annul the decree.

He keeps his Jewishness a secret so that he can be best positioned to learn about the government’s
rulings and attitudes. Though he isn’t himself a rabbi, he recognizes the rabbis’ profound
relationship with God and uses them to intercede and save the Jewish people.

He is also well-versed in the art of triage. Rabbi Berokah asks him why he was in such a rush the
day before and was unable to talk. The man replies:

At that moment, they issued a decree, and I said: First I must go and inform the sages, so that
they will pray for mercy over this matter.

This Jew, dressed as a gentile, looks out for his whole community — from the rabbis to the general
populace to those who have been imprisoned.

There’s a common saying: “If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then
it probably is a duck.”

Our daf is a good reminder that something that looks like a duck might actually not be a duck!
Sometimes a Sasanian prison guard is actually a heroic Jew in disguise. And sometimes a person
who is rushing through the marketplace is actually worthy of the World to Come.

The tomb of Rabbi Nachum Ish Gamzu, Gamzu Street, Safed, Israel

17
 NAHUM OF GIMZO

Wilhelm Bacher and Jacob Zallel Lauterbach writes:7

Tanna of the second generation (first century). In the Talmud (Ta'an. 21a; Yer. Sheḳ. v. 15) he is
called "ish gam zu" (the man of "gam zu"); and this name is explained as referring to Nahum's
motto. It is said that on every occasion, no matter how unpleasant the circumstance, he exclaimed"
Gam zu le-ṭobah" (This, too, will be for the best). The correct reading in the passages in question,
however, is "ish Gimzo" (the man of Gimzo), the error being due to a confusion of the place-name
with the motto. In another Talmudic passage (Pes. 22b; comp. Ḳid. 57a), owing to a confusion of
‫ ג‬and ‫ע‬, he is called "Nehemiah the 'Imsoni" (= "Gimsoni"; comp. Grätz in "Monatsschrift," 1870,
p. 527).

Nahum was the teacher of Akiba, and taught him the exegetical principles of inclusion and
exclusion ("ribbui u-mi'uṭ"). Only one halakah of his has been preserved (Ber. 22a); but it is known
that he interpreted the whole Torah according to the rule of "ribbui u-mi'uṭ" (Shebu. 26a). He used
to explain the accusative particle by saying that it implied the inclusion in the object of
something besides that which is explicitly mentioned. In the sentence "Thou shalt fear the Lord
thy God" (Deut. x. 20), however, he did not explain the word before (= "the Lord"), since
he did not wish to cause any one to share in the reverence due to God; and he justified his
inconsistency with the explanation that the omission in this passage was as virtuous as was the
interpretation in all the other passages (Pes. 22b).

It is related that in later years Nahum's hands and feet became paralyzed, and he was afflicted with
other bodily ailments. He bore his troubles patiently, however, and even rejoiced over them. In
answer to a question of his pupils as to why, since he was such a perfectly just man, he had to
endure so many ills, he declared that he had brought them on himself because once when he was
on the way to his father-in-law's and was carrying many things to eat and drink, he met a poor man
who asked him for food. As he was about to open the bundle the man died before his eyes. In
deepest grief, and reproaching himself with having perhaps caused by his delay the man's death,
he cursed himself and wished himself all the troubles to which his pupils referred (Ta'an. 21a).
Various other stories are told of miracles that happened to him (ib.).

Bibliography:

• J. Brüll, Einleitung in die Mischna, i. 94-95;

• Bacher, Ag. Tan. i. 61-64.

7
https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/11294-nahum-of-gimzo

18
 Gam Zu Letova
Rabbi Hershel Schachter writes:8

Towards the end of the parsha, Yosef's brothers plead with him to not take revenge or
otherwise punish them for what they had done to him. Yosef responds that although their
intentions were bad, since Hashem intended it for a good purpose, namely, to keep everyone
alive, he would not consider harming them at all.

Very often something which we consider an absolute tragedy occurs, and only years later,
when looking back and placing all events into the proper perspective, do we realize that the
tragedy was not at all a tragedy, but rather enabled something wonderfully good and
marvelous.

In Parshas Miketz (42:36) Yaakov Avinu is so distraught; his whole life is falling apart: Yosef
is gone, Shimon is gone, and now they're taking away his beloved Binyamin.
The medrash comments on that passuk that Hashem was sitting in heaven above and
chuckling at Yaakov's "krechzing". Yosef is gone. He's the prime minister of Egypt and is on
top of the world! Shimon is gone. He's roaming about freely touring Egypt! Yosef only
imprisoned him as long as the brothers were there (See Rashi to Parshas Miketz 42:24). And
now Binyamin too will be lost? Nothing at all happened to Binyamin, just like nothing at all
happened to Yosef or to Shimon. Yaakov's perception was that he had experienced tragedy
upon tragedy, while in truth nothing had gone wrong at all.

The Talmud (Berachos 60b) tells us that when we experience a tragedy we must recite a
special blessing, barcuh dayan haemes, and that beracha should be accompanied by
acceptance of the tragedy with great simcha based on the belief that everything that Hashem
allows to happen is always for the good! When the Torah commands us (Devarim 25) to wipe
out the nation of Amalek, the expression used is that they should be wiped out
"mitachas hashomayim - from under the heavens". The implication is that only from our
perspective should Amalek be wiped out, as they are the physical embodiment of evil.

However, from Hashem's perspective, which takes into consideration the totality of all events,
even Amalek embodies some good. This is what the rabbis in the Talmud had in mind when
they pointed out (Gittin 57b) that descendents of Amalek and other evil individuals converted
to Judaism and learned and taught Torah. Although we view Amalek as the ultimate symbol
of evil, history has proven that even they had some redeeming value.

Whenever we experience any tragedy we should always adopt the attitude of Rabbi Akiva
(Bearchos 60b) who would always assume that G-d would not have permitted the event to
occur if it weren't something good. Rabbi Akiva learned this approach from his rebbe -

8
https://www.torahweb.org/torah/2007/parsha/rsch_vayechi.html

19
 Nachum Ish Gam Zu, who would always comment upon experiencing tragedies, "this too is
certainly something good!" (Taanis 21a).

Is Everything that Happens for the Good?

Overview: How to explain the often-quoted Talmudic saying that

“everything is for the good” in light of the previous chapter that G-d doesn’t
provide us with the ultimate good.9

The Talmud says the famous idiom that “everything that G-d does is for the good.”[i] After the
previous chapter we can now understand the real meaning of this. Some mistakenly believe this to
mean that everything that happens to us in this world is in fact for our ultimate good, and there’s
no good greater than that good. But that belief is an exaggeration of what the facts actually do tell
us. The Lord is infinite and His powers unlimited. As explained earlier, He therefore could have
made the Gentile as Jewish to receive the same superior reward. He could have made that we
wouldn’t have a spare second of distress or lack of ultimate joy. He could have made that we

9
https://jewishbelief.com/is-everything-that-happens-for-the-good/

20
wouldn’t need to work for our reward but would get it automatically. Similarly, He could have
avoided the whole punishment system He created. Yet He didn’t. So we obviously cannot say that
everything G-d does is the ultimate good for us.[1]

The answer to this is that our perception of good is not the true definition of good as it is in reality.
As physical humans, we perceive good as selfish gains that give us happiness and benefit us
personally or the people we care for personally. But true good is the achievement of G-d’s plans.

Being that G-d is the ultimate truth and goodness, by definition all His actions are good—even if
it goes against human desires. G-d desired to create a world with challenges and suffering in which
humans are challenged with the ability to do good and evil. The suffering in the world was part of
His plan. Why was this part of His plan? We do not know. In fact so many things that G-d does
are unfathomable for us limited human beings.

So if the existence of evil is part of G-d’s plan in Creation, how can we truly call it evil. It is only
evil in the sense that we as selfish beings do not appreciate the suffering. But for the greater
purpose of Creation, evil is apparently an existential means for the fulfilment of G-d’s plans.

For some reason G-d desired that evil exist, that some people be treated with privilege by Him
over others, and that work be needed in order to achieve reward. Because that’s what He desired,
obviously it is there to serve the ultimate purpose of Creation. If it serves the ultimate purpose of
Creation then obviously it is for the good. Thus, “everything that G-d does is for the good.”

It is said that at the Messianic Era, when G-dliness will be in revelation to all,[ii] we will then see
eye-to-eye with G-d. We will then feel the same feeling G-d had for the Creation of the world. As
a result, we will then understand/feel, at least somewhat, how the existence for evil was ultimately
good and was part of the Creation plan.[iii]

21
So when we experience suffering in this world, thinking of this may help us cope with our situation.
Thinking that one day we will see and appreciate how this apparent evil was for the greater purpose
of Creation. Even though we may have been a victim of this suffering or unfairness, we will then
appreciate the greater picture unlike now where we think selfishly.

But if G-d loves us, why would He want pain and suffering?
This is perhaps from the most difficult questions to answer as it has emotional elements in the
question as well. People who ask this question are generally asking from an emotional perspective
and not actually seeking the intellectual aspects in the answer. And we cannot blame them; sadly,
many people suffer untold suffering and misery. We have every right to pray to G-d and complain
about these pains.

But sticking to the theme of this work, we will address the intellectual aspect of this issue.

We all have examples of something we love. We really do love our spouse, our child, our friend
etc. Yet while we do love this particular individual, we still do love other things or people. So
while we might be prepared to go out of our way for this loved person, sometimes there are other
things that we will not compromise on. When two things we love come into conflict, we often
must compromise one in order to accommodate the other. For example, one’s passion in their
hobby may sometimes get in the way of their love for their spouse. This person loves both their
hobby and their spouse and sometimes one will compromise the other.

This parable reflects the reality of G-d’s love to us human beings. While He does love us, He also
had a desire for a world with pain and suffering that coincides with the all the splendors the world
has to offer. Why does He have that desire? We don’t know. In fact, it’s impossible for us to know.
As the saying goes, if we were to understand Him, we would be Him. Any desire of His is
unfathomable by our finite brains. His love for human beings and His desire to connect to us is
also unexplainable. But it’s the reality just as is the reality of His creation of a world which contains
pain, suffering, good and happiness.

22
Does this make Him a monster? Well, considering all the good He created in this world, it would
be unfair to call Him such. In fact, taking everything into account, I think it’s fair to say that despite
all the evil He created in this world, He created an abundance of good as well that we are to thank
Him for. Furthermore, there is untold good awaiting us in the World to Come in which we,
potentially, get compensated for all the undeserving suffering we may have endured in this world.

[1] We cannot say that things may appear as not the ultimate good but are in fact the ultimate good (and we will see how this is so

in the World to Come). Meaning to say, that in order to reach the ultimate good, one must first undergo certain suffering and

displeasure. Because if G-d has infinite powers, then He could have given us the ultimate good in the first place without the need

for the temporary pain or suffering.

[i] Talmud Taanit 21a, Berachot 60a.

[ii] Isaiah 11:9, Rambam Hilchos Melachim 12:5.

[iii] Tanya ch. 26 and Igeres Hakodesh epistle 11.

God Gave Us Lemons for a Reason

23
Lenore Skenazy writes:10

Does every cloud have a silver lining? Or are plenty of them filled with rain that slickens the
highway and jackknifes the tractor-trailer?

There’s really no way to answer the question because what if that tractor-trailer snarls traffic,
making the lady 17 cars behind it late for her interview? And what if that means she doesn’t get
the job and she’s so depressed she stops at her favorite bakery, where she runs into her high school
boyfriend, recently divorced, who’s always carried a torch for her and is about to sell his startup,
called Zappos? What I mean is: Do we live in a gam zu l’tovah world or not?

Gam zu l’tovah is a Hebrew expression that translates roughly to “Even this is for the best” —
“this” being some rotten thing one is enduring, from a D in physics to a lawnmower-leg accident.
Its origins seem traceable to Rabbi Akiva’s teacher, who went by the name Nahum Gamzu.

And so there’s a famous story (well, famous once you start Googling “gam zu l’tovah”) about how
Rabbi Akiva went to a town where, as in either all ancient parables or inns, there were no rooms
to be had. Unfazed, he camped out in the woods with his donkey, rooster and candle — whereupon
a fox ate his rooster, a lion ate the donkey and the wind blew out his candle. Akiva figured this
was God’s will.

Day dawns, and it turns out the entire town had been sacked in the night. Had Akiva’s rooster
crowed, donkey brayed or candle shone bright, the sackers would have noticed him, too. So —
you get the point.

It’s a perspective that can be very comforting, this idea that we DON’T have perspective when
misery hits. And when I started asking around for gam zu l’tovah stories, everyone seemed to have
one. Laid off twice in eight months, Eileen Roth decided to become her own boss — a professional
organizer. Now she’s the author of “Organizing for Dummies.” Barry Maher left his job after a
humiliating pay dispute, but was hired back as a consultant for more money. Second-year med
school student Daniel Kalla was taking the test he needed to pass to be promoted. He’d never failed
a test before. He failed that one. Depressed and terrified, he studied hard all summer and not only
aced the do-over, but he feels he’s a more attentive doctor to this day.

And those are just the job stories. Then there’s sickness! Antoinette Kurnitz was filling up her tank
at the gas station when the hose broke off the handle, drenching her in gasoline. “Burned my lungs
severely, staph infections all over my body, was told that all had been done that could be done,
that I was going to die from it,” she said. Her reaction was to get a job in a bookstore. “I loved
books, and if I was going to die, it would be among them,” she said.

One thing led to another, and pretty soon she landed a job as a book publicist — a dream come
true. She also founded the La Jolla Writers Conference. And by the way, that gas incident is now

10
https://forward.com/articles/153004/god-gave-us-lemons-for-a-reason/

24
18 years behind her. Could it really be that the best things in life start out as the worst and we just
need to have faith that someday we’ll connect the dots?

Oh please, says Rabbi Kenneth B. Block, a chaplain with the Veterans Administration. “If you
have pancreatic cancer, that’s not for the good. Brain cancer? Not good.“ He said he has yet to
hear someone exclaim, “This is wonderful, I have pancreatic cancer! Now my family is going to
collect life insurance!”

And there’s no reason they should. “In the real world,” the rabbi said, “what actually helps — and
a more Jewish approach — is to say, ‘This is terrible. I’m going to do what I need to do and get
the treatments I need to get.’” In other words: It’s human, even positive, to treat bad news as bad
news. If you believe you are actually supposed to treat it as good news in disguise, you can end up
feeling worse: Not only am I upset about the raccoon in the chimney, but I also can’t even take a
step back and realize it’s part of a wonderful Divine Plan. Golly, now maybe I’ll change careers
and become a successful exterminator! Or maybe I’ll write “Ode to a Rancid Raccoon” and
become America’s poet laureate! Why can’t I see this problem as a terrific opportunity? Boy, am
I unevolved!

But maybe the gam zu l’tovah idea is more psychologically sophisticated than it seems. That’s
what Ted Falcon says. Falcon is a rabbi, public speaker (as one of the three “Interfaith Amigos”)
and psychotherapist. “People who come in a little depressed are the hardest people to treat,” he
said. “But if somebody comes in really upset, they’re desperate. They know they’re hurting. It’s
easier to help somebody when they go, ‘Help!’ rather than just, ‘Eh.’”

Being pelted by life’s lemons can lead to the “Help!” Then, sometimes, something good begins.
To pick just one, rather extreme example: I spoke with a woman, Sue Martin, who’d been so
depressed she shot herself in the head.

Obviously that didn’t go as planned. Instead of dead, she ended up blind. But, she said, “Being
forced to learn the skills that I needed is what pulled me out of the depression.” She went on to get
a degree in blind rehab — a career she adores — and met her future husband, a fellow student.

So what was the gam zu l’tovah part? That she was so depressed she tried to kill herself? That she
became blind?

The only dots I can connect are, that when she had to do something really daunting — get her
injured life on track — she finally felt good. Not un-blind. Just un-stuck. And that seems to be
what made the folks who lost their jobs, their health and their straight As feel better, too: working
extra-hard to improve things.

It’s insulting to say that all bad things are really for the best, but it seems clear to say that acting,
sometimes out of sheer desperation, changes life for the better.

“You’ll get tired of making lemonade before the universe gets tired of giving you lemons!” warns
Rabbi Block. No doubt. But maybe the whole plan is for you to get out the pitcher and stir things
up.

25
26
 Whoops! (A Story of Gratitude)
Rabbi Jack Abramowitz writes:11

Are you ready for another gam zu l’tovah/hashgacha pratis story? Because I’ve got one for you.
(“Gam zu l’tovah” means that everything that happens is ultimately for the good. “Hashgacha
pratis” means Divine providence – God is looking out for us. Both of these things are true all the
time even if we don’t always recognize them.)

My wife works in a school that had off the Monday of Chanukah, so I took a day to do things with
her. In the morning, we had individual doctor appointments in separate offices, after which we had
planned to see a movie. The timing of things would have required us to hop on the Southern State
Parkway, changing to the Meadowbrook Parkway. When we came out of our doctor visits,
however, we were rather peckish and decided to go for a bite to eat instead.

After brunching, we were driving local streets when the car thudded to a halt.

“Did I run over something?” asked the missus, who generally insists on driving.

“It felt like something fell out,” I replied.

We got out of the car and were surprised to see that a wheel had fallen off. Not a tire, the whole
wheel!

Seriously, who loses a wheel? (According to the woman from AAA, I was third person calling
with such a problem so far that day, so I guess it is a thing!)

The car had broken down while making a left turn, so we were blocking a T-intersection of some
narrow residential streets, leaving not enough room for others to pass on either side. Normally,
one would pull over to the side of the road to make room but you kind of need four wheels for that,
so we stayed where we were. The tow truck took an hour to arrive, which I spent walking from

11
https://www.ou.org/life/inspiration/whoops-a-story-of-gratitude/

27
one side of the car to the other, waving away oncoming cars. (It’s surprising how close some
drivers felt the need to approach an incapacitated vehicle with its flashing lights on whose driver
is wildly gesticulating for them to turn around before they accept the reality that they’re just not
going to fit.)

The tow truck eventually arrived and the driver was a little surprised by our good spirits. I opined
that, obviously, I’d prefer that it not have happened but if it was going to happen, it happened in
the best possible way.

The fact that no one was injured was certainly the most desirable aspect but there were so many
other things for which we were grateful, including that:

• We hadn’t gone to the movie so that this happened on local streets rather than on the
highway, which certainly would have been worse;
• It was daytime, since we would have presented a much greater hazard in the dark;
• It wasn’t raining, snowing or bitterly cold;
• The cars we were blocking were all able to get from point A to point B by going around
the block, which would not have been the case had we been blocking a dead end or a cul-
de-sac;
• It happened relatively close to home;
• Et cetera.

It was also a relief that it was no one’s fault, which obviated the possibility of recriminations. (Our
mechanic’s diagnosis was along the lines of “they don’t make ’em like they used to,” meaning that
we didn’t cause it. I assure you, had one of us driven the wrong way over those “do not back up”
spikes, or some other preventable scenario, my attitude would have been very different!)

We accept that, for whatever reason, it was part of God’s plan for us that this was going to happen,
whether it was to provide a much-appreciated kapara (atonement), for asset reallocation (which
was not insignificant), or for some other purpose. As the saying goes, into every life some rain
must fall. The question is how one is going to view that rain – as spoiling one’s picnic or watering
one’s garden.

28
We can’t control all circumstances and things aren’t always going to go the way we would choose
but we can control our outlooks. Even when God tosses us an obstacle that He feels we need, we
can still look and see His beneficence in our situations.

In this engraving, an artist has illustrated what Lisbon, Portugal, looked like
just before the earthquake of 1755 struck

“Everything happens for a reason”

The saying, “Everything happens for a reason” is commonly heard in the USA and obviously
implies that things happen for a “good” reason. Thus a variant is: “all things work for the
best”. Inspiring this post is an interview with Drew Brees, the quarterback for the Superbowl’s
2010 victorious New Orleans Saints. This interview was for a Christian station where Brees
repeatedly evangelizes listeners that “all things works for the best” and that “everything happens
for a reason”. To illustrate this truth, he gives an example how a prior injury which, at the time
he felt was the worst thing that could have happened to his career, instead ironically resulted with
him being the quarterback for the victorious New Orleans Saints — you could almost hear the
crowds roar has he gave his testimony in the video. His god had it all planned. A simple googling
will find this video all over Christian sites — a sport celebrity selling their Jesus who will grant
believers success in life just like Drew Brees. This is a stepped-down version of the prosperity
gospel. But it is not just Christians who spout this mantra. A simple googling for “Everything

29
happens for a reason” will yield thousands of Christian, Muslim and New Age websites touting
this apparent deep wisdom.

Voltaire

Candide

This ridiculously false idea has been attacked for centuries. Voltaire (1694-1778), a philosopher
and religious critic, took it to task in his superb short story, “Candide” (highly
recommended). Voltaire’s stark, harsh and often racy sarcasm attacks the philosophy of Leibniz
(1646 – 1716, inventor of Calculus and foil for Kant). Leibniz believed in an omnipotent, all-
good, intervening God and to explain how such horrible suffering could exists in God’s world,
Leibniz created his theory that “This is the best of all possible worlds”. Voltaire disputes this
Candide where Pangloss, Candide’s optimistic teacher, chants over and over “all is for the best in
the best of all possible worlds” while Candide leads an outrageous life illustrating that it is patently
false.

Leibniz was Christian and was trying to support his faith in the Age of Enlightenment (1700s). But
this idea had been around for a long time. This is the major Christian Bible verse used to support
this view.

30
Akiva ben Yossef
As I said, these idea of “everything happening for a reason” is found in many cultures and religions
— it is a pervasive human meme. I heard it time and time again as an explanation for karma when
I lived in Hindu and Buddhist countries. Below is a famous story from the Jewish Talmud by
Akiva ben Yossef (50-135 CE, a famous Jewish rabbi). Akiva is referred to in the Talmud as
“Rosh la-Chachomim” (Head of all the Sages) and is considered by many to be one of the earliest
founders of rabbinical Judaism. The story goes like this:

31
 An earthquake in the theodicy doctrine
Francesca Minerva writes:12

On April 6, a strong earthquake struck several Italian cities, causing hundreds of deaths and
destroying thousands of homes.

Such violent and destructive phenomena always arouse dismay and amazement. Many date the
birth of modern atheism to the Lisbon earthquake of 1755. On that occasion Voltaire wrote
his “Poem on the Lisbon disaster “ in which he discussed the Leibniz theodicy, that is the problem
of justifying the existence of evil and suffering in the world whilst believing at the same time in
the existence of a good and omnipotent god.

Responding to Leibniz and Pope, Voltaire argued that the evil in the world cannot be the will of
God, because in that case would not be a good and just god, but it cannot be someone else’s
responsibility, because in that case it means God is not omnipotent.

From Voltaire’s perspective, to say that evil only seems to people to be bad when instead it is part
of a universal good (as Leibniz and others argued) is a distortion of reality because it denies the
suffering and it is also an insult to those who have been victims of natural laws.
Lisbon and Voltaire deeply shocked the precarious construction of theodicy, but the coup de grace
arrived about two centuries later, with Auschwitz. There are many differences between natural
phenomena and something so strongly connected to the human responsibility like the Shoah, but
if the principal problem is the compatibility of an omnipotent and good god with the existence of
evil, then some arguments can overlap.

12
http://blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/2009/04/an-earthquake-in-the-theodicy-doctrine/

32
That’s why Hans Jonas in his “Mortality and Morality: A Search for Good After Auschwitz” talks
about the Lisbon earthquake too. The Jewish philosopher argued that the Being who had let that
slaughter happen had compromised forever belief in the doctrine that maintains that this Being is,
at the same time, good and omnipotent.

But Voltaire’s goal was not to introduce a different explanation of god’s qualities, but to criticize
a too optimistic approach to the problem of evil and suffering. He wanted to reject the idea that
everything is good, and that this is the best of all possible worlds.

I thought about this when I read what the director of the Vatican radio said about the earthquake:
“God wanted that during this holy week before Easter, people living in those cities participated to
the sufferance of the Passion. The law of God’s mysteries is always very hard, but also in this
tragedy we want to see something positive”

Voltaire wanted exactly to argue against this kind of optimism, and in the Preface of the Poem he
writes “The author of the poem on The Disaster of Lisbon […] pierced to the heart by the
misfortunes of mankind, wishes to attack the abuse that can be made of that ancient axiom ‘All is
for the best’. He adopts in its place that sad and more ancient truth, recognised by all men, that
‘There is evil upon the earth’; he declares that the phrase ‘All is for the best’, taken in a strict sense
and without hope of a future life, is merely an insult to the miseries of our existence”
The importance of hope is the relevant difference between Voltaire and Jonas, because Jonas
believes that even after Auschwitz, is still possible to believe that good can overcome the evil.
It would be interesting to know if after these terrible events whether people seek refuge in the
consolation of religion or whether they opt more for a Voltairian pessimism. In this kind of terrible
situation, survivors must find their own way of coping, and whatever helps them to deal with the
loss and devastation is to be welcomed.

33
 THE GREAT LISBON EARTHQUAKE AND ALL IS FOR THE BEST
Lisbon earthquake of 1755, series of earthquakes that occurred on the morning of Nov. 1, 1755,
causing serious damage to the port city of Lisbon, Port., and killing an estimated 60,000 people in
Lisbon alone. Violent shaking demolished large public buildings and about 12,000 dwellings.
Because November 1 is All Saints’ Day, a large part of the population was attending mass at the
moment the earthquake struck; the churches, unable to withstand the seismic shock, collapsed,
killing or injuring thousands of worshippers.

Modern research indicates that the main seismic source was faulting of the seafloor along the
tectonic plate boundaries of the mid-Atlantic. The earthquake generated a tsunami that produced
waves about 20 feet (6 metres) high at Lisbon and 65 feet (20 metres) high at Cádiz, Spain. The
waves traveled westward to Martinique in the Caribbean Sea, a distance of 3,790 miles (6,100 km),
in 10 hours and there reached a height of 13 feet (4 metres) above mean sea level. Damage was
even reported in Algiers, 685 miles (1,100 km) to the east. The total number of persons killed
included those who perished by drowning and in fires that burned throughout Lisbon for about six
days following the shock. Depictions of the earthquakes in art and literature continued for
centuries, making the “Great Lisbon Earthquake,” as it came to be known, a seminal event in
European history.

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Notes: see https://www.unicamp.br/~jmarques/pesq/Paths_of_Providence.pdf

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Voltaire and the Lisbon Earthquake

49
The immediate repercussions of that Lisbon tragedy were registered in religious as
well as antireligious circles. Here's what Voltaire made of this important event.13

Among the numerous earthquakes that have shaken this earth, none has had such significance and
publicity as the catastrophe of Lisbon. For the student of Bible prophecy it has a particular
meaning, but Bible students were not the only ones to be impressed by it.

On November 1, 1755, the greater part of the city of Lisbon, Portugal, was destroyed. Besides the
earthquake, a tidal wave followed and wrecked the shipping in the river Tagus on which Lisbon is
built. In addition to that, fire broke out and completed the work of destruction. Sixty thousand were
said to have lost their lives, and the property damage, although it cannot be estimated accurately,
was of course enormous.

The immediate repercussions of that Lisbon tragedy were registered in religious as well as
antireligious circles. That was particularly true in France, where the Encyclopedists tried to
vulgarize the achievements of the human mind, and where Reason had its most eloquent spokes-
men. France was, at the time of the occurrence of the earthquake, the focal point of rationalism.
Everything was examined by the philosophers: the origin of the world, the creation of man, the
church, education, et cetera. Among the most influential writers, none were more read and
followed than Voltaire and Rousseau, who both saw in the Lisbon catastrophe a significance that
brilliantly, although tragically, proved and illustrated their systems.

Voltaire was always clear, but never well-coordinated. He is considered an infidel, a man without
a Christian's faith, rejecting divine revelation; holding that the Holy Scriptures are not God's
Word, nor is the church the visible body of those "called out." Christ was, to Voltaire, neither the
Redeemer nor God Incarnate. On the other hand, Voltaire was not an atheist; he was a deist, as it
was intellectually fashionable to be in the eighteenth century. While almost all philosophers were
deists, there were shades of difference in their individual beliefs.

Voltaire believed that God is the Source of all life and substance. He was convinced of the ex-
istence of God for two reasons: First, he thought that the world could not be explained without
God, that is, without a "First Cause." However, Voltaire thought that God the Creator cannot be
reached by man, nor can God be conceived by our knowledge. But by our very reasoning we are
forced to admit God's existence, and only ignorance could attempt to define Him. Second, without
God there is no foundation of morality, and thus God is the basis of human society. It was Voltaire
who coined the cynical phrase, "If God did not exist, we would have to invent Him."'

It is evident that Voltaire's views were not only mistaken but superficial. He could not discern
spiritually because his concept of the world was that of a rationalistic investigator. It is especially
in the field of prophetic Bible interpretation that Voltaire's judgments are often
erroneous and sometimes childish, particularly his pert remarks on Isaac Newton's Observations
Upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John. Yet he cannot be considered an
atheist. One of his most outspoken statements against atheism is in his letter to the Marquis of

13
https://www.ministrymagazine.org/archive/1956/10/voltaire-and-the-lisbon-earthquake

50
Villevieille: "My dear Marquis, there is nothing good in Atheism. . . . This system is evil both in
the physical realm as well as in that of morality... ." 2

ROUSSEAU'S OPTIMISM

Rousseau was also a deist, but with a few nuances varying from Voltaire's deism. Rousseau's was
sentimental, while Voltaire's was rationalistic. Rousseau believed that God could be reached by
the heart rather than by reasoning. Religion, to Rousseau, was an individual matter and a powerful
means to moral development. While Voltaire was arrogantly hostile to the church (not only to the
Roman Catholic Church), but Rousseau also remained somewhat respectful toward the church as
an institution.

The main difference, however, between the ideas of the two men concerning their concept of the
world was that Voltaire was basically pessimistic, while Rousseau was optimistic. The debate
between their attitudes was by no means confined to those two "philosophers"; it had reached
spectacular proportions in the eighteenth century in the entire thinking world. The leading
philosopher who developed the optimistic concepts was Pope, in Essay on Man, wherein he
developed the axiom "All is well." Lord Shaftesbury and Bolingbroke had similar ideas, but none
expressed them so forcefully as the German philosopher Leibnitz. He discussed his concepts on a
"pre-established harmony" in the Theodice. Ours is the best possible world, and that, to Leibnitz,
was not a sentimental idea but one that could be demonstrated by reason and faith. Evil and
suffering exist, to be sure, but Leibnitz was satisfied that this world is even better with evil in it;
in fact, the world would not be as good without evil.

Voltaire in his passionate desire for clearness and common sense reacted sharply and impatiently
to such a concept. To him the ideas of Leibnitz and the other optimists sounded like medieval
scholastic jargon, but since Pope and Leibnitz had a large reading public in France, Voltaire took
his sharp pen to react against these ideas. It was the Lisbon earthquake that brought the debate to
a head at that time. Voltaire, however, gave his ultimate answer to the optimists in Candide (1759).

VOLTAIRE'S REACTION TO THE EARTHQUAKE

The disaster of Lisbon led Voltaire to examine the problem of evil and suffering in relationship to
an overruling Providence. This question had concerned him before 1755. His letters indicate that
many times he pondered on it in relationship to previous earthquakes, such as the one in 1699 in
China, which he said cost the lives of 400,000 persons, and also the earthquakes of Lima and
Callao. This problem, which of course is age old, was that while there is an overruling Providence,
it seemed to him that God's rulership was not for man's best good. He expressed this idea in two
lines of the poem on the Lisbon earthquake:

All will be well one day, that is our hope. All is well today, that is the illusion.

This poem has 244 lines, and of course is in French, and so cannot be given here in full. At the
very outset, Voltaire refers to Pope's expression, "All is well," to point out the errors of the
optimistic philosophers.

51
While he describes in a drastic way the catastrophe as it appears to him, with the thousands of
corpses of women and children, he asks the question whether that could have been the will of God.
Or could it have been vengeance? And then, Why Lisbon? Is Lisbon worse than other cities? Is
there more sin and evil in Lisbon than in Paris or London? "Lisbon is destroyed, while they dance
in Paris." Who will find the cause of this evil? God, who is love and kindness, the Author of all
things—can He be considered also the author of this catastrophe?

To this, Rousseau thought he had the answer. His ideas concerning the world and man were more
systematic than Voltaire's. Rousseau believed in the innate goodness of man: man is good by nature
but is corrupted in contact with other men; the only solution is to "return to nature." To some
degree Rousseau shared the optimistic views of Leibnitz and Pope, and considered Voltaire's poem
on the Lisbon earthquake not only a personal attack on him, but a basic lack of understanding and
a distortion of God's preponderant action. Rousseau's letter to Voltaire in answer to his poem is
very lengthy. Voltaire did not answer Rousseau's arguments directly. His final answer came
in Candide.

Rousseau's argumentation in defense of the immanent action of God was that the earthquake is not
to be primarily imputed to God, but to man. Moreover, if the world had listened to him—to
Rousseau—if men had abandoned city life and returned to nature rather than congregating in
Lisbon, the result would have been different. "Admit," wrote Rousseau, "that it was not nature's
way to crowd together 20,000 houses with 6 or 7 stories each, and if all the inhabitants of this large
city had been dispersed more equally, the damage would have been much less, maybe nil." Thus
Rousseau took the defense of Leibnitz and Pope, stating that evil is the simple and natural result
of the necessary limitation of every created thing. Rousseau argued that Providence could not be
accused for, or rationally condemned on the basis of, a small portion of evil actually known to us.
The entire picture, as a whole, has to be kept in mind and not one lone accident, terrible as it may
be but exaggerated beyond all reasonable proportion. The best of Rousseau's answer may be found
in his writing to Voltaire:

I do not see that one can find the source of moral evil elsewhere than in man himself, because man
is morally free.... As for our physical ills, ... they are inevitable in a system where man is involved.4

The debate between the two celebrated writers that came to a head at the time of the Lisbon
earthquake may be only of a philosophical nature, but it indicates vividly to what extent that
catastrophe affected the thinking of mankind. Had these men believed the Word of God and read
it with keen understanding and spiritual insight, they would have understood the words of the
Divine Master: "O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken."

REFERENCES
1
Epiti e cry a Fauteur du livre des Trois Imposteurs, 1769, cited by M. Braunschvig, Notre Litarature Etudiie dans les
Textes (Paris, 1926), Vol. II, p. 73.

2
A Monsieur le marquis de Villevieille. Fernay, Aug. 26, 1768, cited ibid., p. 75.

3
FRANcOIS MARIE VOLTAIRE, "Le Poeme sur le Desastre de Lisbonne en 1755, au Examen de cet Axiome: Tout est bien
(1756)"; the text, in French, of the entire poeme is found in George R. Havens, Selections From Voltaire (New York: Century Pub.
Co., 1925), pp. 246-258.

52
4
J. J. ROUSSEAU, "Lettre a M. de Voltaire, It 18 aout, 1756," Oeuvres et Correspondance inedites de J. J. Rousseau, par
Schreckeisen-Moultou, 1861, cited ibid., pp. 120-122.

City by the sea: a view of Lisbon, 1548, Spanish woodcut.

Is God good? In the shadow of mass disaster, great minds have

argued the toss
Philip C. Almond writes:14

In classical Western theism, God is said to be both good and all-powerful. So how do we square
natural disasters – global pandemics, earthquakes, tsunamis, famines, bushfires, and so on – with
a God who, because he is good, would not want natural disasters and, because he is all-powerful,
could stop them if he wished?

14
https://theconversation.com/is-god-good-in-the-shadow-of-mass-disaster-great-minds-have-argued-the-toss-137078

53
This was a question asked after the devastating Lisbon earthquake by Voltaire (1694-1778), one
of the great philosophers of the European Enlightenment. It led to one of his most famous
works: Candide, or l‘Optimisme (1759).

On 1 November 1755, at 9.30am, Lisbon in Portugal was almost totally destroyed by an

earthquake, followed by further tremors, fires, a tsunami, and civil unrest. It was All Saints Day
and large numbers of people were killed as churches collapsed upon them. Statistics for natural
disasters, then as now, are notoriously rubbery. But between 20,000 and 40,000 people died out of
a population of some 200,000.

Then, as now, people wondered whether there was a divine plan to the devastation that shook their

Beyond the appearance of evil

In writing Candide, Voltaire had the German philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716)
in his sights and especially his essays on the goodness of God in Theodicy (1710). For Leibniz, in
spite of evils both natural and moral, this was still the best of all possible worlds. It was the best
that God could have made. This was because it had both the greatest variety of things and the
simplest laws of nature.

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz.

A portrait by Bernhard Christoph Francke.

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Evils both natural and moral, Leibniz declared, were part of an overall universal good. If the
“smallest evil that comes to pass in the world were missing in it,” he declared, “it would no longer
be this world; which, with nothing omitted and all allowance made, was found the best by the
Creator who chose it”.

While Leibniz admitted it was possible to imagine worlds without sin and without unhappiness,
“these same worlds would be very inferior to ours in goodness”. God was, in other words, the
perfect gardener in spite of the cosmic weeds.

Before God created this world, according to Leibniz, he compared all possible worlds in order to
choose the one that was best. Thus, God created a world that was all the more harmonic for some
pain, acidity, and darkness rather than being all pleasure, sweetness, and light.

Leibniz wasn’t stupid. He saw that the “appearances” of evil in the world strongly cut against
God’s goodness and justice. He refused, however, to allow the evils of the world to count
decisively against God. This would be to confuse the surface of the world with its depth.

He believed that the defender of God should proceed from a faith that the world, in spite of its
obvious evils, was ultimately good by virtue of its foundation in the goodness of God who had,
after all, created it.

Candid comedy
Did Leibniz’s unfailing 18th-century optimism and firm belief in divine goodness fail to take evil
seriously? Voltaire thought so. In fact, Voltaire flipped the serious nature of evil on its head;
believing that natural and moral evil were so serious they could only be treated satirically.

In Candide, Leibniz was cast as Dr Pangloss, an instructor in “metaphysico-theologico-

cosmoloonigology” in the court of the Baron of Thunder-ten-Tronckh.

Pangloss was a committed believer in this world as the best of all possible ones, in spite of its
natural evils and the moral evils perpetrated in particular by those of religious faiths (Christians,
Jews, and Muslims). Whatever happened in the world, Pangloss, like Leibniz, was able to
rationalise it as compatible with its being eventually for the best.

Voltaire found this notion of the best of all possible worlds problematic, given the sheer quantity
and quality of evil present in it.

This system of All is good represents the author of nature only as a powerful and maleficent
king, who does not care, so long as he carries out his plan, that it costs four or five hundred
thousand men their lives, and that the others drag out their days in want and in tears. So far
from the notion of the best of possible worlds being consoling, it drives to despair the
philosophers who embrace it. The problem of good and evil remains an inexplicable chaos for
those who seek in good faith.

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Carrying on
What was Voltaire’s solution? Surprisingly perhaps, it was not despair. Rather, it was a gentle
resignation, a philosophical que sera, sera. This meant the quiet cultivation of our gardens as God
had originally intended for us in the first Garden of Eden. We were to be like Adam and Eve.
There was to be, therefore, an avoiding of airy philosophical speculations on how to justify the
ways of God to man (like this piece of writing is). Instead, Voltaire advocated doing a little good
in the hope of our becoming a little better.

This is a solution that may not satisfy believers in the goodness of God. But it will resonate
amongst those of us who, in isolation at home, are quietly tilling the soil, labouring in our vegetable
patch, or contentedly mowing our lawns. Simple, but somehow satisfying!

How One Earthquake Changed the Course of Human History

DAVID W BROWN WRITES: 15

15
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/79188/how-one-earthquake-erased-empire-and-changed-course-human-history

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At its height, the Portuguese empire spanned four continents, with territory everywhere
from Rio de Janeiro to Macau. The first global empire, Portugal's mastery of the seas
began in earnest in the 1400s, when the relatively small and isolated country sought to
find new trade routes with Europe and the rest of the world. Its first major success came
in 1488, when Portuguese explorer Bartolomeu Dias rounded the southern tip of Africa.
Ten years later, Vasco da Gama reached India. The ensuing centuries would witness
Portuguese navigators establishing relations and trade with countries as far as Japan.

By the middle of the 18th century, Portugal's capital of Lisbon was the fifth-most populous

city in Europe, its port the third-busiest. It was one of, if not the, wealthiest cities in the

world. It might still be, as Mark Molesky reveals in This Gulf of Fire: The Destruction of

Lisbon, or Apocalypse in the Age of Science and Reason, if not for an unspeakable

catastrophe in 1755 that would leave the city leveled, the empire crippled, and the course

of Western civilization forever altered.

WHAT HAPPENED IN LISBON

Just before 10 a.m. on November 1, 1755—All Saints' Day—a fault line 200 miles or so

off the Iberian Coast ruptured, releasing the energy equivalent of 32,000 Hiroshima atomic

bombs. So powerful was the earthquake that its effects were felt from the Azores to

Sweden. Lisbon suffered the worst of it. "It began as a slight tremor, followed by a dull

and persistent roar," writes Molesky. "Over the course of the next few minutes—and the

arrival of two additional tremors—[the earthquake] would bring one of the greatest cities

of Europe to its knees." It is thought to have measured up to a 9.2 on the Richter scale.

The city was obliterated. Ten thousand people were dead beneath the ruins of churches,

houses, and markets. As the dust settled, the survivors pulled themselves free and gathered

to witness and mourn what, even today, must have felt like the apocalypse. Then the

tsunami hit.

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The Atlantic Ocean rarely produces tsunamis, so the people of Lisbon would have been as

unprepared for the tidal wave as they were for the earthquake. It seemed to come from

nowhere, this wall of water, and so terrible was the tsunami that people as far away

as Brazil were killed. Hundreds of the Lisbon earthquake's survivors emerged from rubble

only to be pulled into the Tagus river and sucked into the Atlantic Ocean. This was a mere

30 minutes after the earthquake.

Then the fires came. There was no electricity in 1755, but there were an awful lot of

candles, and they were all lit to celebrate All Saints' Day. Likewise, stoves and hearths had

been primed with strong fires to celebrate the feast day. When the earthquake first hit, those

candles and stoves were knocked to the ground, causing hundreds of small fires across the

city. With the entirety of the city now reduced to kindling, not only did the fires spread,

but they joined to create a literal firestorm that was so powerful in its thirst for oxygen that

it could asphyxiate people 100 feet from the blaze—before incinerating them. Thousands

of people trapped in rubble—people who had just survived the worst earthquake in

European history, and who then survived a rare and terrible tsunami—were burned alive.

The firestorm raged for a week, and smaller fires lingered for weeks after. In all, up to

40,000 people were killed in what the day before was the richest, most opulent city in

Europe. The city would lay in ruin for years.

OUT OF CHAOS, A TYRANT

So sudden and catastrophic was the earthquake that the ruling state ground to a halt. The

monarchy was paralyzed with fright, and other government officials had absconded, were

dead, or were indisposed. This left a conspicuous vacuum of power soon to be filled by

Portugal's secretary of foreign affairs, Marquês de Pombal. He seized the initiative in the

chaos, and "dashed off orders and proclamations with great gusto." He took control of the

58
recovery effort, and with the king's blessing, assumed the role of a dictator. As Molesky

writes, "One might say he was the earthquake's fourth tremor, so swift and violent was his

rise in the weeks after disaster."

To be sure, his actions in the earthquake's aftermath were decisive and oftentimes

beneficial. Bodies had to be buried lest disease flourish, and the border and coast had to be

secured from invaders and pirates who might take advantage of the chaos. His policies of

conscripting vagabonds into forced labor were less favorable, however, as were his price

controls on all food and goods, which prevented price gouging but ultimately discouraged

vendors "from assuming the substantial risks of transporting their wares into a disaster

zone."

As generally happens when one is made dictator, scores with old enemies were soon settled,

freedoms were curtailed, and criticisms suppressed. Enemies who rose up were brutally

crushed. (Featured were beheadings, limbs broken before executions, and burnings at the

stake.) This "emergency rule" continued for more than 20 years, until 1777, when Queen

Maria I assumed the throne of Portugal and exiled Pombal.

Portugal would never again see its former glory. Weak leadership, wars, revolutions

abroad, and invasions at home—all of which might have gone differently or been averted

entirely had Lisbon not been destroyed—slowly decomposed the empire and eventually

ended the country's global ambitions. "Portugal was never the same after the earthquake,"

writes Molesky. With the existing order annihilated—the nobility, the church, commercial

interests, and the military—the Portuguese empire would begin a decline from which it

would never recover. "The earthquake, in short, had brought about a revolution."

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THE BEST OF ALL POSSIBLE WORLDS

The effects of the catastrophe were felt in other ways across Europe. Paradoxically, it both

strengthened and weakened Enlightenment thinking, which was then in full force.

Scientists around the world put forth explanations for the earthquake, establishing the fields

of seismology and scientific geology in the process. Because scientists were unable to give

a compelling reason for all that had transpired, however, the clergy were able to point to

the Enlightenment as flawed, and suggest that maybe it was a vengeful God expressing his

wrath at a decadent city.

The earthquake inspired artists as well—most notably Voltaire, who was then in exile in

Switzerland. So infuriated was he at philosophers of the age who, even after the earthquake,

called ours "the best of all possible worlds," that he wrote a novel savaging the philosophy

of optimism, the church, and the ruling class. In Candide, the destruction of Lisbon is

featured.

After the earthquake had destroyed three-fourths of Lisbon, the sages of that country could

think of no means more effectual to prevent utter ruin than to give the people a

beautiful auto-da-fé; for it had been decided by the University of Coimbra that the burning

of a few people alive by a slow fire, and with great ceremony, is an infallible secret to

hinder the earth from quaking.

This Gulf of Fire reminds us of what true devastation looks like, and that it needs no

motivation or incitement. Our own nature might lead to our doom, but nature itself is

unimpressed with our arguments and unmoved by our cries. "What a game of chance human

life is!" Voltaire wrote. "[Lisbon] ought to teach men not to persecute men: for, while a

few sanctimonious humbugs are burning a few fanatics, the earth opens and swallows up

all alike."

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61