Rabbi Elazar ben Pedat's conversation with God on the last half of this page is an fascinating theological conversation. A blood-letting and garlic-eating induced sleep leads R Elazar to have a conversation with God. In it, he asks God how long he will suffer in this world. God doesn't answer this question directly but rather asks if R Elazar would like God to start over and create the world anew, because then it would be possible that R Elazar would not have been born at a time of famine. This is quite shocking. God would start the world over for one person, and even then God would not be able to guarantee that that person would live happily in it?
The conversation continues with R Elazar asking about how much time he has left on earth, which he finds out is less time than he has already lived. I wonder if, given the blooding-letting and perhaps even the garlic-eating at the beginning of the story, it is possible to say that R Elazar was ill, perhaps terminally. God's responses to this sick person's questions seem to be saying: "I would be willing to stop the world and start over to give you the chance to have a better life, but that I can't even promise." God's answers portrays a God who cares deeply about individual human beings, but Who is limited in what God can specifically do for them--both in this world and the next. Sure R Elazar is getting a heck of a lot of balsam oil in the next world, but there still seems to be a scarcity of resources in the next world, as God is worried about providing for the next guy if he gives R Elazar any more.
Finally, what's up with the forehead flick?
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
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No idea at all what's going on with the head slap/flick, but no one else seems to either, plus those wierd last words of God's in the story.
I think the notion of God's limitations are explicit in this story, and indeed even R. Eleazar seems taken about when God gives him the old "efshar" for his possible reborn life. God can start the whole world over again, sure, but God can't be certain that R. Eleazar's life would be any better. I love the "culei hi, ve-efshar" which we see also, I think, in some early dapim in Chagiga. It's a cry of wonder and pain at God's seeming inability, or at the very least, unwillingness to make make promises He can't (or won't keep.) God doesn't sign contracts. Well...not any more.
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