Eikev -- 5775

Children aren’t punished any more.

For those of you without little ones, the term “punishment” has been replaced by “consequences.”  The switch is made, I believe, to teach youngsters about cause and effect.  The changed terminology is also meant to demonstrate that kids have personal power -- “punishment” comes from an outside force, whereas “consequences” result from our own actions.

I don’t think anyone’s fooled.

Kids know when they are being punished, especially when the consequence doesn’t fit the infraction.  The logical consequence of staying out past curfew isn’t being grounded – its being tired the next day.  The consequence of not eating your dinner is likely hunger – there’s no logical connection between meat loaf and losing TV privileges.

Human beings often attribute causality when none exists.  We are excellent pattern makers and inventors.  The ability to understand cause and effect must have been profoundly important for early hunters and farmers.  It may be a primary distinction between us and the other animals.  But human beings can also see patterns where they do not, actually, exist – witness the constellations, for example, which group together stars that are thousands of light years away.

“And if you do obey these rules and observe them carefully, your God YHVH will maintain faithfully for you the covenant made on oath with your fathers:  [God] will favor you and bless you and multiply you…”   “You shall faithfully observe all the Instruction that I enjoin upon you today, that you may thrive and increase and be able to possess thee land that YHVH promised on oath to your fathers,”  Deuteronomy tells us repeatedly (7:12-13, 8:1, and elsewhere).

I think it’s hubris for us to claim to know the cause and consequence of what happens in our lives.  I don’t believe that anyone is struck ill “to learn a lesson.”  Difficulties aren’t given to us to make us better people.

Illness and other difficulties are not punishments.  Rather, they are experiences through which we learn about ourselves, our community, and life itself.