06 Feb WHY DOES GENOCIDE HAPPEN?

Genocide, the targeted
killing of a people, is
not a modern invention.
Many have tried to kill
the Jews, the biblical
Haman being perhaps
the most famous ancient
example. Other nations
have also faced genocide,
some even suffering from extinction. We live
in a time of great hypocrisy, when people
who explicitly intend to destroy all the
Jews falsely claim that they are victims of
genocide. Putting that aside, we can ask: Why
does genocide happen?
I. Genocide and Sin
Rambam (Moreh Nevuchim 1:54) explains
many tragedies as resulting from divine
punishment of sin:
“G-d’s actions towards mankind also include
great calamities, which overtake certain
individuals and destroy them, or some
universal event annihilating whole tribes and
even entire regions, destroying generation
after generation, and sparing nothing
whatsoever. Hence there occur inundations,
earthquakes, destructive storms, military
expeditions of one nation against another
for the sake of destroying it with the sword
and blotting out its memory, and many other
evils of the same kind…. G-d performs acts
similar to those which, when performed
by us, originate in certain dispositions, in

jealousy, desire for retaliation, revenge, or
anger: [when G-d performs them,] they are in
accordance with the guilt of those who are to
be punished…”
Rambam says that Hashem uses natural
disasters, such as earthquakes and terrible
storms, as instruments of punishment for
sins. The suffering and death that these
events cause are punishment for individual or
communal sin. This does not mean that every
specific individual deserves his suffering or
death. Rather, that the community deserves
it in total and each individual is punished
as a member of this community. Even
righteous people die as part of an unrighteous
community. Rambam includes genocide
in his list of divine punishments, “military
expeditions of one nation against another for
the sake of destroying it with the sword and
blotting out its memory.”
Understandably, this is difficult to read. We
will shortly soften and revise this explanation.
But first we should note that blaming the
victim does not exonerate the perpetrator.
Rambam (Mishneh Torah, Hilchos Teshuvah
6:3) asks why the Egyptians were punished
for enslaving the Jews when Hashem had
decreed the slavery (Gen. 15:13). People
are punished for their bad choices, whether
individually or as a group. They are not
punished for actions they are forced to
undertake when those actions are decreed by
Hashem. Rambam explains that the decree

did not specify who would enslave the Jews.
Each Egyptian made his own to choice to do
bad. In other words, the justification of the
evil (in this case, enslavement decreed by
Hashem) does not exonerate the perpetrators.
Even Ramban (Gen. 15:4) who disagrees
regarding the Egyptians because there was a
prophecy about the enslavement would not
disagree in general. Even when the victim
bears some blame, the perpetrator is not
justified in his actions and suffers punishment
for his own guilt.
From what we have seen so far, Rambam
seems to say that every victim of a genocide
or a natural disaster is suffering punishment
for his sins. Everyone sins. We see in the
Torah that the punishment for sin includes
terrible suffering (e.g. Lev. 26, Deut. 28).
Sometimes Hashem punishes us in this world
and sometimes in the next. War and disaster
are tools of Hashem’s punishment in this
world, freeing their victims from punishment
in the next. That is what Rambam seems to be
saying from a quick read of the passage above.
However, elsewhere he says something else
which forces us to read more closely.
II. Genocide and Nature
Later in Moreh Nevuchim (1:72), Rambam
writes:
“The same force that originates all things, and
causes them to exist for a certain time, namely,
the combination of the elements which are
moved and penetrated by the forces of the
heavenly spheres, that same cause becomes
throughout the world a source of calamities,
such as torrents, harmful rains, snowstorms,
hail, tempestuous winds, thunder, lightning,
and the putrefaction of the air, or other
terrible catastrophes by which a place or
many places or an entire country may be
laid waste, such as landslips, earthquakes,
hurricanes and floods issuing forth from the
seas and from the depths.”
Here Rambam says that natural disasters
are, quite literally, natural. They are not
tools of divine punishment but merely
the ways of the world. People who suffer
and die due to natural disasters are not
necessarily guilty of any sin. They are just
human beings living in a dangerous world.
Are natural disasters punishments or merely
nature at work? While Rambam does not
include genocide in this list because it is
not natural, the answer to the contradiction
about natural disasters may apply to
genocide, as well.
Perhaps we can explain based on a later
discussion of earthquakes. The Talmud
Yerushalmi (Berachos 9:2) attributes
earthquakes to a variety of spiritual causes.
R. Nehorai says they happen because people
fail to separate terumos and ma’asros, the
portions of produce that must be given to
Kohanim and Levi’im. R. Acha says that
they are due to homosexual activity. Other
rabbis say that they are due to machlokes,
disunity. Another view is that earthquakes
come when Hashem sees theaters and
circuses operating peacefully while the

Temple in Jerusalem lies in ruins. Rav
Shmuel Yaffe Ashkenazi (16th cen., Turkey;
Yefeh Mareh, Berachos 9:14) asks how
we can understand this in light of scientific
explanations of earthquakes. We know that
earthquakes are natural events. How can they
also be instruments of divine punishment?
Additionally, according to R. Nehorai, why
are there earthquakes in times when there is
no biblical obligation to separate terumos and
ma’aseros?
III. Hashem and Nature
Rav Ashkenazi distinguishes between nature
and divine intervention. Hashem created the
world and designed the course of nature.
Within this creation, earthquakes will happen
for natural reasons. However, Hashem also
intervenes in nature to reward and punish
people. Some earthquakes are natural while
others are the result of divine intervention.
This can also explain the apparent
contradiction within Moreh Nevuchim.
Rambam never says that natural disasters and
genocide are only tools of divine punishment.
Perhaps generally they are part of nature, due
to the ways of the world and choices made by
other people. And sometimes, Hashem causes
unnatural disasters in order to punish people
in this world.
If so, how do we interpret the events we see
in the world and sometimes we experience
ourselves? If a tragedy can be a punishment
or a natural occurrence, what do we gain from
this explanation? The assumption underlying
these questions is that knowledge must be
useful in order to be valuable. Maybe the
value in this explanation is a somewhat
greater understanding of the workings of the
world. At the very least, we should see tragedy
as a prompt for introspection and evaluation.
What are people doing wrong that might
have caused the tragedy? Without assigning
blame, we look for meaning in the suffering,
for improvements we can implement in the
wake of tragedy, for an opening to reach out
to Hashem. At the same time, we also note
what we did wrong on the natural level and
how we can prepare better to avoid disasters
that occur naturally.
If genocidal attacks may be a divine
punishment or a natural event caused by evil
choices, we must prepare for both. We must
improve our religious stations to free us from
divine punishment. We must also enhance our
military defenses and take actions that will
prevent such attacks in the future. Rambam’s
double message teaches us that we must
operate on two levels — the natural and the
supernatural. In that way, we improve our
places in both this world and the next.