{"id":73928,"date":"2020-04-29T16:41:35","date_gmt":"2020-04-29T13:41:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=73928"},"modified":"2020-04-29T16:41:35","modified_gmt":"2020-04-29T13:41:35","slug":"who-suffers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/who-suffers\/","title":{"rendered":"Who Suffers?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In the beginning of this chapter, Ezekiel expresses a seeming reversal of a previous decree about intergenerational punishment. Earlier passages of Tanach alluded to the idea of children suffering the sins of their fathers. The words \u201cHe visits the iniquity of the fathers on the children\u201d are uttered by Moses after the sin of the golden calf (Exodus 34:7) and after the fallout of the spies\u2019 negative report about the promised land (Numbers 14:18). In both cases God seemed to actually reward the nation: He provided a second set of tablets in the first instance and (eventually) took the Israelites into their land in the second.<\/span><\/p>\n

Delaying punishment to some future generation seems unjust on the face of it, but it\u2019s not meant to be on any random generation. Rather, it\u2019s to be rolled into punishment that was earned through ongoing transgressions that mirror the original. There are two other cases of this same expression of visiting the guilt of the parents on the children and they both centre around the sin of idol worship (Exodus 20:5 and Deut. 5:9). In these instances, it is God\u2019s voice we hear, and the language is qualified by the additional phrase \u201cof those who reject me.\u201d Rabbi Dr. Zev Farber (thetorah.com) explains that this additional phrase refers to the punishment due to those children who perpetuate their parents\u2019 sin of idol worship.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Talmud <\/span>(Makkot 24a<\/span>)<\/span> talks about this decree of punishment, prophesied by Moses and revoked by Ezekiel in this chapter. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks (Covenant & Conversation) elaborates that the Talmudic idea of children being punished for the sins of their fathers is really about children who \u201chad the power to protest\/prevent their parents from sinning but failed to do so\u201d, representing a sin in its own right. Rabbi Sacks also distinguishes between divine justice meted out in heaven and human justice meted out in courts of law. Ezekiel\u2019s decree of reversal speaks to judicial punishment in which only the criminal is responsible for his crime. Only God can speak to the impact of one generation\u2019s actions on another, and the moral responsibility we bear \u201cif we take seriously our roles as parents, neighbours, townspeople, citizens and children of the covenant (Rabbi Sacks).\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The fact that we are presented with both cases reminds us that we have the dual responsibility of ensuring a fair judicial process and attending to the moral and spiritual health of our society and future generations.<\/span><\/p>\n","image":false,"embedded_video":"","video_duration":"","show_fb_comments":true,"credit_media":""},"tile":{"top_caption":"Who Suffers?","main_caption":"We have the dual responsibility of ensuring a fair judicial process and attending to the moral and spiritual health of future generations","main_caption_size":"2","sub_caption":"","preview_embedded":"","preview_image":false,"preview_video":"","external_link":"","link_for_pay":false,"tile_gallery_items":false,"credits":""},"alternate_tile":{"top_caption":"","main_caption":"","main_caption_size":"1","sub_caption":"","hide_media":false},"tile_group":{"preview_image_url":false,"main_caption":"","sub_caption":"","":null,"popup_package_extra_content":"","read_time":""},"home_color":"","home_gallery_top":"","home_gallery_middle":"","home_gallery_book":"","home_gallery_bottom":"","seo":{"seo_title":"","seo_description":"","seo_default_title":"","seo_default_description":""},"links":false},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73928"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73928"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73928\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":73929,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73928\/revisions\/73929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}