Imagine if, starting December 1, an old man with a beard was walking around Manhattan. He wore a sandwich sign, saying "The end is nigh! If you don't repent, there will be a big wave that will engulf 11 countries to punish the godless, killing hundreds of thousands. After that, there will be a major mudslide in California, with more consecutive days of rain than have ever been seen since they started measuring rainfall. REPENT!!"
Disclaimer: I'm not in any way saying that those were the reasons for the tragedies. I'm just trying to illustrate a point.
What would you do? Think he was nuts? Ignore him and walk away? What would you do if he was doing it for 2 months? A year? What if he lived in Sri Lanka and started building a ship 5 years ago, and told people that he was building a ship to escape the waves that would come?
It just puts things in perspective, perhaps. Was there a better way? Possibly. I don't know. I just wonder, had I been in the time of Noach, whether I would have listened.
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4 comments:
No, I agree with you. And I probably would have the same reaction.
But should we repent when the old guy at the subway tells us to? Of course!
We can learn a lesson from everyone..
If I'm on the subway and I hear some idiot quoting out loud from the bible, and he reads some passage that says to repent so that I don't burn in hell, I hope that I would listen to him. Of course I don't give any credence or validity to his religion or what he's quoting from. But wow - that's God talking directly to me right there! Because if it wasn't Hashem sending me a personal message, I would have ended up in the next subway car...
Ema--I'm gonna play Devil's Advocate here:
"If I understand things correctly, things were different in those days. People knew there was a G-d."
And we don't?
"Adam did not die much before this whole episode...people saw their ancestors..."
They saw WHAT about their ancestors? How much THEY too were worshipping Avodah Zara? And yes, Adam was around, but he was ONE GREAT INDIVIDUAL, one of very few, in the midst of an immoral society. We've got a few great individuals in our midst too. And the rest of the world's immoral. But it's the WHOLE rest of the world, and sometimes easier to follow than the great few.
And I'm not sure about the madrega thing. Gotta think about that one...
If he wasn't hysterical, I'd stop and talk to him. I used to know all of the homeless ppl in my neighborhood, and spent a lot of time talking to them. then i started listening to jewish music, and ashrei ha'ish asher lo'yashav b'atzav reshaim, oo'moshav letzaim lo yashav started running through my head. but i still think id talk to someone with such a discussion- provoking sign.
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