I began writing this article on Monday (10/9/23). I wrote it primarily for myself, but if you, too, are feeling helpless, I hope my thought-process will be of value to you at this time of calamity.
These are old questions. Difficult questions. Questions that arise every time humans inflict pain and suffering, of any degree, upon each other. At any time or place. I sympathize with the position you find yourself in. If one subscribes to the notion that God created humans as autonomous beings, with unfettered free will to do as they please, it greatly lessens the bite of the question. If God prevented people from sinning the human enterprise would cease to exist. It doesn't lessen the hurt but it does allow one to feel that God too is "horrified" by what is going on (as He was before the flood). He will somehow make it up to those that unjustly suffer, and punish those that inflict the suffering. (This would need to be squared with Tanach's insistence that God was indeed behind the many military campaigns against Israel as punishment for their sins.) What we need to know is that it is up to us as humans to spread as much light as we can while concomitantly taking every precaution to protect ourselves from the remaining darkness amongst us. Ultimately, too, we need to take a hard look at this colossal security failure, as we took our eye off the ball to some extent and got too complacent with our vaunted deterrence. Our last year of divisive infighting didnt help anything out. To end, there are no easy answers, as R Yannai said: אֵין בְּיָדֵינוּ לֹא מִשַּׁלְוַת הָרְשָׁעִים וְאַף לֹא מִיִּסּוּרֵי הַצַּדִּיקִים.
I agree with your statement about free will. That's why, as much as I'm distressed by the actions of evil humans, I've never really been bothered by the question of, "How can God let this happen?" I don't see how God could give us free will and NOT let things like this happen. It's a package deal.
Great points about the security failure and the infighting as well.
These are old questions. Difficult questions. Questions that arise every time humans inflict pain and suffering, of any degree, upon each other. At any time or place. I sympathize with the position you find yourself in. If one subscribes to the notion that God created humans as autonomous beings, with unfettered free will to do as they please, it greatly lessens the bite of the question. If God prevented people from sinning the human enterprise would cease to exist. It doesn't lessen the hurt but it does allow one to feel that God too is "horrified" by what is going on (as He was before the flood). He will somehow make it up to those that unjustly suffer, and punish those that inflict the suffering. (This would need to be squared with Tanach's insistence that God was indeed behind the many military campaigns against Israel as punishment for their sins.) What we need to know is that it is up to us as humans to spread as much light as we can while concomitantly taking every precaution to protect ourselves from the remaining darkness amongst us. Ultimately, too, we need to take a hard look at this colossal security failure, as we took our eye off the ball to some extent and got too complacent with our vaunted deterrence. Our last year of divisive infighting didnt help anything out. To end, there are no easy answers, as R Yannai said: אֵין בְּיָדֵינוּ לֹא מִשַּׁלְוַת הָרְשָׁעִים וְאַף לֹא מִיִּסּוּרֵי הַצַּדִּיקִים.
I agree with your statement about free will. That's why, as much as I'm distressed by the actions of evil humans, I've never really been bothered by the question of, "How can God let this happen?" I don't see how God could give us free will and NOT let things like this happen. It's a package deal.
Great points about the security failure and the infighting as well.