In this week’s Torah portion, Ki Teitzei, the Torah writes: “If, along the road, you chance upon a bird’s nest in any tree or on the ground, with fledglings or eggs, and the mother sitting over the fledglings or on the eggs, do not take the mother together with her young. Send the mother bird away, and take only the young, in order that you may fare well and have a long life.” The Talmud points out that this commandment and one other in the Torah, come with the promise of long life: “Honor your father and your mother, as your God has commanded you, that you may have long life, and that you may fare well, in the land that your God is giving to you.”
The Talmud then asks (Kiddushin 39b), “What if a father asks his child to go to the top of a tree and shoo away the mother bird and take the eggs [fulfilling both commandments which come with the reward of long life], and the son did thus, is it so that he could not fall and die? If so, then where are the “long days” of this person?” The Talmud’s answer is that the long life referred to in the verses is in the next world. But, says the Talmud, one Rabbi, Elisha Ben Avuha, saw this happen and became a heretic.
The question of theodicy, of justice in our world, of why bad things happen to good people is one of the most present religious questions in any generation. Below is a painting (Compassion for the Mother Bird / Out of the Whirlwind) which my mother of blessed memory painted on the topic and a short piece on it by the art critic Richard McBee. Let me know your thoughts and reflections on the painting.
“Janet Shafner invokes a Talmudic perspective to her many paintings of the Torah, juxtaposing texts and contemporary images to reawaken meanings long dormant. Another recent painting, Compassion for the Mother Bird / Out of the Whirlwind (2003), plumbs the issues of reward and punishment as they clash with God’s justice and our finite understanding. Divine Ecology challenged us with our responsibility as guardians of God’s creation; here she explores the boundaries of our knowledge and understanding. The main panel depicts the “age-old enigma of why the good suffer,” depicting a young man fatally falling (or diving) from a tree after fulfilling the mitzvah of sending the mother bird away.
The classic Talmudic text (Kiddushin 39b) relates the story of a son who obediently obeys his father and chases the mother bird away before retrieving a chick from the nest. In the midst of performing two mitzvot whose reward is long life (obedience to parents and sending the mother bird away) death overtakes the faithful lad. The Gemara struggles with explanations but is clearly unsettled with the incomprehensible stark reality.
Shafner crowns her painting with a cosmic vision (again a contrast between narrative and symbolic) that alludes to the verse in Job that reminds us “that mortal man cannot comprehend the mind of the Creator: ‘Then Hashem responded to Job from out of the whirlwind, saying: …Where were you when I laid the foundations for the earth? Pray tell – if you are so wise! …When all the morning stars sang in unison, when all the angels shouted… Have you ever ordered up the morning, told the dawn its place?’” (Job 39:1-12).
This remarkable painting returns us to the Divine Ecology series, challenging us in our Divine partnership. We must do our part; maintain God’s creation, carefully exercise our choices between good and evil and, after all is said and done, hope for the best. As stewards of our world we have awesome responsibility and yet tragically limited power. We simply cannot know God’s ways and must finally accept his judgments. It is in the acceptance of His will, frequently incomprehensible, that our true freedom rests. As in the startling image of Shafner’s last painting, the falling figure, clearly contemporary, is welcoming his fall, indeed soaring in acceptance of the Divine will. This is the final challenge of faith that Shafner’s paintings dare us to match.” (McBee, R. 2004. The Divine Ecology of Janet Shafner).