Collateral damage is what happens to the innocent bystanders when there is a conflict, and when God does things, such as the plagues of Egypt, the destruction of Shomron and Jerusalem (more than once), there were many righteous and innocent people who were killed.

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When I am talking with those who are agnostic or atheist, they very often justify their belief by saying a God who is supposed to be loving and forgiving and compassionate couldn’t allow so much suffering in the world. But, since there is suffering, and so often under God’s commands innocent men, women, and children (even animals!) have been slaughtered, well… something must be wrong, and they conclude it is that God doesn’t really exist.

As I see it, it isn’t that God doesn’t exist, but that their understanding about God not allowing suffering is what is wrong.

In Acts 10, when Kefa (Peter) realized that God allowed the Gentiles to receive the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit), he said that he now understood God is no respecter of men. What he meant was that God doesn’t treat anyone differently: he sees those who are faithful to him, and those who are not.

I have often stated that whereas people are wishy-washy, always trying to find the “gray” between black and white, God is strictly binomial; with God, it is, or it isn’t: you are, or you aren’t: is you, or isn’t you, my Baby?

This is what I have come to understand about God and explains why he allows suffering and the collateral damage that has been prevalent throughout our history, as it even is to this day (reference the October 7 attacks): God doesn’t really care that much about what happens to us while we are alive, as much as he cares where we will be after we are dead.

God is not like us (DUH!) because he is an eternal being of spirit, while we are mortal beings of flesh. We cannot see or understand the eternal, and everything we know must be relatable to an experience we have had. In other words, we are stuck in the physical.

But God is eternal, and as such he sees things on an eternal level. He cares about everyone, and he hates to see anyone die (Ezekiel 18), but not die in the sense we think: to us, to die means to stop living, but to God, to die means to be condemned in the afterlife. That is why he doesn’t really care what happens to us in this life, but what will happen after this life is over.

God allows suffering, and he allows collateral damages to the innocent not because he doesn’t care, and not because he doesn’t really exist, but simply because he is more concerned with our eternal existence than this mortal one.

Now, that may be hard for most people to understand, let alone accept, but I truly believe that is why there is so much suffering and collateral damage to the innocent in the world. We want God to be what we think he should be, but he doesn’t really care what we want him to be or to do. Sorry to burst any bubbles, but God does what God wants to do, and he doesn’t really care what you think he should be doing.

He does care about you, though, and wants you to do as he has instructed you to do (in the Torah, which is the way Yeshua lived) so that when you are on the same page as he is, you will be in his presence for all time.

I’ll finish with this: the answer to the age-old question, “Why am I here?” is this: you are here to choose where you will spend eternity. I recommend you choose wisely.

Thank you for being here and that’s it for this week, so l’hitraot and Happy Hanukkah!