God Fanning Fires

This week’s parasha is “VaYeshev.” In it, we are shown how the all-foreseeing God directly, pro-actively stirs up trouble between people and nations in order to foment His objectives in human society. God tells us in Isaiah 54:16, “I, Myself created the smith who blows the fire of the coals (heats things up) I created the destroyer (intentionally) to ruin!” God claims SOLE ownership of all events in human experience, having deliberately created even the irritants intentionally to do what they do (see Isaiah 45:7). It is a mind-blowing exploration that detoxes faith from overly simplified portraits of the Creator whose ways are “as high above us as the heavens are above the earth.” Enjoy!