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— 'You shall serve foreign gods in your land; so you shall serve strangers in a land that is not yours' (Jer 5:19) —
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and there is benefit in this, for it leads him to desist from his sin.
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And when a servant is afflicted by a trial and asks his Lord to make known to him the reason, He has ordained that He will make it known — as He said: 'When they ask, "For what reason has the Lord our God done all these things to us?" you shall say to them: "As you have forsaken Me..."' (Jer 5:19).
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But when the servant afflicted by a trial asks and has not been given that reason, He has ordained that He will not make it known — as Moses our Master said: 'Why have You dealt ill with Your servant?' (Num 11:11) — and it was not explained to him; and Job asked: 'Make known to me why You contend with me' (Job 10:2) — and it was not explained to him.
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There is benefit in this too: so that the endurance of the righteous will not be diminished in people's eyes through someone saying he only endured because he knew the magnitude of his reward.
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I also say that even the fully perfect person may be tried and compensated — for I find that children suffer pain, and I have no doubt they will be compensated. The Wise One's afflicting them is like a father's disciplining them through striking and confinement, to restrain them from harmful acts;
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and like giving them bitter, unpleasant medicines to cure their illness — as the Torah says: 'You shall know in your heart that as a man disciplines his son, so the Lord your God disciplines you' (Deut 8:5).
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And He said in the same vein: 'For the one the Lord loves He reproves, as a father the son he favors' (Prov 3:12).
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If someone asks: could He not simply give them the reward without any suffering? We answer him with our first answer, given at the opening of creation and the world to come:
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We said He inclines us toward the more abundant share — for the reward along the path of compensation is greater than along the path of pure gift.
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I further say: As for the prosperity of unbelievers in this world and the indulgence shown them, this occurs in six forms.
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Among them is one whom God knows will repent, and so He gives him respite to complete his repentance — as we find He gave Manasseh twenty-two years until he repented.
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Among them is one He indulges so that a righteous child will issue from him — as He indulged Ahaz and Hezekiah issued from him, and indulged Amon and Josiah issued from him.
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Among them is one He indulges in order to recompense him for the few merits he has performed — as we have explained.
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Among them is one He indulges so as to use him to punish a people more corrupt than he is — as He said of Assyria: 'Against a godless nation I send him; against a people of My wrath I command him, to plunder plunder and to loot loot' (Isa 10:6).
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Among them is one He indulges because of a righteous person's intercession for something that benefits his situation — as He said to Lot: 'Behold, I have also granted your request in this matter' (Gen 19:21).
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And among them is one He indulges so as to intensify the punishment upon him — as Pharaoh survived ten plagues and was then drowned in the sea.
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Along these lines, Jeremiah asked his Lord about those great peoples — to one who knows the reason, not by way of protest against Him — saying: 'Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why do all who are treacherous thrive?' (Jer 12:1).
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He was told it was for the last reason — to punish them with severe punishment — as He said in the passage that follows: 'How long will the land mourn, and the grass of every field wither, because of the evil of those who dwell in it?' (Jer 12:4).
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Having explained what was needed regarding the categories of righteous and wicked, I add further: what Scripture means when it says 'but one sinner destroys much good' (Qoh 9:18).
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He uses as a simile for it a fly that has fallen into aromatic oil — as He says afterward: 'Dead flies make the perfumer's oil ferment' (Qoh 10:1) —
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this is only in terms of naming — a servant has two hundred deeds, one single determining act — among them one hundred merits and one hundred sins — so his case is balanced.
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If the single determining deed is a merit, he is called righteous; if it is a sin, he is called wicked.
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Section 4. As for the exclusively obedient (muṭīʿ) — he is one who has designated for himself a single commandment and never transgresses it throughout his life.
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He may alternate between observance and transgression in other commandments, but in that one he has never been deficient at all —
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as though he resolved that prayer shall never escape him, or that honoring one's parents shall never escape him, or that he has never treated unlawful money as permissible, or has never lied — and so forth.
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As the tradition says: 'Whoever performs a single commandment — they treat him well, lengthen his days, and he inherits the land' — and they explained: for instance, one who designates for himself a commandment to perform, such as honoring father and mother.