RS Comprehension Questions

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Name the two types of evil the poet is referring to and give examples.

The poet commonly refers to moral evil, such as poverty and unhappiness. Moral evil is a type of evil that can be prevented- a line of the poem says 'to live like crowded dogs in slums and tenements'. This line refers to poverty which is an example of moral evil because with money and charity it can be prevented.

He also refers to natural evil quite frequently throughout the poem. The natural evil is death. We can put it off for as long as is possible but it is unpreventable and happens to everyone. He commonly asks God why they make our deaths disgusting and our corpses rot in the lines 'and make them die disgustingly' and 'die and have their corpses rot'.

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The poet compares the beauty of beginnings with the ugliness of the end- give the three main images that he chooses for this.

The poet starts with the image of beautiful girls that God creates but starts going downhill form there. He ends this paragraph with the image of their corpses rotting. There is a huge contrast between the beautiful girls and the rotting corpses, as we can see here, good and evil, ugly and beauty.

At the very beginning he talks about how God created us and he doesn'tspecify whether we were born s pure indiviuals but we were all born free from suffering- a beautiful beginning- he then goes on to describe the evil in our lives. The suffering, fighting, uhappiness and lastly the disgusting death AKA ugliness of the end.

Lastly, he talks about how we started off made in God's image and likeness but most of us ended up living like dogs in slums with an ugly end.

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Do you think that the poet is suggesting that 'nurture' is the cause of evi over 'nature'?

I think that the poet mostly goes with the idea of nurture. He commonly references our creation from God. We can infer that he thinks we were born as pure indiviuals as we started off in Gods image and likeness. His talk of moral evil clearly shows that all the evil we experience could have been prevented and, apart from death, none of it was ever 'written in the stars' for anyone. He says that people who do nothing live lives of luxury because of the 'sweat of their toil'. These people were raised and 'nurtured' with money in their pockets and silver spoons in their mouths. No one can be born a lazy snob.

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Does the poet believe in in God? Give 2 reasons to suggest he does and 2 to suggest that he does not.

I think he does believe in God because he talks about our creation and how God made us but no atheists think that so clearly he does believe in God.

He also ends the poem by saying that God is wise and how God is always hiding. These are two features, which many theists believe about God.They think God is omniscient (all-knowing) and omnipresent (everywhere but invisible).

On the other hand, he mightn't believe in God because every thesist has a belief about God that is specific to their religion. When he asks these questions within the poem it is almost as if he doesn't know the answers, but if he had a religion he would have a common belief about whetehr God is evil or not and wouldn't need to ask the question.

Lastly, when he says 'I'd like to see God' most people read it in a mocking tone, which makes us wonder, if he is mocking God could he be mocking the belief of God entirely? It's almsot as if he is saying 'If God is here, where is he?' This is also a highly disrespectful thing to say in most religions and would never be uttered by anyoe with a firm belief in God.

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Look at the Jewish responses to the Holocaust. Highlight the 4 main theorists. Which line in the poem align to each of these 4 ideas?

Richard Rubenstein says that God left the world to run on it's own and didn't jump in to change events. A line in the poem that complies with this is 'God why do beautiful girls you create becom whores?'. He uses the word 'become'. Become means to happen gradually. God created them as beautiful girls at the start but he didn't step in and change them to make them whores and when they did he didn't interfere. If it becameof them it was none of God's doing.

Elizer Berkovits says that God made man with the free will to do whatever they please. A line in the poem says 'an exploiting few profit from the sweat of their toil'. If those people are going to sit around all day, do nothing and get paid considerable more than poor people who work extremely hard, then there is nothing that God can do about it because those people have the freedom to do whatever they please.

Elie Wiesel says that God is cruel and unjust. In the poem it says 'Why do you make them suffer?' The poet says 'make; as if it was all of God's doing. HHe is saying that humans suffer because God makes them, which makes God cruel and unjust.

The last Jew says that the common questions raised about God are a mystery and much too complex for our minds. We are just small humans and everything God does is beyond us and much too complx for our understanding. In the poem it says 'Why do you not raise one little finger?'. And that is what everyone wants to know but as is said by Emil Fackenheim- we can ony ask questions because we will never know and our imaginations themselves aren't even that big to think why.

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Which basic idea is missing from these responses?

After the Holocause many Jews simply stopped believeing in God. They had stoody by and believed in God with every ounce of their being from the beginning and the one time that the whole religion really needed God, they weren't there. Many Jews thought they were believing in a hopless case so they simply stopped.

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Choose a line from the poem to suggest that God has power.

A poem in the line says 'Why do you not raise one little finger to stop mankind from all the suffering?'. God must be extremely powerful toonly have to raise one finger to cure humanity from all evil. To this, an atheist would say that if God is so powerful it wouldn't take that much to just stop evil. If he can do it so easily then why doesn't he? He has the powerto save his once-perfect world but instead he lets the suffering carry on.

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Choose a line from the poem to suggest that God allows freewill

'God why do you permit?' The word permit means to allow. If he allows all this to happen then surely he is just letting us take control of our own furtures. An atheist would say that if God can see we are clearly not using our freedom, wisely, then surely he should step in and help. We are only small weak humans and we all make mistakes so shouldn't God help us all out. And if the mistakes are not even ours to begin with why can't God step in and help us from another persons foolishness. Also, during the Holocause many babies suffered- they practically haven't even lived yet and they are still suffering for crimes they did not commit.

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Choose a line from the poem to suggest that God choose not to intervene

'God, why do you not raise one little finger to save mankind' is also a quote to represent this because it shows that he has the power to save us all but doesn't. He doesn't because he doesn't want to interfere with our lives. An atheist would say that if he is all-powerful he should pick up he pieces of the world he created. If he didn't want to interfere in the first place why did he make us? Why make a world and leave it, but when times are rough you don't step in and help?

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Choose a line from the poem to suggest that God and humans are linked

The poem says 'Why do beautiful girls you create..?'. God and humans are linked because they created us. We would not be here without them. If we are so closely linked with God why doesn't he help us. An atheist would say that we are made from him and we are his people. It is the same concept as a king or queen helping their citizens in a time of great distress. Thye do t because they are responsible for their peoples actions. God made us so they should help us when we make mistakes.