Page 287 - Coincidences in the Bible and in Biblical Hebrew

COINCIDENCES IN THE BIBLE AND IN BIBLICAL HEBREW
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266 COINCIDENCES IN THE BIBLE AND IN BIBLICAL HEBREW
punishment—will also be administered randomly, as though it were completely
dissociated from the very conduct of the recipient of the punishment. This nature
of random punishment is revealed in God’s “hiding the hiding” of his face (haster
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astir panai, Deut. 31:18).
Another realization of this attitude of Jewish thought is revealed in a quote
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from Jewish sages: “Measure against measure [midah ke-neged midah ]. By the
same measure that a person conducts his or her ways, they [meaning heaven]
measure to him.” In fact, this same attitude lies at the core of Jewish law. The
much misinterpreted, misused, and abused biblical “an eye for an eye ” was not
intended to be read literally (and this can be shown easily by properly interpreting
the pursuing verses). Rather, it was meant to serve as an epitome for the funda-
mental tenet that underlies Jewish law, and indeed most legal systems in today’s
democratic nations: “Punishment should be proportional to the consequences of
the deed of iniquity—of the transgression.”
Here are two examples for this philosophy of justice, assumed to be inherent in
the very nature and structure of the world, as conveyed by the Bible. When God
speaks to King David , delivering the message that his son will build the temple,

God describes his future relationship with David’s yet-unspecified son: “I will be
to him like a father, and he will be to me like a son, so that when he distorts his
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ways [be-haavoto ] I would reproach him by the rod of man and with the affl ic-
tions of human beings” (2 Samuel 7:14; my translation). In the same vein, the
author of Proverbs teaches the same lesson, succinctly and beautifully: “In all thy
ways know him, and he will straighten your walkways” (Prov. 3:6).
To help gain insight as to what the nature of coincidences is in everyday life,
and demonstrate our potential blindness to the messages in these coincidences—
and how we practically turn a blind eye to clues that are supposed to draw our
attention to these messages—let us address two scandals of recent times. They

are known by the names Watergate (named after a hotel in Washington DC) and

Whitewater (named after Whitewater Development Corporation, founded 1978).
How strange that such two unrelated scandals are called by so similar names.
Is it possible that they are yet interrelated?

I conducted a comprehensive search of the Internet and other written public
sources to find out whether there is any allusion to the moral lesson of these two

similarly named, but seemingly unrelated scandals, yet I found none.
Is it possible that a certain individual was involved in both scandals, displaying
overenthusiasm to indict a president in one scandal, only to be, some years later,
on the receiving end of overkill accusations in the other scandal? Was there a