HOW TO SOLVE A PROBLEM PROPERLY
AVROHOM YAAKOV
At the end of this week’s parsha, G-d describes the looming Jewish conquest of Canaan.
“I will not drive them away from before you in one year, lest the land become desolate and the beasts of the field outnumber you. I will drive them out from before you little by little, until you have increased and can occupy the land.” (23:29-30)
Rashi explains that it would be counterproductive to remove all the inhabitants at once since there were too few Jews to take over. The land would become desolate if stripped of the natives too quickly.
We live in a world of unintended consequences.
Decisions are made on the spur of the moment to further a short term agenda. There are so many recent real-world examples it would be almost impossible to limit ourselves to just a few.
Suffice to say that recent decisions, supposedly taken to make the world a safer place for ourselves and future generations, appear to have had the opposite effect with economic mayhem, food shortages in First World countries, fostering racism and the list goes on being the outcomes.
The purported cure is worse than the illness.
G-d’s promise to the Jewish people is that while actions need to be taken, those actions must take into account that they have continuity and are not more destructive than the issues that they were solving.
