The Divine works through dark deeds too

While we don’t love the idea, divine providence seems to be able to work through foul deeds just as well as fair ones. We would prefer for the vessel for providence to be the righteous and saintly – and they surely are – but we also see clearly in the Tanach that G-d chooses to enact the divine plan through much less wholesome individuals.

In the story of Joseph, his brothers choose to strip their brother of his coat and throw him in a pit, then sell him to merchants and deceive their father with a blood-covered coat into thinking his beloved son was dead.

Though some try to give these deeds a higher motivation, on the face of it they are pretty heinous. And yet they are a crucial link in the divine plan to bring the Jacob family down to Egypt, while positioning Joseph as the viceroy. Along the way there is much suffering.

If we were to ask G-d why it had to be this way, why the family could not have come to Egypt under gentler circumstances, and why the divine needed to work through so many unsavory deeds (not only of the brothers, but also of Potiphar’s wife, the butler, and more) perhaps the answer might look like this:

I work through evil too, it leads to a form of rectification and refinement of souls that is not necessarily achievable through kind and pleasant ways.

(Or perhaps kabbalistically speaking: "There are sparks that need elevating even in the darkest places.")

It’s not a nice thought. Many years ago I learned that the evil Hitler survived no less than 42 assassination attempts. For me, if that is not divine providence, then I don’t know what is. Due to this, I do not accept theologies that suggest that G-d was not involved in the Holocaust and it was somehow all human doing. G-d worked through Pharaoh, and G-d worked through Hitler. No, it’s not pleasant on the ears or heart, and the last thing I mean to do is desecrate the memory of any who died in the Holocaust. I’m not pretending to know what exactly was the divine plan. I’m just looking at a fact.

Proof that G-d works directly through evil people arrives in a book very closely connected to the Joseph story. The book of Esther contains texts that mirror phrases from the Joseph story. Apart from the intertextuality, the two main characters share that they had to leave home, go into a foreign environment, live in a palace and be close to the ruler, and use that ruler to save the Jewish people. They also both found favour in the eyes of all who saw them.

In the Esther story, wicked deeds are turned precisely on their head:

1) In Esther 6:6, Haman wants the honour for himself, but by his own hand it is then Mordechai, whom he hates, who is placed on the horse with the king’s crown atop his head, while Haman has to call out before him, “Thus shall be done to the man whom the king wishes to honour.”

2) In Esther 7:10, Haman is hanged on the very gallows he built for Mordechai

3) In Esther 9:1, “on the day that the enemies of the Jews had hoped to overpower them, the opposite occurred, in that the Jews themselves overpowered those who hated them.”

Because the one major difference between the two stories is that the Joseph story is full of G-d’s name, while in the Esther story G-d’s name is hidden, I feel that this exact reversal is the Divine saying, “I am right here, behind the scenes, and yes, I work through wicked people too.”

Today’s world is full of evil and lies. For some, this is the work of Satan or the evil inclination, and is the place most devoid of G-d.

I do not deny evil must be fought wherever it is. Hitler needed to be defeated and the final solution stopped. Yet having studied these Tanach stories, I wonder if G-d is not somehow working the divine plan through them too. Why, we can only guess.