Protest: The right and the duty to stand before God and demand justice

Source: Negotiations between heaven and earth: Abraham and Sodom

And the Lord said: "The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is indeed great, and their sin is very grave. I will go down now and see whether they have acted entirely according to the outcry that has reached me; and if not, I will know." The men turned from there and went to Sodom, while Abraham still stood before the Lord. Abraham approached and said: "Will you really sweep away the righteous with the wicked? Perhaps there are fifty righteous people within the city—will you really sweep it away and not spare the place for the sake of the fifty righteous people within it? Far be it from you to do such a thing—to put the righteous to death with the wicked, so that the righteous and the wicked fare alike! Far be it from you; shall the Judge of all the earth not do justice?"

(Genesis 18:20-25; Image: Sodom and Gomorrah - Jacob de Wet II, 1680)

Explanation: The demand for human justice versus divine judgment

God, watching from above, decides to destroy Sodom along with everyone in it, but first He seeks "permission" from Abraham. Abraham argues to God that His decision is unjust, and that God is obligated to do justice. Abraham tries to save the entire city, but after negotiations, the two sides reach a compromise: the good people will be saved, and the wicked will die.

Perspective: The tradition of protest: From Abraham to Psalms

Many sources across the Bible and the teachings of the Jewish sages make clear that human beings have the right to protest and oppose God's decisions. From Abraham, through most of the prophets who refuse to prophesy or resist the content of the prophecy given to them, all the way to the Book of Psalms, which levels countless grievances against God's actions and decisions. Divine justice and human justice are not identical, and because God created humanity with a sense of justice and a call to do what is right and good, it is both a person's duty and right to demand human justice.

Going Deeper: For the honor of Heaven: Protest as divine service

Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, Ein Ayah, Berakhot 31b:

When it occurs among whole [people] that their passion for perfection surges within them, and since they know that the fundamental duty to honor Heaven is meant to bring humanity toward perfection, then when they find themselves unable to restrain their turbulent spirit—seeing in the divine governance things that hinder perfection... to the point where they bring forth into action the bitterness of their spirit... because out of the surge of passion for perfection, true honor of Heaven is truly born, which consists in His creatures, especially those endowed with free will, being whole in their deeds and character traits. And this is the meaning of "And Hannah prayed against the Lord," for her stormy emotion, pouring out her soul in prayer to increase perfection in the world, rose higher than the state of her intellect, whose center is the contemplation of the Blessed God.

According to Rabbi Kook, following the Babylonian Talmud, Hannah and other giants of Israel demanded justice from God not for humanity's sake, but for the sake of justice itself—for God's sake!

Culture: A cry in the synagogue: Reading the curses

The Reading of the Curses, Rabbi Elchanan Nir

In the middle of the Torah reading, during the section of the curses,

I yelled at the reader:

Stop!

I have no more room for all this panic and fever.

I am third generation, I said, breathless,

stop and let me get off like a human being

from this death train.

But he kept reading in a muffled whisper,

(and words like crushing, plague, and excision

kept flying by like green landscape rushing on either side)

while I gripped the railing

and threw up.

One of the sticklers shrieked at the reader: Vowel mistake!

And the reader swallowed his words

and foretold a woman eating the flesh of her sons.

And I had already opened a window and was about to jump

and I screamed: Why does the relationship with God

have to come to these detailed threats,

and why can't we speak kindly?

Everyone turned around toward me,

signaled with an angry finger to be quiet,

and one puffed, "Just let him finish," he said,

"so it's behind us."