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If God won't kill us, we won't be hit by a lightning.

If He wants our death, a lightning rod won't defend us.

Same reasoning could work for seat belts.

Which is, on my opinion, a false reasoning. But why?

Gray Sheep
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  • the same logic could be used for swimming with piranhas while slathered in corned beef, but is a common sense combination of ein somchin al hanes and venishmartem et nafshoteichem be enough of an answer? – rosends May 09 '16 at 19:30
  • The example that you use means that you could be in a situation in which you are being judged before the heavenly court. The decree could be that lightning will strike, but you are allowed to be saved by a lightning rod because you followed the mitzvah of "Ushmartem es nafshosaichem". Had you not done that (of your free will) you would have been killed because you did not deserve the miracle of having the lightning miss. – sabbahillel May 09 '16 at 20:11

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The same god that says I decide life-and-death said guard your life and be safe.

menachem
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    So doing all this stuff is just a show? It's just an arbitrary thing we do bc God said so with no effect? – Double AA May 09 '16 at 19:31
  • Isn't that Beautiful. You are doing something for your dear father even though you may not understand it. Like so many things we do just because he says so which is most of the beauty of Judaism connecting to the infinite even though we are limited and finite. – menachem May 09 '16 at 19:34
  • Beauty isn't a particularly objective standard here, so I'm going to ignore that. The problem here with your statement is most of us think we do understand this one. – Double AA May 09 '16 at 19:36
  • @DoubleAA I think it is a cardinal question and probably there is a great rabbi in the medieval ages which wrote something about it. Unfortunately, the other question, which seems its "duplicate", doesn't cite any usable references. – Gray Sheep May 09 '16 at 19:45
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    @MorningStar, this question is a duplicate of that one AFAICT. If you're unsatisfied with the answers there, see http://judaism.stackexchange.com/help/bounty. – msh210 May 09 '16 at 20:02
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    @DoubleAA The judgement could be that the person is not worthy of having the lightning miss, but is worthy of being saved by a lightning rod (derech hateva) – sabbahillel May 09 '16 at 20:14
  • @sabbahillel I think, in the case of the average person, this is the judgement in most cases? Can you cite some reference about this? – Gray Sheep May 10 '16 at 17:22