Is God a Bully?

I am on my way to NFTY CANOe's Winter Kallah, where this year's theme is bullying. The regional boards, teens from Illinois, Minnesota and Wisconsin, have decided in response to the heightened awareness of bullying in our society, to provide their peers with appropriate Jewish responses to bullying and ways to be more inclusive. As I've been thinking about the theme, I began wondering, "Is God a bully?"

According to Norwegian researcher Dan Olweus, bullying is the repeated behavior of intentionally inflicting "injury or discomfort upon another person, through physical contact, through words or in other ways." This definitely sounds like God's reaction to the Israelites' and others' behavior throughout Torah: following the incident with the golden calf, when the Israelites complain about having left Egypt, and God's reaction to Sodom and Gomorrah, to name a few. In each of these three moments, humankind has to intercede to stop God's behavior. Moses steps in at the first two and Abraham in the third.

In the narrative of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham begs God not to destroy the cities if there are even 50 righteous people present. God agrees, but the cities lack even 50 righteous people. Abraham bargains God down to 45, to 40, 30, 20, and even to 10. Still, God destroys the cities. Why does Abraham stop before getting to 1 and why is God still willing to destroy the cities?

According to a midrash in Tractate Sanhedrin 109b, the people of Sodom had a bed on which the would make visitors lie down. Anyone too tall for the bed would have his limbs cut off to fit the bed. Anyone who was too short for the bed would be stretched, breaking his limbs to make him fit. The people of Sodom refused to tolerate anyone who was different from them. God, we see, is not the bully, but instead stands up to bullies to defend the victims, those who are bullied for not being just like everyone else.

In this week's Torah portion, Vayechi, Joseph's brothers become fearful following their father Jacob's death. They are afraid that now Joseph will seek revenge on them for all the wrong they did to him and their father won't be there to protect them. In the end, Joseph tells them that though they meant him harm, God was looking out for Joseph and made sure things turned out well. We might wish God would have interceded and stopped Joseph's brothers, but we can find comfort in Joseph's confidence in God's presence on his behalf.

So, is God a bully? In short, no. Sometimes God steps in to actively protect the bullied. Sometimes the bullied can sense God's presence in the midst of tragedy. We have the power - and the sacred obligation - to bridge the gap.