Classical Judaism teaches not only belief in a supernatural being, but also in a belief that that being takes an interest in the affairs of the world.  The God of Israel redeemed the Israelites from Egypt, revealed Godself on Mount Sinai, performed miracles for them and established a covenant with them.  According to the Torah, God is interested and is involved in the affairs of humankind.  Does this involvement extend to individuals or to just to a collective people?  Is there a correlation between God providence and our behavior?  If there is a correlation, what is the nature of that correlation?

Many Biblical texts portray a correlation between the Israelites following the Torah and its commandments and God’s involvement in their lives.  If the Israelites follow the Torah and the commandments, then all will go well.  If not, they will be punished.  There are then other texts which are baffled by what appears in this world to be grave injustice.  People who behave inappropriately and are violent, who have no interest in God or in following God’s commandments, seem to prosper.  In other words, there seems to be an inconsistency between the idea of if you follow God’s word then good will follow and if you do not, then punishment will follow.

Maimonides, in his Guide to the Perplexed states:  “Divine Providence is connected with Divine intellectual influence, and the same beings which are benefited by the latter so as to become intellectual, and to comprehend things comprehensible to rational beings, are also under the control of Divine Providence, which examines all their deeds in order to reward or punish them… the method of which our mind is incapable of understanding.”

Maimonides believes that everything that happens to us is decided by and is the workings of God.  Sometimes the why and how we get rewarded and punished is beyond our understanding.  This answer works for some and not others, which is true with many concepts in Judaism.  I am not sure if the important question is why do bad things happen or who is responsible for them, but rather, how do we respond to the good and bad things that happen. One cannot know for certain why something good or bad happened to them, nor can they always be in control of these happenings, but we can have more input into how we respond to them.