Religious figures across the spectrum are weighing in on the Heavenly causes behind this weekend’s disaster in Nepal. The unspoken question that seems to be on everyone’s mind is why God would cause such devastation.

Rabbi Yosef Mizrachi, a popular personality in the Jewish inreach world, posted on his Facebook page Monday, “All the idols [sic] worshiping places in nepal are now destroyed”. The accompanying photos show before and after images of a temple in Durbar Square, Kathmandu, which also ran in the New York Times.

He went on to explain to his readers through comments “that god hate [sic] idol worshiping and destroyed the idols as he did many time in the history and [the point was] for all of us to see this [earthquake] and learn”.

Mizrachi’s comments garnered a great deal of reaction, both from supporters and detractors. Jesse Lempel called Mizrachi out in The Forward, citing the reaction of Rabbi Eliyahu Fink: “What’s the worst possible thing a ‘rabbi’ could say this morning? Yep, he went there. When will people stop supporting and promoting this sad, angry, pathetic, mental midget of a man?”

Not everyone was so critical, however. One blogger agreed with Mizrachi, writing on her Tomer Devorah blog, “There is no greater crime in the world than to worship false gods while enjoying the beneficence of the Creator every day of your life. You think it’s ever an accident of nature when something like this happens? There are NO ACCIDENTS in this world.”

Mizrachi himself responded to some of his critics, elaborating in Facebook comments:

Mizrachi is not alone in his beliefs. American pastor Tony Miano posted a similar sentiment on Twitter:

.@CNN Praying 4 the lost souls in Nepal. Praying not a single destroyed pagan temple will b rebuilt & the people will repent/receive Christ.

— Tony Miano (@TonyMiano) April 25, 2015

Others have taken a more global view. Reform Rabbi Evan Moffic claimed in The Huffington Post, “…a degree of freedom and randomness in our world is a precondition for human life. If the world was totally predictable, we would not have genetic mutations, natural selection and change. Without freedom we would not have life. Without earthquakes we would not have an inhabitable planet.” Moffic added that it is that very freedom which enables mankind to save lives and work to make the world a better place. He added, “God is not absent in Nepal. God is in tears of survivors who reach out in pain to comfort one another. God is in the hearts linking us to those suffering around the world. And God is in the hands reaching out in love to help, heal and rebuild.”

According to CNN, the locals in Nepal see their tragedy the same way. The majority religion in the country is Hinduism, followed distantly by Buddhism. Both religions believe in karma, but also in chance occurrences. “Buddhist and Hindu texts make it clear that there are all kinds of causal contingencies that just happen,” Todd Lewis, an expert on Asian religions at College of the Holy Cross in Massachusetts, told the news network. It is how people respond to tragedy that gives life moral meaning.

Leading Orthodox Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski, after the 2010 Haiti earthquake, offered a balanced position. Twerski likened violating the seven Noahide laws which Jews believe apply to all humanity with tampering with nature.

“No one is singled out to suffer the consequences of tampering with Natural Law,” Twerski wrote in 2010. “Violation of the seven Noahide Laws by people on one continent may result in a disruption of the Natural Law according to which the world operates, and the consequences of such disruption may occur on a distant continent. The disruption of the Natural Law which affected Indonesia and Haiti may have been caused by violations of the Noahide Laws by people the world over. No individual or group of people can be singled out as responsible and as being punished.”

Identifying the spiritual causes of tragedies is a long-standing Jewish – and even Biblical – tradition. The Talmud urges people who suffer to engage in soul-searching to determine why they deserve what has befallen them. The goal of such contemplation is to improve one’s behavior.

In Biblical times, God sent prophets to His people to warn them of impending doom so that they could mend their ways and fend off the coming punishment. Today, when God no longer speaks to the world through prophets, He continues to communicate through nature. The world needs only to listen.