LEV253 … contemporary rabbinic scholars generally condemn efforts to explain people's illnesses and deaths from disease as punishment for their behavior. For example, Lord Jakobovits, the late British Chief Rabbi and medical ethicist, criticized religious people who chose to see AIDS as God's punishment of homosexuals (an activity banned by Torah law [this verse]: "We can no more divine why some people endure terrible ills without any appropriate cause than we can comprehend why others prosper though they clearly do not deserve their good fortune. Even less are we justified in being selective, subjecting some scourges to this moral analysis while exempting others-- AIDS, yes, but earthquakes, or flood or drought, no." (Cited in Freudenthal, AIDS in Jewish Thought and Law, 2).