Home › Forums › Inspiration / Mussar › Hashem Is By Our Side
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April 27, 2010 3:14 pm at 3:14 pm #591602APushetaYidParticipant
Things in life are always bumpy. We have good days and bad days.Why is it this way? why can it not be smooth? I’ll daven and do mitzvahs and e/t will be just great! The answer to the question is clear and precise. Hashem is our father, he wants just good for us. he wants us to grew!.. he wants us to ask for his help!.. just like a mother who teaches her child to walk she lets go.. but still stands next to the child. And watches over him.so is hashem! so we gotta stay strong and tall! and even when you are in that bumpy ride know hashem is next to you watching over you. you should not fall!!!
Hatzlacha
April 27, 2010 3:42 pm at 3:42 pm #713240cherrybimParticipant“We have good days and bad days.”
Actually, we only have good days; however, the Emunah is weak. Now doubt Hashem provides us the challenges which makes life interesting and sometimes bitter, but it’s ultimately and always good.
April 27, 2010 8:52 pm at 8:52 pm #713241shimmelMemberOur days arent always good! but we want to believe that they ARE for the better. That hashem is doing it only for our benefit, and that he’s taking care of us and guiding us all through the hard times. but how can u say they are all good?
April 27, 2010 8:55 pm at 8:55 pm #713242YW Moderator-80MemberIt depends what you mean by “good” They are certainly all for the good. Would you request to have no more of them, C’V. Whether they are “pleasant” is another story, which depends on so many things but mostly on your Das and attitude, upbringing, and learning Mussar.
April 27, 2010 9:00 pm at 9:00 pm #713243Dr. DovvshteinMemberLooking back, everything hashem has done has been GOOD.. nice way to put it 80.. maybe not pleasant but all good
April 27, 2010 9:04 pm at 9:04 pm #713244shimmelMemberYes i’d much rather have them in in smaller proportion! Do trials and tribulations humble you? Yes, do they shape you to be a better person? Most defenite, if you have the right thoughts. I’d be a hypocrite if i’d say that I’m always thinking that hashem loves me and therefore he’s trying me.
April 28, 2010 3:42 am at 3:42 am #713245hereorthereMemberWe are required to believe that H-sh-m is not limited in any way, shape or form, and there is absolutely no limit to what he can do.
Since this must be true, my question is; Why did he create the Universe, in such a way that for us to be our best, there must be a transition we must go through, in order to ‘be’ our best?
More importantly; Why must this transition include any suffering at all, let alone the absolute horrific suffering people have gone through, during all parts of history?
I know the standard answer I have gotten, is that reward must come from earning it through effort which by definition must include suffering/struggling, or the reward is not appreciated.
But that begs the question.
G-d created the Universe in such a way, that this is how reward must be earned and appreciated.
He could have just as easily, created the Universe in such a way, that we could have earned and recieved reward and appreciated it every bit as much, without any suffering.
Or he could have simply given everyone their final reward and created them, such that they would appreciate it, without having to have earned it.
G-d created time and space, and all the laws of physics and rules regarding human emotions.
It was all up to him, so he could have created a universe where ‘earning’ reward was the ‘lazy unappreciative’ way to get it, and where sitting around doing nothing was the virtuous way of the Tzaddikim.
Or G-d could have looked all through history and simply told everyone “If you had actually gone through life, you would have suffered from such and such and at the end, earned a certain amount of reward. I (H-sh-m)have spared you going through all that and here is the reward, without you actually having to go through, any suffering”.
And he could have created the people, such that they would gladly accept, and love his judgement, joyfully.
Someone might argue that this would take away, free choice.
I have two points to make about that;
#1 H-sh-m could have done it the way I suggest, and still have given us free choice.
We might not understand how that could possibly work. But our not understanding, does not limit G-d, or stop him from having the ability to have done it that way, if he had chosen to do so.
#2 We do not really have much free choice anyway, we do not choose to whom, or where or how healthy or rich or other circumstances we are born and all those circumstances have a huge impact on how the rest of our lives will go.
All through life how rich we are and how healthy, tall strong or weak, etc… Are also not under our control so all this stuff about free choice as most of us usually think of it, is only a fantasy anyway.
Our only free choice is to do good or evil and even that might have some question about it (a person born poverty stricken for example and literally starving to death for lack of any way to earn money in a poor depressed country who then steals just to survive. Stealing is wrong but either he steals or starves to death).
So again G-d could have simply told us what our choices would have been and saved us the suffering from actually having to go through all the horrors that so many have gone through.
After all, at the end that is what happens anyway when we go to the Heavenly Bais Din, and are judged and either clensed of our averias and then allowed once clensed, to enter Gan Eden and get our reward or if we are judged to be Tzaddikim and get to go in right away without any clensing, first.
We want to be close to H-sh-m and bask in the Schechina, that and not ‘free choice’ is the goal anyway, so G-d it seems, could have just ‘cut to the chase’ as they say, and just given us our reward.
So since G-d can do anything and no one “forced” him to create a universe where the concept of evil and of suffering even exists, and since G-d could have made us just as happy and joyful as we will be in the end anyway.
Why did he ‘choose’ to have us suffer when it seems to me to be so obvious that it is not necessary?
Of course, people might answer we simply do not understand H-sh-ms ways they are too high for us to understand.
My response is that it does not matter how little we understand.
We can understand that G-d is not limited and that he could have done things differently, we do not have to have infinite intelligence to understand that basic concept.
April 28, 2010 4:41 am at 4:41 am #713246YW Moderator-80MemberIn order to receive the reward we must be fit vessels to receive it. The reward is closeness to Hashem. In the spiritual sense, closeness is similarity. Hashem is a pure Giver. We must become givers. What is the most precious thing we can give? Ourselves, our free will, giving it to Hashem and giving to His children. Only then can we become, in a manner of speaking, like Hashem.
To be created to just receive, to purely take, is the opposite of Hashem and would be an inherent, intrinsic contradiction to closeness with Hashem.
Now if you answer:”But Hashem can do anything, why did He create the Universe like this?” then no answer will answer any of your questions.
April 28, 2010 5:28 am at 5:28 am #713247hereorthereMemberOur Neshamas are part of H-sh-m, so the seeming contradiction to me, would be why
H-sh-m would separate the Neshamas from himself, just to earn the right to be reunited as a reward.
It does not bother me that we must become givers, but to set up the Universe such that suffering ‘must’ be part of it seems to me, to be the opposite of giving and kindness.
April 28, 2010 1:20 pm at 1:20 pm #713248YW Moderator-80MemberPersonally, I certainly can’t answer your questions any further than i have. You are fundamentally asking to understand the “mind” and “motivations” of Hashem. More appropriate would be for a grasshopper to ask the motivations of the Secretary of State in his decision not to meet with a certain dignitary.
If the questions truly are causing problems for you, you need to talk it over with a wise Talmid Chochom.
April 28, 2010 1:49 pm at 1:49 pm #713249APushetaYidParticipantOf course I didn’t mean to say we have bad days chos v’sholem. only when things don’t look so good to us. Then we have chizuk by thinking hashem is by our side! you guys got it all wrong. chos v’sholem all days are good!
April 28, 2010 5:24 pm at 5:24 pm #713250Be HappyParticipantAfter the tragedy of “Assurei Harukai Malchos” the Malochim asked Hashem Is this Torah? and This the reward?? Hashem told them to be quiet because to explain what looks to us as a tragedy Hashem said He would have to destroy the world…
I heard the following Moshol:
A king was going to make a royal international banquet. For this banquet he wanted a tailor to make him a very special suit. He sent his servants around the world to find material. Some servants found in a small village in the far east special material which was cool in Summer and warm in Winter and had a very beautiful shimmer.
It was so expensive and so rare they manage to buy just enough material for a suit.
The king was delighted with the material. He invited tailors from around the world to join a contest and the king would choose the best one to sew his suit. A Yid won the contest and began the huge job of sewing this special material into a suit suitable for the king.
He worked weeks on his project and the king was delighted with his new suit.
At the banquet the king happily received many compliments. The Yid got his pay and was delighted that he was so matzliach with his project.
People around could not take the compliments they saw the Yid getting. They went to the king with accusations against the Yid: True the Yid did a good job but he probably took some of the material for himself. They contnued accusing the Yid to the King until the king arrested the Yid. He was brought in front of the king for questioning and protested his innocence. He was adamant that he had not taken any material. The king told him if he will not admit he is going to be killed. The Yid davened to Hashem feeling his situation was a lost case. He suddenly got inspiration and asked the king to bring him the suit into the little room where he was being held. He painstakingly took apart the suit stitch by stitch. He brought the material to the King and asked that the material should be measured. It was found to be all there. He could no longer so the suit back together again but he had proved his point.
Our world is a beautiful suit… We really dont want Hashem to take apart the suit
April 29, 2010 12:24 am at 12:24 am #713251hereorthereMemberNice story.
Still; To say that H-sh-m would “have to” destroy the world, to explain it, is to limit H-sh-m.
November 28, 2010 9:42 pm at 9:42 pm #713252eclipseMemberhashem is there for us,always dependable.the more we believe it,the more empowered we are to keep going.
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