A Conversation With Hashem…

getzel, I love this! Thanks for posting. I think this should be pasted in the poetry thread, even though it’s not strictly “poetry”, it’s written beautifully and conveys a message that we can all learn from.

yes, this is a popular email of late…

Does this scenario make you feel better ? What if G-d answered “I gave you a hard day so you could grow from it, try to work on your middos, emunah etc”, would that also be ok ? Or are we only accepting what comes are way cuz there’s some “unbelievable hashgachah protis story” lurking somewhere under the surface ? Maybe G-d knows what’s best for us even when the there’s no simple explanation (which we happened not to be aware of) ?

I heard a shiur lately: Someone could not take their tzoros any longer , so they went to a Rov for a brocha and to unload his tzoros. The Rebetzin told him upon his arrival that he would have to wait.He sat down and fell asleep. He sees himself walking through a long hallway, until he reaches his destination. He looks around and there are hundreds of people running , dressed in black. He asks them where are you all going? They said to the judgement. He asks , whose? They answered yours! He becomes extremely frightened. He sees a double scale in the room. The mishpot begins, the judge asks all the malochim created from this mans aveiros should come up on the right side of the scale. The scale begins to tip over, the man is crying.. Then the judge asks all the malochim created from his mitzvos to come foward. Hundreds and hundreds of malochim dressed in white, start running to the scale.

The scale is tipping in the opposite direction and yet the right side is still winning. The man is crying out! Then the judge says all the melochim created from the tzoros this man lived through in this world should come to the left side of the scale.The scale is tipping, the man is crying and yet the aveiros are winning over the mitzvos by a hair… The man screams out , more tzoros please more tzoros.. Then he awakes to the Rebetzins voice, The Rav will see you now. He answers it’s not necessary , I got my message already!

Logician and Feif Un,

I can understand where you are coming from. The truth is, however, that we really do not know why many things happen to us. The story told by getzel1 was intended to help a person reframe their attitude and to feel gratitude to Hashem – not to ascribe absolute meaning to the events of a day. Maybe you’re right, maybe getzel1 is right, but the bottom line is that Hashem cares about us, and it’s easier to see that when things are reframed positively. Why should everything that happens to us be a potch from Above and not a yeshua?

Feif Un – I love it.

PBA – well said, as usual. Ramchal points out that the Gemara does not say that everything Hashem does is good, i.e. good right now. it says “L’tav avid” – for my eventual good.

I was taught the following in yeshiva:

The difference between emunah and bitachon is as follows: emunah is that you believe in a specific thing that you want to believe in. For example, if I buy a lotto ticket and really believe that Hashem will make me win, that is emunah. I think this is what will happen, and really believe in it.

Bitachon is belief that even if I don’t win, that is what was best for me – I’m better off not having won!

For the airplane example, I see it like this. If you thought a plane would crash, would you get on it? If you really believe it won’t crash, that’s emunah. If you say it doesn’t matter, because Hashem will do whatever is best for me, and if it crashes, that’s a good thing for me, then that’s bitachon.

A gut voch,

I received this “conversation” via email, as well as reading it here on YWN.

The piece has benefits, but there is something about it that is very disturbing to me, and that is the language used within the piece. I have no idea who wrote the piece, and my point is not to attack the writer. I do feel that this has to be pointed out.

While I understand that this is meant to be a conversation, expressions such as “promise You won’t be mad” and “let me just tell You HaShem” do <i> not </i> sit well with me.

A person should not talk to a rebbi/parent this way – a conversation with HaShem?!

Also – “don’t be sorry.” Why not?! Part of teshuva is charota!

The piece could still have the same point, but without these l’shonos.

thank you for this timely post.

antikfira: we have bechira to choose between good and bad. Yes – Hashem does intervene in certain situations. That’s not taking away from our choice of good or bad. Waking up late, car taking forever to start, phone dying etc. is not our choice. Hashem made those things happen for a reason. We don’t always know the reason but that’s not the point. We have to believe it was for our ultimate good.

Feif Un, I like your piece much more than Getzel’s!

Emlf, I totally agree with you. When i got this “conversation” by e-mail my first thought was it was written by a goy and some frum person who got it changed the G-d into Hashem ?????? ????….

antikifira: seems like you missed my point. We have bechira to do good or bad. The person who killed Rabbi Abuchatzeira had the choice to attack him or not. He chose to attack him (with the intention of killing him). Yes – apparently it was also Rabbi Abuchatzeira’s time or Hashem wouldn’t have let him die even though he was attacked.

If you held a gun and shot at 100 Jews- chas v’shalom – that would have been your choice (an evil one) to do so. Whether anyone would have died in that shooting would have been up to Hashem. But you would still be accountable for you actions.

Gefen: It’s a Mefurash Machlokes Rishonim (Tosfos and Rabbeinu Bachya) as to whether someone has Bechirah to kill himself before his time. This is extended to the Bechirah to kill someone else before his time. The majority seems to be like Tosfos that someone has the Bechirah to take someone else’s life before their determined time. In my opinion, there is also a story in a Gemara that is almost explicit like Tosfos.

gefen: It’s a machlokes if someone can cause another person to die before his time through his own bechirah. There are many opinions that hold he can do so. This means that even if on Rosh Hashanah a person was written in to live the entire year, he can be killed anyway.

sam2 – I think we get too caught up with the sources. Is there any way you can understand the ability to affect others with your bechirah ? Isn’t gefen right – why should it be different than anything else, where we understand that Hashem interferes with what goes on if He wants it otherwise ?

Rav Dessler deals with these sources, and explains how it can be so, and still make sense. (sorry, just don’t have time/patience to properly express his ideas)

Logician: The sources are everything in Judaism. We’re not smarter or more logically inclined than these Rishonim. There’s no need to “make sense of them”. They make perfect sense on their own.

Correction to my last post. I was just told by one of my daughters that you can change a bad gezaira to a good one but not a good one to bad. B”H. So that makes me more confused about the Rosh Hashana statement that Feif Un wrote.

Like I said, this whole topic is complicated. Yes, we have bechira (to choose between good and evil) but a very big YES is that Hashem is in control of this world. Nothing “just happens”.

Please be aware that this conversation comes from Christian websites etc. Just Google one of the phrases.

Nobody we know refers to the “death angel” and “other angels to battle him for your life” does not make Yiddishe sense.

Despite what Pesach7 wrote about this coming from a christian website (which I can see his point), it has certainly lead to a very interesting conversation here.

Logician – I can certainly see that this is a deep contradiction and very much beyond our comprehension. However I truly enjoy such deep discussions. It really makes you think.

When a person has what we call bechirah, a person has to chose what his actions are going to be based on his on perceived view of the world around him. His choices are based on the limited knowledge and understanding that a human brain has. There is no way of him knowing or calculating how his actions would affect the world. And, dare I say it’s ludicrous for us to think that a human being’s actions can affect the Master Plan Hashem has worked out.

Hashem in his infinite wisdom knows exactly the choices that are/will be set before a person and knows how they will respond. That doesn’t take away our bechirah. It’s just that Hashem is the one who created us, our brains and our imagination. He’ll know exactly what we’ll do when. He was the one who wired us in the first place. It’s juvenile to think that we can somehow outsmart our own creator and sort of put his plan in disarray.

Think about a professional painter working on a large painting. He knows the exact amount of which colors to mix to achieve a desired tone/hue for that spot. You’re not going to have red all of the sudden take on a blue color because that’s not the nature of red.

gefen – we can discuss the parameters of the issue. But something which is beyond human understanding, is ASSUR to think about. Chagigah 13, see Pirush HaMishnayos there.

antikfira – It seems your reasoning should take you in the opposite direction. As you recognize that everything that happens is in accordance with ratzon Hashem, that should lead to the conclusion that He must intervene when necessary. Case in point, my previous example: do you believe you have the capability, through bechirah, to blow up the world ?

Yes, the result of our bechirah will be one with the His will; how this works we cannot understand. But this means He def. WILL intervene when necessary.