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I don’t know if this falls into the topic of tzadik v’ra lo or not, but I’ve clicked on the ads on this site imploring people to help all the poor and suffering of eretz yisroel, and there are SO many children and families in such dire need, and with such tzaros ch”v that anyone should ever have to go through, whether it’s unbearable parnasa conditions for any reason, so many times brought upon by family tragedy.
b”h there are so many help organizations, but there are so many people who need help, and so many who have not gotten it yet. it’s just really saddening me that Hashem can let a child go hungry, though i in no way am questioning Hashem’s tzidkus at all ch”v.
of course i know and believe with a whole heart that it pains Hashem a thousand million times more than it pains me, but it’s really hurting me and I have to know, is there a satisfying answer out there to the WHY or is it one of those tzadik v’ra lo situations that you just have to accept that Hashem knows what He’s doing and everything is in the person’s best intrest?
please be civil with your answers, i know that we will never understand everything until moshiach comes, and that the poor are poor so we can give, I’m just wondering if there’s any piece of comforting knowledge out there that i just haven’t heard yet.
i once heard a similar question, why do children suffer – in small ways? why do they get sick, get bubu’s, ear infections… to teach them that life is not so simple, it’s not all about ice cream and loli pops…to prepare them for the real hardships.
i think the answer to your question is – tzadik vera lo
did you ever hear the moshel of a king who got a top top tailor to make him a very exquisite suit? the other tailors were jealous and spread rumors that the tailor stole the rest of the material, and that he said he need so much material so he can take the remainders, that it makes no sense that a small suit needs that much material. The king wasn’t sure, and he demanded the tailor be brought to him. the tailor begged… finally he realized he has no choice but to prove himself that it was all used for the suit and stitch by stitch he began taking apart the suit. They all saw clearly that it was all used, he made it with a double lining – doubled the material. That’s the moshel i heard once to explain what it means when the malachim asked Hashem when they were killing R’ Akiva “?? ???? ??? ?????” and Hashem answered that if they say anything else the world will have to go back to ???? ????? so that they can understand everything.
First thing that pops into my head, maybe the neshama needs a tikkun for some reason, and this is the form of tikkun. The second (and possibly more satisfying) answer I have is that sometimes there are stories of people who experienced something as a child, and based on that grew up to be a certain type of person. Example, if, as a child someone is constantly hungry for lack of food and ends up being very wealthy, he will probably donate large sums to organizations that get involved with feeding the poor. Usually we wont know why Hashem does something but it always comes out good, even if we don’t see it.
First of all, the truth is one shouldn’t ask this question. If we have proper Emunah in Hashem we won’t have ANY questions and will realize that as mere mortals we cants understand what Hashem does.
However one major reason many baffling things happen is due to gilgul neshama where neshamos need to come back and get a Tikun as Kapusta mentioned and this is a tikun for things they did in their previous existence.
Kapusta gave a very good answer.
A child is considered an autonomous extension of his parents till his bar mitsva or her bas mitsva age, and can be punished for the parents aveiros (Parshas Ki Teitze, Pashi on the posuk “Lo yumsu avos…”).
The Gemara in kesubos 8b says that children die for their parents’ sins.
“First of all, the truth is one shouldn’t ask this question. If we have proper Emunah in Hashem we won’t have ANY questions and will realize that as mere mortals we cants understand what Hashem does.”
Your right with the fact that we cannot understand Hashems ways… but NEVER discourage anyone from asking questions… there are beautiful answers and explanations as to how we can understand hashem ways on our personal level.
if you dont have a good answer to a question being asked you can always look it up… theres nothing wrong with saying…” thats an excellent question… im gonna get you a good answer”
it makes me sick when kids ask teachers emunah questions and are told “we dont ask such things” there is so much out there we just have to want to find it!!
I believe the answer is that it is harder and it hurts people more to watch children suffer than adults. When adults suffer we don’t understand that Hashem has a point or a plan and just say “that’s life, these things happen”. But when a child suffers it is not “bderech hatevah” and therefore we notice and it is so much more painful to see a child suffer than an adult because they are helpless and need others to do for them. We are crushed and FEEL the need to to for them more than we FEEL the need to do for adults for whom we make excuses for “they will manage; they did this to themselves; their parents will bail them out; and so on and so forth. But when a child suffers it does not have to be one of your own to break your heart and initiate a reaction to help.
So when Hashem truly wants to send us a message that we don’t seem to be receiving or accepting, sometimes it is the children who suffer to bring attention to the issues around us. When we see young people struck by illness or unfortunately death, the neighborhood gathers together and tries to make some kind of tikun or take upon themselves another mitzvah in the child’s zchus.
ASF
I think the best approach is giving the available answers but also mentioning at the end that in reality there are no questions and we should train ourselves to have Emunah that Hashem knows what he is doing. There are no questions on Hashem He is perfection. Its almost funny how people have questions on Hashem yet there is so many other things they don’t understand yet as well which they don’t ask.
Its like walking into the control room of the Penatagon and seeing hundreds of buttons and levers with different colors and asking a General oh you see that green one all the way overther, what does it do? He will likely say “oh so you know what all the other ones do that you are asking about this one?”
“First of all, the truth is one shouldn’t ask this question. If we have proper Emunah in Hashem we won’t have ANY questions and will realize that as mere mortals we cants understand what Hashem does.”
Your right with the fact that we cannot understand Hashems ways… but NEVER discourage anyone from asking questions… there are beautiful answers and explanations as to how we can understand hashem ways on our personal level.
if you dont have a good answer to a question being asked you can always look it up… theres nothing wrong with saying…” thats an excellent question… im gonna get you a good answer”
it makes me sick when kids ask teachers emunah questions and are told “we dont ask such things” there is so much out there we just have to want to find it!!
Hmmm. Maybe I’m wrong but I understood that line to be “we really should not be having questions because we should have full Emunah, but because we dont…”. Not that the question shouldn’t be asked, but that in the perfect world, we wouldn’t need to ask.
I do agree that people are called goyim or something along those lines if they ask a question. The Torah is all about asking. As long as it does not affect a persons Emunah.
MDD SAID: A child is considered an autonomous extension of his parents till his bar mitsva or her bas mitsva age, and can be punished for the parents aveiros (Parshas Ki Teitze, Pashi on the posuk “Lo yumsu avos…”).
I POSTED THIS ON A DIFFERENT THREAD THIS MORNING, BUT IT BELONGS HERE AS WELL.
Interestingly, that is one reason given for the little known shita that the bar-mitzva himself makes the brocho of boruch shep’turani. and not the father. He is making the brocho that he’s made it past the age that he can be punished for the sins of his parents.
A KSIVA V’CHASIMA TO ALL!
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