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amother
Mustard
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 Wed, Aug 30 2017, 7:27 am
People yes.
What about Hashem?
Let's say some terrible tragedy strikes. But something like someone is arrested or something like that and it seems totally unfair.
We have to judge the person favorably. Say they are probably innocent; it's probably a mistake etc etc.
But what about Hashem? Do we also have to judge Him favorably, and say (well really just THINK) that on some sort of level the person completely deserves all that is coming to them?
What do you think?
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amother
Slategray
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Wed, Aug 30 2017, 7:39 am
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I don't know if it's possible to actually judge hashem favorably. If I see a person driving their car on shabbos, I can make logical understandable excuses for them. For example, I can say that there is an emergency that the driver is taking care of. With hashem it's different. When c'vs children die, what can we possibly say besides we don't understand hashem? And acknowledging to not understanding hashem is not judging him favorably.
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octopus
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Wed, Aug 30 2017, 7:39 am
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I wouldn't call it Judging Hashem favorably , but rather the ability for a person being able to accept the bad din. Being able to say " this must be part of the Master plan even though I don't understand it." To think that the person deserved the tragedy???!!! How on earth is that judging Hashem favorably? That's an awful way of thinking. Just awful. You , as a person of flesh and blood, will never understand how Hashem works. Just accept you don't understand it and if you are a tzaddik, you can accept the tzidduk hadin. Beyond that is above your human pay grade.
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Iymnok
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Wed, Aug 30 2017, 7:40 am
Rosha v'tov lo, tzaddik v'ra lo.
As I heard quoted from someone great, "you know what I would do if I were Hashem? Exactly as He is doing now."
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leah233
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Wed, Aug 30 2017, 7:48 am
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We don't have the ability to judge Hashem. We can only try to understand him.
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amother
Slategray
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Wed, Aug 30 2017, 8:23 am
| leah233 wrote: | | We don't have the ability to judge Hashem. We can only try to understand him. |
But how do we honestly try to understand him when things happen that us humans can't possibly understand on any level? Imagine someone tells you that 1+1=8? Is there any way to relate to this?
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Shoshana37
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Wed, Aug 30 2017, 8:24 am
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yeah I don't think we can, Hashem has his reasons for everything.
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zaq
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Wed, Aug 30 2017, 8:38 am
I don't believe we have the right to judge the KBH at all.
Although Avraham Avinu protested Hashofet Kol haaretz lo yaaseh mishpat, none of us is Avraham Avinu. And Avraham was not necessarily judging the KBH so much as looking out for His reputation.
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leah233
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Wed, Aug 30 2017, 8:44 am
| amother wrote: | | But how do we honestly try to understand him when things happen that us humans can't possibly understand on any level? Imagine someone tells you that 1+1=8? Is there any way to relate to this? |
Then we acknowledge that we don't understand it. As you put it us humans can't possibly understand on any level
Those type of situations are never as clear as 1+1=2.
Last edited by leah233 on Wed, Aug 30 2017, 8:45 am; edited 1 time in total
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PinkFridge
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Wed, Aug 30 2017, 8:44 am
| amother wrote: | People yes.
What about Hashem?
Let's say some terrible tragedy strikes. But something like someone is arrested or something like that and it seems totally unfair.
We have to judge the person favorably. Say they are probably innocent; it's probably a mistake etc etc.
But what about Hashem? Do we also have to judge Him favorably, and say (well really just THINK) that on some sort of level the person completely deserves all that is coming to them?
What do you think? |
Not perfectly analogous. As was said, this is the sugya of why bad things happen to good people. (Do NOT read the Kushner book. Read lehavdil, Rabbi Yitzchak Kirzner's Making Sense of Suffering.)
The ultimate value is not a good life but life itself. As long as someone has life, this life can still be profoundly meaningful. Think of Tammy Karmel, shetichye and may she have a refuah shleima. A few years ago when she contemplated what life with ALS at its worst could be, she started panicking. Her mentor told her, that's because you're not there. If/when you will be, Hashem will give you the tools you need. And evidently He did because at the last Bnos Melachim video this spring, there was a magnificent letter she eye-typed shared. Not that every moment has been easy or transcendent for her: if you have the opportunity to see her shiurim, you will see some very honest, raw (as raw as she ever gets) moments.
Obviously this is not what you say to someone who is suffering. I've heard it said that midah of apikorsus has its use: when you encounter poor people you work hard to provide them with that they need, as if, ch"v, there isn't a RBSh"O. Bromides about bitachon have no place.
Great, great people have railed against Hashem. Seriously. They ask, they yell, they cry, and then they pray. Because the asking, yelling, and praying means - and they realize this in their bone - that they are connected to the Only One who can affect change, and to the One Who, for reasons we will likely never know in this world, created this situation in the first place. Not because that person needed it. Now the person suffering might look for areas to improve on but even then, not making a direct cause and effect between the areas to improve on and the situation. The suffering person will say (at least this is what I would like to think I'd do) I've become a better person, more connected to Hashem through this, and whether or not the situation improves, this has been my necessary avodah and my way to accept the ratzon Hashem.
OK, I'm going to end here. If there is anything going on in your life that is a catalyst, I wish you koach, for yourself or to support someone else.
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Seas
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Wed, Aug 30 2017, 9:24 am
Notwithstanding the extreme difficulties of emuna in Hashem despite tragedy - and after all emuna is a mitzvah like all others, so it stands to reason there should be nisyonos like with all others - it is the height of arrogance and utter chutzpah to speak in terms of judging Hashem.
Hashem is the Creator and ultimate explemplification of perfection, compassion and justice. It is He who judges us, not the other way round.
"Can a mortal be more righteous than God, or can a man be purer than his Maker?" (Iyov 4 17)
http://www.chabad.org/library/.....#v=17
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sequoia
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Wed, Aug 30 2017, 9:26 am
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Read "The Trial of God" by Eli Wiesel.
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amother
Slategray
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Wed, Aug 30 2017, 10:22 am
| Seas wrote: | Notwithstanding the extreme difficulties of emuna in Hashem despite tragedy - and after all emuna is a mitzvah like all others, so it stands to reason there should be nisyonos like with all others - it is the height of arrogance and utter chutzpah to speak in terms of judging Hashem.
Hashem is the Creator and ultimate explemplification of perfection, compassion and justice. It is He who judges us, not the other way round.
"Can a mortal be more righteous than God, or can a man be purer than his Maker?" (Iyov 4 17)
http://www.chabad.org/library/.....#v=17 |
But how can you honestly say with a straight face that you see total and complete mercy and compassion with hashem? The truth is we see alot of good, and by human logic, alot of cruelty. The simple answer is to chalk the cruelty up to "we don't understand hashem". But that's not the same as truly believing in one's heart that hashem is fully compassionate.
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tichellady
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Wed, Aug 30 2017, 11:54 am
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The problem is that words no longer have the same meaning when you have to say that GD is compassionate but allows babies to be burnt alive. It turns out that compassionate no longer means what I think it does. I prefer to just acknowledge that I don't understand Gd and the way He runs the world. I don't expect to either.
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marina
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Wed, Aug 30 2017, 2:22 pm
| Seas wrote: | Notwithstanding the extreme difficulties of emuna in Hashem despite tragedy - and after all emuna is a mitzvah like all others, so it stands to reason there should be nisyonos like with all others - it is the height of arrogance and utter chutzpah to speak in terms of judging Hashem.
Hashem is the Creator and ultimate explemplification of perfection, compassion and justice. It is He who judges us, not the other way round.
"Can a mortal be more righteous than God, or can a man be purer than his Maker?" (Iyov 4 17)
http://www.chabad.org/library/.....#v=17 |
lol. You know who was really arrogant and chutzpadik? Reb Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev. He wrote a whole niggun about calling Hashem to a Din Torah.
You can read the lyrics here and be appalled at his arrogance.
http://www.jewishfolksongs.com.....t-got
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marina
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Wed, Aug 30 2017, 2:26 pm
| amother wrote: | People yes.
What about Hashem?
Let's say some terrible tragedy strikes. But something like someone is arrested or something like that and it seems totally unfair.
We have to judge the person favorably. Say they are probably innocent; it's probably a mistake etc etc.
But what about Hashem? Do we also have to judge Him favorably, and say (well really just THINK) that on some sort of level the person completely deserves all that is coming to them?
What do you think? |
We are not obligated to judge God favorably at all. I have no idea why anyone would look at pictures of starving, dying children and even think that they deserve all that is coming to them.
This is a little bit of a different question than why bad things happen to good people.
But in any case, we never ever let God off the hook for all the **** going on in the world and we never just accept it or decide that those people deserve it or that it's okay that we don't understand.
Because as soon as you do that, there's no reason to try and change anything. Oh, I just don't understand Hashem's ways so I won't work on curing cancer. Life is a tapestry and we only see one side. So I won't try to stop genocide. We are like toddlers and cannot understand God. So no need to help the hurricane victims. It's all part of ratzon hashem, which we cannot understand.
Any prayer demanding a better outcome, any action to improve the world, is judging God, and we do it all day every day.
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amother
Slategray
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Wed, Aug 30 2017, 2:43 pm
| Seas wrote: | Notwithstanding the extreme difficulties of emuna in Hashem despite tragedy - and after all emuna is a mitzvah like all others, so it stands to reason there should be nisyonos like with all others - it is the height of arrogance and utter chutzpah to speak in terms of judging Hashem.
Hashem is the Creator and ultimate explemplification of perfection, compassion and justice. It is He who judges us, not the other way round.
"Can a mortal be more righteous than God, or can a man be purer than his Maker?" (Iyov 4 17)
http://www.chabad.org/library/.....#v=17 | [u]
Do you honestly believe this beyond just being programmed to say it since we've been told this line so many times? When you look around the world, do you see compassion? The only way to believe it is to say that while we actually often see terrible unfair cruelty, we don't understand hashem. That's a far cry from actually believing.
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penguin
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Wed, Aug 30 2017, 3:27 pm
Try reading Rav Schwab on Iyov.
IIANM, (some of) the friends try to tell Iyov that he must have sinned to be punished by Hashem. Hashem ends up telling them He does not need them to defend Him and basically His ways are unknowable.
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amother
Slategray
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Wed, Aug 30 2017, 3:41 pm
| penguin wrote: | Try reading Rav Schwab on Iyov.
IIANM, (some of) the friends try to tell Iyov that he must have sinned to be punished by Hashem. Hashem ends up telling them He does not need them to defend Him and basically His ways are unknowable. |
granted, but how does that give comfort to people that are suffering? Should I tell a person suffering not to worry because they are in good hands since hashem is all compassionate? How should a person suffering apply hashem's compassion to their predicament? The truth is, they can't. They can only repeat words that really make no sense to a human being.
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PinkFridge
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Wed, Aug 30 2017, 3:41 pm
| marina wrote: | lol. You know who was really arrogant and chutzpadik? Reb Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev. He wrote a whole niggun about calling Hashem to a Din Torah.
You can read the lyrics here and be appalled at his arrogance.
http://www.jewishfolksongs.com.....t-got |
Like.
And one of my favorite parts of R"H davening is coming across the Artscroll on "anu malei avon v'Ata malei rachamim." It's a line from Reb Levi Yitzchak. Something along the lines of, We are full of sin, but we are finite beings, so we can only be so full. You, however, are infinite, so You should always have mercy available for us.
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