Do you know what your specific test in life is?

amother

Burlywood

Thu, Sep 10 2020, 2:24 pm

Life is more complicated than just figuring out one's tafkid/mission/role/test/purpose etc

I think step one is understanding that God created us and we are here to do His will, instructions as per commandments in the Torah.

At the same time, each of our souls have a unique tikkun that needs to be corrected, perhaps thats what OP means by test.

And also we're supposed to use our God given talents, abilities and belongings to fulfil our role.

professor

Thu, Sep 10 2020, 2:27 pm

amother [ OP ] wrote:

I learned that if you want to know what your main tafkid in this life Is think about which area you struggle most in (a certain sin you have trouble resisting) And that’s what you probably have to fix.
Do you know what yours is?

Puh. Do you expect people to write it in a public forum? LOL

I probably know what mine is, but I think I can't accomplish it. Hiding

I guess I have my whole life to try though

amother

Denim

Thu, Sep 10 2020, 7:11 pm

amother [ Sapphire ] wrote:

I'm not buying any of this. I think any of attempt to understand hashems ways in a specific way is fake. We don't know why anything happens. It's easy to say when a person has a struggle that that's their "tafkid". Who really knows? For example my great grandmother who passed away last year in her mid 90's was in a coma the last 6 months of her life. Can anyone explain her tafkid those last 6 months? And just like we can't explain the last 6 months, we also can't explain explain the previous 94 years.

Why?
Her tafkid those six month is more clear than any other time in her life.
Her tafkid was to simply live.
A Jew gets a mitzva by living, did you know that?
Life is a mitzva. Her tafkid was to breathe and live in this world.
Even if we can’t understand why.

amother

Fri, Sep 11 2020, 12:04 pm

salt wrote:

But OP, what you are saying (I think) can be explained simply as follows:

Our 'tafkid' in life is to perform mitzvot and to do the will of Hashem.
So some of this 'tafkid' we perform easily (that which comes easily to us), and some bits are harder. So if we want to fulfill our tafkid to the full, we need to work harder on the things that are more difficult for us.
But in the long run, each Jew's tafkid is to do 'ratzon hashem'.

Right but not exactly what I’m saying. I’m saying if you can clearly see there’s one or more specific things you have a hard time controlling and you fall in and fail at those tests, that’s what you’re meant to be working on and trying to fix.

amother [ Sapphire ] wrote:

A Gadol explained it to me so I’m sure he knew what he was saying

amother

Sapphire

Fri, Sep 11 2020, 12:39 pm

amother [ Denim ] wrote:

It sounds like we can simplify a person's tafkid to whatever is going on in that person's life. So a poor person's tafkid is to handle poverty. A wealthy person's tafkid is to handle their wealth properly. A sick person's tafkid is to manage their struggle with their health.

I think this all comes down to us trying to understand hashem. We don't understand hashem. Not now and not ever. But for example for a single woman in her 40's it is comforting to rationalize and say that her tafkid is to keep her emunah and serve hashem and live as happy a life as possible in spite of her struggle. It's comforting for her to believe that all the suffering makes perfect sense. When really, while we can simply say "it's her tafkid", we have no understanding of why it was necessary for her to suffer. Attaching the word "tafkid" (in my opinion) is just a way to try to make sense of it even though it makes no sense at all and I believe we just don't understand anything.

The other issue is that on one hand we say we know 9or might know) our tafkid and our purpose for being alive, but then we daven and ask hashem to change everything. So a person who is sick might have a tafkid to serve hashem and get enormous schar for living this way, yet they are constantly asking hashem to cure them and change the very reason and tafkid they were put in this world.

amother

Denim

Fri, Sep 11 2020, 1:32 pm

amother [ Sapphire ] wrote:

Exactly.
We still daven for salvation, but bottom line wherever we are that’s where we’re meant to be.
Even if we don’t understand why.

amother

Chocolate

Fri, Sep 11 2020, 6:12 pm

amother [ OP ] wrote:

Stealing...
I grew up in poverty and deprivation and have spent so much of my life taking things which didn't belong to me. I'm a middle-aged adult, and I still shoplift on occasion... I take things from people's bathrooms, like shampoo samples, etc... It's always small items, nothing really of significant value... but it doesn't matter. Stealing is stealing. I shudder when I think of what awaits me after death... I've worked on myself and my tendency to steal has improved significantly, but how do I have any hope of doing teshuvah on a lifetime of petty theft?