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Forum -> Judaism
Please help me strengthen my emunah and bitachon



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amother
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Post Sun, Dec 20 2020, 5:49 am
Please help. I'm going crazy and I'm terrified. I've always been a thinking person who has thought and found answers and never had a major crisis of faith.
I've been through some trauma in the past few years and just experienced the death of a relative.
This is hitting me really hard and suddenly I am being plagued with this huge crisis of faith . I'm questioning everything I ever knew .answers that I used to find satisfying aren't doing it for me anymore . I know this was spurred by feeling really sad ... but at this point it feels like I have intellectual questions that I need answers to.... I don't want to start a whole
Conversation here in an attempt to resolve every question I have because it would probably be impossible ... but just so you get an idea :
How can we be forsure certain that Hashem exists ? That the Torah was given by Hashem ? That Hashem meant for us to live our lives the way we do in terms of Halacha and behavior ? Sometimes when the Torah describes Hashem it seems like Hashem acts on what seem like petty human feelings ....( anger , jealously ) Why does Hashem care if we serve Him ? Why does Hashem command us to bless Him and give Him kavod? How do we really know Hashem cares about us ? How do we know Hashem is involved in our lives ? Woudk I challenge Christianity if no was born Christian? Or some other religion ? I want to have the knowledge and conviction that I'm doing what I'm doing because it's right and not just because it's the path of least resistance or bc I'm too scared to do something else .
I'm terrified that I feel this way . I'm so anxious and don't even know what to do . All I want is answers so that I can stop feeling this way . Can anyone recommend materials that I can read or listen to that will help me ?
( I'm oeverhwlemed and don't know where to start . And I'm scared of not finding those answers satisfying and then becoming even more scared ) pig anyone can help me I'd really appreciate it .
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paperflowers




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, Dec 20 2020, 6:08 am
You are not going crazy. The fear and anxiety you are feeling are real and normal reactions to a crisis of faith for exactly the reasons you describe. It’s extremely unsettling to start to doubt your very foundations and it’s terrifying to imagine that by trying to resolve those doubts you risk finding more doubts.

Something that has helped me in the past is to actually doubt everything, assume nothing is true. Doubt my own existence. Then work from nothing to figure out what I do believe. Hold on to that, and let that ground me. The rest of the answers will follow (or not) but at least I have a foundation to stand on until then.

Also to allow someone you are very close and absolutely trust to know about your turmoil so you don’t feel so isolated in these thoughts and feelings.
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PinkFridge




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, Dec 20 2020, 6:10 am
amother [ OP ] wrote:
Please help. I'm going crazy and I'm terrified. I've always been a thinking person who has thought and found answers and never had a major crisis of faith.
I've been through some trauma in the past few years and just experienced the death of a relative.
This is hitting me really hard and suddenly I am being plagued with this huge crisis of faith . I'm questioning everything I ever knew .answers that I used to find satisfying aren't doing it for me anymore . I know this was spurred by feeling really sad ... but at this point it feels like I have intellectual questions that I need answers to.... I don't want to start a whole
Conversation here in an attempt to resolve every question I have because it would probably be impossible ... but just so you get an idea :
How can we be forsure certain that Hashem exists ? That the Torah was given by Hashem ? That Hashem meant for us to live our lives the way we do in terms of Halacha and behavior ? Sometimes when the Torah describes Hashem it seems like Hashem acts on what seem like petty human feelings ....( anger , jealously ) Why does Hashem care if we serve Him ? Why does Hashem command us to bless Him and give Him kavod? How do we really know Hashem cares about us ? How do we know Hashem is involved in our lives ? Woudk I challenge Christianity if no was born Christian? Or some other religion ? I want to have the knowledge and conviction that I'm doing what I'm doing because it's right and not just because it's the path of least resistance or bc I'm too scared to do something else .
I'm terrified that I feel this way . I'm so anxious and don't even know what to do . All I want is answers so that I can stop feeling this way . Can anyone recommend materials that I can read or listen to that will help me ?
( I'm oeverhwlemed and don't know where to start . And I'm scared of not finding those answers satisfying and then becoming even more scared ) pig anyone can help me I'd really appreciate it .


Hugs!
Of course we get shaken of, undergo crises of faith when we're personally struck.
You're asking some classic questions, like bad things and good people. One of the finest books that addresses this is Making Sense of Suffering by Rabbi Yitchak Kirzner, zt"l, who gave many of the shiurim the book is based on while living with terminal cancer. So he was more than talking the talk.

There's a shiur by Rabbi Menachem Nissel called Understanding Unanswered Prayers that may be helpful too.

About prayer: Hashem doesn't need it. WE need it. A magnificent book on tefillah is Rabbi Schwab on Prayer. Some themes he develops:
1. The architecture of prayer, how we progress through the Bais Hamikdash till we're one-on-one with Hashem in the Kodesh Hadedoshim, in Shemoneh Esrei.
2. In Baruch She'amar there are five terms: We will make You great, we will praise You, we will glorify You, we will mention Your name, we will make You king. He explains how each term relates to the pesukei d'zimra. One term: We will make You great, negadelecha, which is related to the word gedilim braids. We will see the patterns of Your presence in our lives. This is the first part through Yehi Chavod, which is a chain - I.e. pattern - of pesukim.
The book is just beautiful.

I think that tefilla is a lot of self-talk. We need to remind ourselves of these things. We need to realize how great and glorious He is, how beyond our comprehension yet an intimate and loving (yeah, this can be hard) part of our lives He is. If it was obvious, there wouldn't be bechira. And it's this struggle that Hashem finds so beautiful and is building the bricks to the BHMK, one by one. (You know, we need to get a more sophisticated view of Hashem than preschool and elementary. But it's not like preschool and elementary was wrong. Those bricks are real.)

Do you have anyone you can approach IRL?
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