Middah kneged middah and karma

Rising

Tue, Apr 06 2021, 2:47 pm

Can you share what you think the Jewish stance on karma is and how it compares to the concept of middah kneged middah?

I have somewhat of an opinion but it’s not based on any specific sources that I can remember.

Curious to hear what you think.

tweety1

Tue, Apr 06 2021, 4:20 pm

Rising wrote:

שלח לחמך על פני המים. Both in the negative and positive. Experienced I Both ways unfortunately. I'm super careful since then.

daagahminayin

Tue, Apr 06 2021, 6:25 pm

What’s your opinion?

There’s this story of Hillel:

He as well saw a skull floating on the surface of the water and he said to it: Because you drowned others they drowned you; and those that drowned you will in the end be drowned. - Avos: 2, 6

Rising

Tue, Apr 06 2021, 9:03 pm

daagahminayin wrote:

I think I remember learning that the world was originally created operating on middas hadin, but it was then necessary for it to operate primarily on middas harachamim.

Although I do think that we sometimes feel like something good happens to “reward” for similar good behavior and “bad” things happen correlating to bad behavior, I don’t see how there is evidence for this as a general rule.
I would tend to agree with the poster who said we aren’t supposed to be making such cheshbonos.

Bad things happen to good people and vice versa, right?

But I do think that eventually what goes around comes around. Maybe it takes lifetimes, who knows?

But not in a “karmic” way, as if there is some unfeeling spiritual law condemning us no matter what.

Any reward and punishment is ultimately for our good with the higher goal of rectifying our neshamos for ultimate connection with Hashem.

And of course we have teshuva.

To me, its a really important differentiation between what we believe and karma.

However, I’m not sure I understand middah kneged middah - is it different than general? Certain places it specifies davka midda kneged midda.