Not Questioning G-d

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Not Questioning G-d

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Motek

Sun, Nov 20 2005, 6:04 pm

Quote:

"My great-grandfather," Rabbi Meisels continued, "lived to an extremely old age. When he was asked how he merited such long life, he had a very simple answer. All his life, my great-grandfather told us, he never questioned God. Even when things seemed very difficult to understand, he made a point of never questioning God in his heart or mind.

"'Why don't you question God?' we once asked him. The reason he gave was very simple. He didn't want God to tell him, 'You want to know the answers? Come up to the heavens and everything will be clear to you!' He wasn't interested in leaving this world prematurely, just to find out a few answers, no matter how burning the questions were! It was enough for him to believe that God has the answers, and he was content to find out the hidden secrets after 120 years!'"

read the entire article here:

http://www.aish.com/spirituali.....d.asp

tzivi

Wed, Nov 23 2005, 7:43 am

very inspirational

Mandy

Wed, Nov 23 2005, 3:07 pm

Quote:

He didn't want God to tell him, 'You want to know the answers? Come up to the heavens and everything will be clear to you!'

Is it always an either - or like that ? You either don't ask questions and live a good long life or you ask questions and die early to get the answers ? Are there no other choices, Motek ?

Motek

Thu, Nov 24 2005, 1:32 pm

It worked for him ...

And in general, sincere questions are welcome. This article is specifically about questioning G-d.

Rivka

Sun, Nov 27 2005, 9:26 am

So when they ask those that are living to almost 120 years now and they answer the secret to their long life is having a glass of wine a day and a cigarette, do we believe them or is it really their genes?

Motek

Sun, Nov 27 2005, 3:01 pm

When people say why they think they've lived a long life, even when they give religious reasons, I think:

how do you know?

healthy living, not-healthy living, genes, some good deed they did for which they are being rewarded, who knows?

chen

Sun, Nov 27 2005, 3:31 pm

Motek wrote:

When people say why they think they've lived a long life, even when they give religious reasons, I think:

how do you know?

Precisely.

supermom

Sun, Nov 27 2005, 3:38 pm

wow I got the chills running up and down my spine thanks

Rivka

Sun, Nov 27 2005, 6:48 pm

Also long life is usually when you live a good long life, rather than as a vegetable with no memory and doped up.

chen

Sun, Nov 27 2005, 7:11 pm

I really have a problem with ppl saying they were zocheh this or that b/c they did thus and so. Sounds just a leetle bit gaivadik to me. As Motek says, how do you know? (Maybe you didn't get that good shidduch b/c you did chassadim--maybe HE got linked up to YOU as a kapparah for something he did! Twisted Evil

)

amother

Sun, Nov 27 2005, 8:15 pm

Logging in as amother b/c the person who told me the story will kill me for telling it before she can Wink

Along the lines of not taking "credit" for your good fortune: my friend told me about her week: On Wednesday she had a great hashgacha protis story about losing the pin from her watchband at a big convention and finding it a few hours later on the floor after hundreds of ppl had walked by. She had said to herself "I must have done something good to deserve that!"

on Friday she went shopping and put the shopping bag on the floor near the door when she came home. That happens to be where everyone in the family puts their trashbags to be taken out. You got it--her son took all the trashbags and her bag full of brand new merchandise out to the bin. By the time she remembered about it it was Shabbos, and by motzaei shabbos when she went to look for it, the super had emptied out the bins into big black plastic bags. Crying

(The merchandise was not valuable enough to warrant trying to wade through all those bags of trash. Ugh.) She said "That must have been a kapparah for thinking that finding my watch pin was sachar for something I did." The value of the merchandise that she lost just happened to be in the same ballpark as what she would have had to pay for a new watch. Eerie, isn't it?

tzivi

Sun, Nov 27 2005, 8:19 pm

It's better to just say Boruch Hashem, instead of attributing it to anything that we may have done. On the other hand, if something bad happens to us, chas vesholom, I believe that we should davka think that we should do teshuva for it.

amother

Sun, Nov 27 2005, 8:22 pm

tzivi wrote:

quite so.

Motek

Sun, Nov 27 2005, 9:09 pm

amother wrote:

She said "That must have been a kapparah for thinking that finding my watch pin was sachar for something I did.

so she didn't learn her lesson because she's still making assumptions! Wink

tzivi

Sun, Nov 27 2005, 11:53 pm

I don't understand why what she said the second time is a problem. Please explain Motek.

Motek

Tue, Nov 29 2005, 12:08 pm

She's assuming that 1) it's a kappara 2) it's a kapara for thinking that finding the pin was schar.

How does she know either is true?

chen

Tue, Nov 29 2005, 1:25 pm

Motek wrote:

She's assuming that 1) it's a kappara 2) it's a kapara for thinking that finding the pin was schar.

How does she know either is true?

She doesn't know, but what's the harm? As tzivi wrote, it's meritorious to examine one's actions when misfortune happens and look for areas needing improvement. (Naturally it is even more meritorious to do so in the absence of misfortune, but not all of us are on that madregah all the time.)

Assuming she deserved to find the pin is a touch arrogant. (She confided to me in a later conversation that she herself had that niggling idea as soon as she expressed the original thought.) Losing something so soon afterwards seemed to be a clear indication that indeed she was wrong to make an assumption about being deserving. Whereas before she lost the property, she might have continued viewing any good fortune as a reward, she will no longer do that, but accept it simply as a gift from Hashem, deserved or not. A lesson in humility learned from life experience.

Does our literature not abound with stories of people who suffered major misfortunes, concluded that their plight was the result of some improper behavior on their part, and went on to do teshuvah for it? Any good Feldheim storybook will have at least one such tale.

Motek

Tue, Nov 29 2005, 4:45 pm

sure, and I took this very postion in the Katrina-Katif discussions

Yael3

Thu, Mar 15 2012, 12:38 pm

I think there's a big difference between "questioning Hashem" and asking questions related to Hashem...
Would you ever judge a person that has lost faith in Hashem after surviving the holocaust or losing a child at a young age? So long as a person isn't arguing the topic for the sake of having an argument, I think it's critical to embrace people with love no matter where they are holding or what it is they need to express.
I will share, that I went to bais Yaakov and thought something was wrong with me when I had deep questions related to Hashem. I was even called an apikores at times because of my thoughts and queries.
It was not until I went to Neve in Yerushalayim that I got all of my questions answered in a loving and gentle way. That program saved my life. And even though I come from a chassidish family, yes, I too had questions as many do and are afraid to express.

shabbatiscoming

Thu, Mar 15 2012, 3:28 pm

Yael3 wrote:

It seems like you are a new poster here. Please try to look at the date of the thread when it was started. This thread was started in 2005. I knew that it was an old thread because the OP is not even on the site anymore.

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