Of Gold Watches and Bus Fares

LB, I think true understanding why things that seem horrible to us are good for certain people can only happen once a person has left this world of limited understanding and gone on to the upper spheres. Are you going to point your finger at someone sitting in a wheelchair and say, yes, I know that it was best for you to suffer in pain your whole life and not be able to walk like a normal man? No, I think that would be very insensitive of you and really how can you “know” all the details of that person’s life that would permit you to “know” such a thing as a fact. We have to have emuna that HKB’H” is running the world and whatever he does is from love and have the humility to admit that I do not understand why terrible things can happen to people. Anyway, most things are better understood with lots of hindsight, but that could take many, many years to come into focus.

If you have the difficult situation that you are confronting yourself, believe me that you will be hard pressed, even with loads of emuna beforehand, to not stumble and doubt that this is really good and have questions that you did not have beforehand and need support from people like the mentors the mods have mentioned in the other thread in order to come out of the situation (even if the situation cannot have a “happy” ending) with our belief that HKB”H is running the world and loves us intact, but that is the most important thing.

Just as a side note, think about Megillas Esther, which we just read on Purim. Who would thought, particularly if you were Esther, that her being picked as the new queen for Achashverosh was a good thing at the time that it happened? Not you and probably not anybody else. The fact that it truly was a good thing only became clear when the opportunity presented itself to someone with clear thinking like Mordechai, who saw that “perhaps for this situation you rose to your position” and from there came the yeshua that no one could have foreseen. Do you have any idea how long the whole story of Megillas Esther took place? Find out if not, I’m not sure myself, but I think it was much more than 20 years from start to finish. Who would remember the details from 20 years ago and connect them later on to the final parts of the story. The Megillah was written with ruach hakodesh, so that is how we have all the pieces put together in front of us in the Megillah, and we can see the connections and understand that what happened in the beginning was from HKB”H and was truly good, but without the help of the megillah and the hindsight that it provides,

RX, you’re for sure right that if you or I were a rabbi (well, I can’t be a rabbi and definitely do not want to be a rabbah or any such thing) or if we were someone who was considered learned enough that a suffering person would come to us for advice on how to manage their situation, then I am sure we would take that person’s personal situation into consideration and help them struggle through the issue, but I don’t think we would give platitudes about having “emuna”.

What you said about “not knowing why” is the key. We are lowly people compared to HKB”H and cannot possibly think that we can understand all of the aspects of the situation, including potentials for the future that we can know nothing about, that He has taken into consideration before afflicting this person with this seemingly terrible situation. Appreciating the gadlus of the Borei Olam could be the first step to this.

LB, perhaps you would considering learning the 6 Constant Mitzvos which is something that was developed by R’ Noach Weinberg, zt”l, the founder of Aish HaTorah. I’m sure there are learning links through Aish’s site that deal with this material. It’s amazing stuff!! And it’s for women, too!!!

Catch yourself with all due respect we can’t have blind faith in your definition of emunah.
Show us some proof from the Torah that your definition of emunah is the correct one.