Teshuvah

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  • #1443437
    Lightbrite
    Participant

    Do you suffer from…
    *Financial woes?
    *Health problems?
    *Spousal abuse?

    There’s ONE solution to ALL your problems, and it’s TESHUVAH!

    …. Why do I keep reading this sales pitch? Okay because it’s always the same person saying it.

    It’s frustrating to read because it’s basically saying that if we do XYZ, then Hashem will GIVE US Such-&-Such. This for that.

    Where is the free will here? And wouldn’t everyone be doing teshuvah if observing mitzvot alone would guarantee lavish income, great health, and shalom bayit (of course matching everyone up perfectly too)?

    Thank you

    #1444298
    Lightbrite
    Participant

    Wow! I thought that this thread was deleted. Thank you Mods!

    Interesting because I was listening to a lecture today, by a scholar who is Jewish – though not a Jewish scholar, who said that indeed Hashem spells out rewards and punishments for Jews who observe Torah or do not.

    #1444295
    in galus
    Participant

    Doing teshuva is not just keeping mitzvos. If we really did teshuva everything would be better. The Torah says so. But teshuva is not just conforming to a certain community standard, it is inner work.

    #1444421

    And wouldn’t everyone be doing teshuvah if observing mitzvot alone would guarantee lavish income, great health, and shalom bayit (of course matching everyone up perfectly too)?

    Why don’t we? Because we have a yetzer hara and Hashem blocks us from seeing clearly SO we can have free will.

    #1446145
    CS
    Participant

    That’s like saying wouldn’t everyone live in the level of emuna and bitachon like SMR if they would get out of jail years early, and miraculously to boot?

    First you need to live that way, then you get the brachos. The more you do the more brachos. But it’s not easy.

    #1446604
    yichusdik
    Participant

    One does tshuva because one has transgressed. Has charata; owns the responsibility; and takes it upon themselves to be a better person and not revisit the transgression. One does NOT do tshuva because of financial woes, health problems, or financial abuse. That approach makes the individual relationship with HKBH transactional. While the national relationship with HKBH is by definition transactional, the individual one is not and cannot be. It is one of pure supplication, request, pleading for HKBH’s mercy and help. Not conditional, not with any strings, not with a promise based on circumstances.

    A few months ago I was in a circumstance where my life hung in the balance, and not by a small margin. As I lay there on the hospital bed awaiting emergency surgery, I had the stark, clear realization that there is no bargaining with HKBH. “if you save me I’ll do this” “I’ll do that if I survive” There is no IF. HKBH had it in his power to save my life so I asked him for his mercy, and he granted it. And in giving me the gift of life, he gave me the opportunity to do more mitzvos. But not because I bargained with him, rather because its my responsibility as a Jew, just as it is to avoid transgression.

    BH I have made a full recovery, and I am grateful every day for HKBH’s gift.

    PS, Lightbrite, I don’t think you meant it this way, but I find it obscene to consider suffering from spousal abuse as a specific indicator to do tshuva. The person’s spouse is an abusive evildoer, who has full responsibility for what they do. Your assumption sounds too much like blaming the victim.

    #1446780
    Lightbrite
    Participant

    “PS, Lightbrite, I don’t think you meant it this way, but I find it obscene to consider suffering from spousal abuse as a specific indicator to do tshuva. The person’s spouse is an abusive evildoer, who has full responsibility for what they do. Your assumption sounds too much like blaming the victim” (yichusdik)

    yichusdik: I feel the same way! I was saying that I read an article that indeed said that teshuvah would solve a spousal abuse problem, which bothered me because it is yes, blaming the victim.

    Glad that someone else empathizes as well!

    #1447384
    JJ2020
    Participant

    There were many tzadikim with all of the above problems.

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