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 Sun, Aug 20 2023, 4:26 pm
| amother Springgreen wrote: | OP I totally hear you and can't help but wonder the same.
I'm not questioning why bad things happen to good people - that answer I already know.
I am unclear though about the way our actions in Elul impact the future year. We were taught from when we are young that if we have more mitzvos on the scale we have a good year, and more aveiros equals a bad year. Clearly, that isn't true.
My knowledge in this area is quite elementary, since I haven't really learned much about this past grade school. I would love to learn more about this on a deeper level. |
I've heard of other kinds of impact. That the yemei ratzon are like wet cement and we can imprint the year with our sheifos and every good thing we do now. It's the template that we process the year through, not necessarily if we get xyz.
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PinkFridge
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Sun, Aug 20 2023, 4:27 pm
| amother OP wrote: | Is there anything in between measurable and blind faith? Meaning if it's as you say not measurable, are we left with blind faith? I think so.
Also, we can easily all agree that it doesn't guarantee a positive outcome. But what about something? Even a little or a drop?
I just feel like I look around year after year after year and I always hear about frantically *preparing* for the yom hadin and being ready to be judged by hashen and hoping he grants up with life, bracha, and all things should be good.....but then I realize that I personally don't see the slightest connections between our actions the entire year, during elul, on rosh Hashanah, and on yom Kippur, with what hashem will decide for us. |
Maybe we should focus on other things now. Have we grown spiritually? Is there anything we're more excited about now? Is there something we can really be thankful for, maybe a special experience, or some bracha we've seen?
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amother
Lemonchiffon
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Sun, Aug 20 2023, 4:42 pm
| Thisisnotmyreal wrote: | | While yiras Shamayim is a constant Mitzva. Elul in particular is a time when Hashem in close to us. The 13 merciful attributes are shining. The Alter Rebbe gives the moshal of the Melech basadeh. Hashem meets you where you are at right now with sever ponim yafos/ in a deeply understanding, merciful and loving way. |
Who is the Alter Rebbe?
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amother
Maple
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Sun, Aug 20 2023, 4:43 pm
Elul is a time that Hashem comes to us, seeks us out, to bestow blessings and benevolence on us for the new year.
He is right here, turn to Him and ask for what you need and want. Show Him that you are connected and that you care.
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amother
OP
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Sun, Aug 20 2023, 4:59 pm
| amother Maple wrote: | Elul is a time that Hashem comes to us, seeks us out, to bestow blessings and benevolence on us for the new year.
He is right here, turn to Him and ask for what you need and want. Show Him that you are connected and that you care. |
Your response is really exactly what my op is about. Many on this thread seem to disagree with you and don't think Elul and all that goes with it is something tangible.
And with all due respect I feel like the game is rigged so to speak. Meaning you say "turn to him and ask for what you want and need". Fine, but for those who did just that and received poverty, sickness, and tzoros, would you agree that hashem didn't connect with that person or answer their tefilos?
Or would you say whether a person gets health and parnassah or sickness and poverty hashem still is connecting?
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Surkie
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Sun, Aug 20 2023, 5:19 pm
I don't think that we as human beings can ever know what our בקשות and תפילות actually accomplish. We can only try our best year round and hope that Hashem gives us more of an
" audience " during Elul.
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amother
Wine
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Sun, Aug 20 2023, 5:30 pm
Rosh Hashana is about crowning Hashem
I take elul as an opportunity to reconnect to Hashem, to get a fresh start and try my best.
I take on a new kaballah and try to be a better person.
On yom tov itself I daven in my own words asking Hashem for what I need and want. But I dont harp on it too much.
I have the same questions as you OP, and it frustrates me greatly (especially when family members who have abondoned yiddishkeit prosper)
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PinkFridge
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Sun, Aug 20 2023, 5:48 pm
| amother OP wrote: | Your response is really exactly what my op is about. Many on this thread seem to disagree with you and don't think Elul and all that goes with it is something tangible.
And with all due respect I feel like the game is rigged so to speak. Meaning you say "turn to him and ask for what you want and need". Fine, but for those who did just that and received poverty, sickness, and tzoros, would you agree that hashem didn't connect with that person or answer their tefilos?
Or would you say whether a person gets health and parnassah or sickness and poverty hashem still is connecting? |
All we know is that if a person has yesurim, they should be mefashfesh b'maasav, but they still can't draw direct correlations.
We also know that even if we don't get the answer we want, we should keep asking. Moshe Rabbeinu was told to stop but we don't.
Are these two opposing thoughts or connected somehow?
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amother
Maple
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Sun, Aug 20 2023, 5:55 pm
| amother OP wrote: | Your response is really exactly what my op is about. Many on this thread seem to disagree with you and don't think Elul and all that goes with it is something tangible.
And with all due respect I feel like the game is rigged so to speak. Meaning you say "turn to him and ask for what you want and need". Fine, but for those who did just that and received poverty, sickness, and tzoros, would you agree that hashem didn't connect with that person or answer their tefilos?
Or would you say whether a person gets health and parnassah or sickness and poverty hashem still is connecting? |
Firstly, it's not me that made this up. This is what tzadikim tell us, tzadikim who know Hashem and Torah better than we do.
That said, Hashem is not an ATM machine, Hashem is a relationship.
Chas veshalom to say a person didn't do enough and in turn received tzaros. Chas veshalom. Hashem does not want us to have tzaros. Hashem wants us to have a good life, a life of fulfillment, love, and security.
Hashem never gives up on a single Jew. Wherever we go and whatever we do, Hashem follows us there and accompanies us through the thick and thin. When we are poor, Hashem is poor. When we are lonely and sick and pained, Hashem is right there with us experiencing our loneliness, illness, and pain as well. Hashem waits together with us in our distress until the time that we are ready to be redeemed from our tzaros.
We are never alone and Hashem never forgets a single Jew no matter how far away he feels he is.
Life is not, daven and a bag of gold comes down from Heaven, or do a sin and lightning strikes you down. There aren't buttons that we push to receive immediate results.
There are immediate results to our actions but they are mostly spiritual.
I don't want to sound insensitive to pain and poverty and illness. I don't want to come across as not understanding.
Everyone has their "pekel" in life, their challenges and tests that Hashem gives them, not because they did or didn't do enough or deserve tzaros Chas Veshalom. We deserve the best! Each one's challenges are tailor made to the individual neshama, for the neshama to accomplish in this world, to climb the ladder of self improvement while cleaning and polishing up the part of the world we inhabit.
Life is not easy-an understatement. But it was gifted to us to conquer and accomplish and to be a partner in creation as we make the world a better place.
Yes, life is painful. And sometimes really sucks. And stinks. And we hate it.
But we have a mission and we stay strong and firm in our resolve to fulfill our purpose. And when we do and the more we do, we find the beauty and understanding in life, it shines through to us.
It only gets better and better.
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amother
Royalblue
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Sun, Aug 20 2023, 6:03 pm
| amother Maple wrote: | Firstly, it's not me that made this up. This is what tzadikim tell us, tzadikim who know Hashem and Torah better than we do.
That said, Hashem is not an ATM machine, Hashem is a relationship.
Chas veshalom to say a person didn't do enough and in turn received tzaros. Chas veshalom. Hashem does not want us to have tzaros. Hashem wants us to have a good life, a life of fulfillment, love, and security.
Hashem never gives up on a single Jew. Wherever we go and whatever we do, Hashem follows us there and accompanies us through the thick and thin. When we are poor, Hashem is poor. When we are lonely and sick and pained, Hashem is right there with us experiencing our loneliness, illness, and pain as well. Hashem waits together with us in our distress until the time that we are ready to be redeemed from our tzaros.
We are never alone and Hashem never forgets a single Jew no matter how far away he feels he is.
Life is not, daven and a bag of gold comes down from Heaven, or do a sin and lightning strikes you down. There aren't buttons that we push to receive immediate results.
There are immediate results to our actions but they are mostly spiritual.
I don't want to sound insensitive to pain and poverty and illness. I don't want to come across as not understanding.
Everyone has their "pekel" in life, their challenges and tests that Hashem gives them, not because they did or didn't do enough or deserve tzaros Chas Veshalom. We deserve the best! Each one's challenges are tailor made to the individual neshama, for the neshama to accomplish in this world, to climb the ladder of self improvement while cleaning and polishing up the part of the world we inhabit.
Life is not easy-an understatement. But it was gifted to us to conquer and accomplish and to be a partner in creation as we make the world a better place.
Yes, life is painful. And sometimes really sucks. And stinks. And we hate it.
But we have a mission and we stay strong and firm in our resolve to fulfill our purpose. And when we do and the more we do, we find the beauty and understanding in life, it shines through to us.
It only gets better and better. |
Gold.
If we can master this we mastered yiddishkeit
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PinkFridge
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Sun, Aug 20 2023, 6:41 pm
It's the avodah of a lifetime.
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Thisisnotmyreal
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Sun, Aug 20 2023, 6:50 pm
The message of Geula is PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY. I can do it, I can help myself. I have all the recourses I need at my disposal. My resources can be anything Hashem has put in this wonderful world but my primary resource is Torah and Mitzvos. And yet, everything good we ever achieve is attributed to Moshiach himself as his work. It's his accomplishment*.
The Torah tells us Im bechukosai teilechu... If only you would keep Torah and Mitzvos you would have only bracha. This is straight from the passukim of Torah. It is a fact and it is the Geula message. You can have everything perfectly good in your life if you keep Torah and Mitzvos.
It's important to understand that while Moshiach is the ideal, it's not a novelty, "veruach elokim merachefes al pnei hamayim" -Geula has been here since day one. Only, it has been hidden in plain view by the Galus.
Now the veil is thinning.
We are living a dual reality, we are in Galus but according to the Rambam we are in Geula. There's no shibud malchiyos** and there are Frum Jews that keep Torah without the constant reminders from ghetto walls and persecution? That's Moshiach.
How else do we see Moshiach?
We can look at our day and see that most of the things in our day DO go right. We often see that within five minutes of davening, we have that small yeshua. If you just examine your life you know that Hashem is guiding every step in the dance of hashgacha protis.
It's possible that a person can learn and apply all the Halachos of how to bow in shmoneh every and her back pains go away.
A person can give monthly head checks for an amount that will pinch a little to Tzedaka and then see their wealth grow more and more year after year.
A person can see that the fire stopped at the Tefilin.
A person can see that the second they say "Hashem I'm done fighting, it's up to You" their yeshua comes.
These solutions that come from Torah and Mitzvos are the exact fulfillment of Im bechukosai teileichu.
Yes it doesn't always work out this way, because after all we are still in Galus. But we're also in Geula. I have the choice now. I can tap into the intimate message of Elul. Ani ledodi vedodi li I am dedicated to my BELOVED Eibershter and He (reciprocates) to me.
Or I can insist we are in Galus only and prove to myself that I'm a victim of G-d and there's nothing I can do about it.
The choice is yours.
(And there's my article)
*This is actually empowering as we know that when we are given powers beyond our normal capacity to do good things.
** Yes to some extent there can be persecution from the government. But wherever there are Jews living, the Government views them as equal citizens to everyone else. Communist Russia was the last of shibud malchiyos and the Jews there weren't considered Russian.
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amother
Royalblue
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Sun, Aug 20 2023, 6:50 pm
Exactly. For me the part that our challenges in life are what we “chose” or “agreed” to so that it brings us to a point of choosing to grow in the area we came down for was a life changing process. I was finally able to let go of the anger at hashem. I started talking to him that in shamayim I may have thought I can accomplish that feat but I’m a human with flesh and blood and its just so utterly painful and I need him to help me.
Op- you’re asking a very valid question. You dont see that our tefillos have any impact. You dont see that our growth or erlichkiet or kabalos help us here on planet earth.
Its true. We dont see it. There are lengthy responses to this but mostly its about bechira, different lifetimes, specific tasks a person meeds to accomplish, suffering for the klal, a neshama offering to help being the geula closer etc etc.
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amother
Royalblue
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Sun, Aug 20 2023, 6:54 pm
| Thisisnotmyreal wrote: | The message of Geula is PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY. I can do it, I can help myself. I have all the recourses I need at my disposal. My resources can be anything Hashem has put in this wonderful world but my primary resource is Torah and Mitzvos. And yet, everything good we ever achieve is attributed to Moshiach himself as his work. It's his accomplishment*.
The Torah tells us Im bechukosai teilechu... If only you would keep Torah and Mitzvos you would have only bracha. This is straight from the passukim of Torah. It is a fact and it is the Geula message. You can have everything perfectly good in your life if you keep Torah and Mitzvos.
It's important to understand that while Moshiach is the ideal, it's not a novelty, "veruach elokim merachefes al pnei hamayim" -Geula has been here since day one. Only, it has been hidden in plain view by the Galus.
Now the veil is thinning.
We are living a dual reality, we are in Galus but according to the Rambam we are in Geula. There's no shibud malchiyos** and there are Frum Jews that keep Torah without the constant reminders from ghetto walls and persecution? That's Moshiach.
How else do we see Moshiach?
We can look at our day and see that most of the things in our day DO go right. We often see that within five minutes of davening, we have that small yeshua. If you just examine your life you know that Hashem is guiding every step in the dance of hashgacha protis.
It's possible that a person can learn and apply all the Halachos of how to bow in shmoneh every and her back pains go away.
A person can give monthly head checks for an amount that will pinch a little to Tzedaka and then see their wealth grow more and more year after year.
A person can see that the fire stopped at the Tefilin.
A person can see that the second they say "Hashem I'm done fighting, it's up to You" their yeshua comes.
These solutions that come from Torah and Mitzvos are the exact fulfillment of Im bechukosai teileichu.
Yes it doesn't always work out this way, because after all we are still in Galus. But we're also in Geula. I have the choice now. I can tap into the intimate message of Elul. Ani ledodi vedodi li I am dedicated to my BELOVED Eibershter and He (reciprocates) to me.
Or I can insist we are in Galus only and prove to myself that I'm a victim of G-d and there's nothing I can do about it.
The choice is yours.
(And there's my article)
*This is actually empowering as we know that when we are given powers beyond our normal capacity to do good things.
** Yes to some extent there can be persecution from the government. But wherever there are Jews living, the Government views them as equal citizens to everyone else. Communist Russia was the last of shibud malchiyos and the Jews there weren't considered Russian. |
This is true but in galus we dont see things so black and white.
Not true that if you keep all mitZvos you have a perfect life. That is what OP was questioning in the first place. Its not true.
We see the best of the best suffering immeasurably and sometimes really had people (seemingly) having a wonderful life (seemingly)
In galus that bracha is not crystal clear and we just don’t understand it.
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amother
Honey
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Sun, Aug 20 2023, 6:57 pm
Op the answer to your question may be that Hashem’s plan is the ultimate good, we just can’t understand how.
See Aleph Beta videos on the topic for more clarity.
https://www.alephbeta.org/play.....ering
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amother
Maple
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Sun, Aug 20 2023, 7:02 pm
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There is a beautiful sefer Shaar Habitachon translated into English with chassidic explanations that I know has helped so many people. Highly recommended.
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PinkFridge
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Sun, Aug 20 2023, 7:04 pm
| amother Royalblue wrote: | Exactly. For me the part that our challenges in life are what we “chose” or “agreed” to so that it brings us to a point of choosing to grow in the area we came down for was a life changing process. I was finally able to let go of the anger at hashem. I started talking to him that in shamayim I may have thought I can accomplish that feat but I’m a human with flesh and blood and its just so utterly painful and I need him to help me.
Op- you’re asking a very valid question. You dont see that our tefillos have any impact. You dont see that our growth or erlichkiet or kabalos help us here on planet earth.
Its true. We dont see it. There are lengthy responses to this but mostly its about bechira, different lifetimes, specific tasks a person meeds to accomplish, suffering for the klal, a neshama offering to help being the geula closer etc etc. |
This veering into bad things good people territory. I would steer anyone who wants to find out more than your thoughtful thumbnail sketch to Rabbi Yitzchok Kirzner's book, Making Sense of Suffering (ArtScroll). And OU's Nach Yomi is covering Iyov right now.
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Thisisnotmyreal
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Sun, Aug 20 2023, 7:04 pm
| amother Royalblue wrote: | This is true but in galus we dont see things so black and white.
Not true that if you keep all mitZvos you have a perfect life. That is what OP was questioning in the first place. Its not true.
We see the best of the best suffering immeasurably and sometimes really had people (seemingly) having a wonderful life (seemingly)
In galus that bracha is not crystal clear and we just don’t understand it. |
The Geula haamitis vehashleima is when this passuk clicks for us and we're unable to stop ourselves from keeping Torah and Mitzvos because we just see how beneficial it is for us that we just can't help it but keep our Torah. It absolutely is completely true.
The Alter Rebbe calls the Reshaim who have good lives niviei sheker.
My point is that the veil is thinning more and more. And Galus has less of a hold on us. We absolutely should feel empowered to improve our lives in every way we can.
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PinkFridge
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Sun, Aug 20 2023, 7:07 pm
| amother Royalblue wrote: | This is true but in galus we dont see things so black and white.
Not true that if you keep all mitZvos you have a perfect life. That is what OP was questioning in the first place. Its not true.
We see the best of the best suffering immeasurably and sometimes really had people (seemingly) having a wonderful life (seemingly)
In galus that bracha is not crystal clear and we just don’t understand it. |
But you're defining perfect life as everything being just right. You know, I once heard that Haman needed everything perfect. One thing wasn't going right - Mordechai - and nothing, but nothing mattered.
We can't fall into the Haman trap. As Thisisnotmyreal said, generally, a lot IS going right in our lives. the electricity is on so we can read on our computers, or charge our devices. That's number 1 right there.
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PinkFridge
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Sun, Aug 20 2023, 7:10 pm
| Thisisnotmyreal wrote: | The Geula haamitis vehashleima is when this passuk clicks for us and we're unable to stop ourselves from keeping Torah and Mitzvos because we just see how beneficial it is for us that we just can't help it but keep our Torah. It absolutely is completely true.
The Alter Rebbe calls the Reshaim who have good lives niviei sheker.
My point is that the veil is thinning more and more. And Galus has less of a hold on us. We absolutely should feel empowered to improve our lives in every way we can. |
So this is something a lot of won't easily grasp (or agree with) and doesn't seem - to me - to be necessary to explain OP's questions. Once Moshiach is here, yes, we'll be in cause and effect mode, much more clearly. Will we have it before? I don't know. Because of the clarity we'll have at that point yes, doing mitzvos will come more easily.
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