For those who really care to improve their emunah, there's a segulah: to say the 13 Ikrim (Ani Mamins) of the Rambam daily.
Yep, that's what I'm going to go do just now, say the 13 ikarim over and over again until I get it.
op here
thats why I want a sub forum
I'm a different amother from this thread, who was against a closed forum, and I still think that even with posts like this, this thread as a whole went very nicely. There will always be a few posts that some of us won't appreciate, but it's still worth it. There are imamothers who are extremely knowledgeable and wise, some have very worthwhile things to say and have really thought these issues through. And there are some that aren't so I ignore those posts.
I clearly wrote: For those who really care to improve their emunah, which obviously does not include self-proclaimed "intellectuals" and "know-it-alls" like you and the above who would rather cling to your false beliefs and doubts than do anything positive about it.
Btw it was none other than the Rambam himself (who wrote these 13 Ikrim) who was the author of Morah Nevuchim, a philosophical sefer which clarifies questions on yiddishkeit. Perhaps you should get a hold of this sefer.
getting nasty arent we?
look your not being helpful and I didnt start this thread to have a fight. I started so that I can avoid exact responses like yours.
if you have an intellectual response then post it if not please dont.
Who's the nasty one here? What makes you say that your posts are more "intellectual" than mine? If you want a private discussion, send PMs to your people. We all have the right to post on this thread. I might not be helpful to YOU, but YOUR arrogance, probably because of your lack of emunah, is rude and insulting. And why are you bashing under amother?
The reason I'm posting this story is to show that in order to answer a question, there must be some common ground between the questioner and the responder- in this case the basics of Judaism, including the Yud Gimmel Ikrim. Otherwise, there's no point, because there is no starting point and no ending, just a typical merry-go-round.
Quote:
This is not the first thread where someone threw out some kind of kfirah phrase and burden of proof is suddenly on the Torah-believing-and-observant posters. As if, if nobody can type the answer nice enough or fast enough, there is no answer.
To repeat myself, anyone who is truly interested in an answer, "truly" meaning the interest overrides her desire for convenience or wish to sin, will find an answer if she looks in the right places. It may not be a complete answer, but it will be enough to satisfy, and of that I'm confident.
I'm surprised at you, GR. Do you want them to ignore your posts too?
Who's the nasty one here? What makes you say that your posts are more "intellectual" than mine? If you want a private discussion, send PMs to your people. We all have the right to post on this thread. I might not be helpful to YOU, but YOUR arrogance, probably because of your lack of emunah, is rude and insulting. And why are you bashing under amother?
ok I'll try and answer you.
yes you are being nasty on a thread that I started to get support. your responses are unhelpful, are not even trying to be helpful, and are just taking away from the thread.
and yes I do want a private discussion hence my thread name "SUBFORUM for imamothers losing their emunah"
oh and I am bashing under amother because I started this thread and I dont need to out myself because you decided to come along and ruin it.
thank you though for proving the need for a subforum
Me, too. I have much less of a problem with people questioning G-d about why bad things happen to good people, than with people saying they have no questions because they don't expect anything better from Him.
Okay, suppose you were starving. Literally starving. And watching your children starve.
What conclusion would you come to? What conclusion would be more reasonable?
I cannot say for sure how I would react in a hypothetical situation. Neither can I judge anyone in such a situation. But I can say what Rabbi Moshe Kotlarsky said at the Holtzberg funeral, to the effect that it is not our job to justify G-d. We have to question and complain and demand better. While Rabbi Kotlarsky did get plenty of flak from certain factions of the Chareidi community for not accepting "Tzidduk hadin", he was taking his cues from the Lubavitcher Rebbe, who would often cry during his talks about the suffering of Jews, and question G-d, citing Moshe Rabeinu, "Lamah hareiosa la'am hazeh". So no, we don't have all the answers. Much of this world is incomprehensible. Yet we still believe in Him and His goodness. We live with this paradox.
The best articles I've seen on this topic are Forgiveness by Jay Litvin and The Lunar Files by Tzvi Freeman, both available on Chabad.org.
I don't think all the gedolim agree that the 13 Ikarim are really the be all and end all of Emunah. I remember learning that some feel differently. Also how does it help saying the Ikarim when I am sure many people have difficulty with some of them, personally I find coming to terms with both Mashiach and Techias Hameisim very difficutl.
For those who really care to improve their emunah, there's a segulah: to say the 13 Ikrim (Ani Mamins) of the Rambam daily.
Yep, that's what I'm going to go do just now, say the 13 ikarim over and over again until I get it.
op here
thats why I want a sub forum
I'm a different amother from this thread, who was against a closed forum, and I still think that even with posts like this, this thread as a whole went very nicely. There will always be a few posts that some of us won't appreciate, but it's still worth it. There are imamothers who are extremely knowledgeable and wise, some have very worthwhile things to say and have really thought these issues through. And there are some that aren't so I ignore those posts.
I clearly wrote: For those who really care to improve their emunah, which obviously does not include self-proclaimed "intellectuals" and "know-it-alls" like you and the above who would rather cling to your false beliefs and doubts than do anything positive about it.
Btw it was none other than the Rambam himself (who wrote these 13 Ikrim) who was the author of Morah Nevuchim, a philosophical sefer which clarifies questions on yiddishkeit. Perhaps you should get a hold of this sefer.
I'm the amother who posted this and I will explain it to you nicely even though you really don't belong on this thread, especially since you're taking things personally.
This thread is for people who are grappling with basics of yiddishkeit, intellectually. Even people who have no emuna problems don't believe in segulas, so kal v'chomer, we who are grappling don't want to be told to repeat something over and over again and that will get rid of the questions. We want intellectual answers.
Posts like yours show that you really don't understand what we are going through, luckily for you, and that's what kind of posts she was trying to avoid by having a private forum, which I personally am not for.
And I certainly don't consider myself a know it all, or I wouldn't be here seeking answers.
A few answers.
Many of you ladies are spouting what you were taught. And so am I, spouting what I was taught.
Many of you ladies are of the shita of "emunah peshuta" either because that's the shita in which you live or that's what you were taught. It's a really happy simple shita actually of what Tamiri called "dumbed down judaism" and what they are teaching in many charedi schools and especially chassidic schools at least in EY in this generation. Tamar Elor in her book about learned and ignorant or whatever it is called in English (I read it in Hebrew) explains how in the Gur BY here they girls are taught things but at the same time they are taught that the true pinnacle of belief is that of their illeterate great grandmothers who didn't know prayer who didn't know Hebrew who had never learned any book learning at all but had "emunah in their heart"....meaning with all the learning, the "pinnacle" of what a good woman should believe is "emunah peshuta" of illiteracy and ignorance. which is what Elor calls the paradox of modern ultra orthodox religious women's teachings - on the one hand they teach stuff, on the other hand they say that the same "stuff" is all "narishkeit" (we are talking chumash, mishna, rashi, etc. here as per "stuff") when it comes to emunah, because "true" emunah is simple, illiterate emunah....like the story of the besht and the illiterate shepherd who comes and says the alef bes in shul or according to another version plays his flute to open the gates of heaven.
Yeah well.
You realize that the medieval Jewish philosophers would be horrified at such a thought. Emunah peshuta. illiterate emunah.
Pink I think it was you, or maybe GR who asked a valid question two pages ago (forgive me if it was someone else) What? Until the inquisition there were no tzuris?
Of course there were tzurris. What we are missing however are Jewish sources, particularly in Europe, EY, north africa, anywhere from around the year 200 until the middle of the middle ages. We know nothing, nada zilch. The only documents we have are three letters from the 800s about a group of travelers and international traders called the Radanites. We have no sforim, we have no sefer hayichusin and therefore anyone who claims that he has a sefer yichus (original) from the years 900 and backwards (our info starts from around R. Gershom meor hagola) doesn't know his nostril from his elbow. We have nothing, nada zilch.
Hence we really don't know whether there was a trend of "dumbing down emunah stuff" from before that. The first documents we have of calamity are from the crusades. Then from gerush sfarad, then from Chmielnizci. Anyone ever read Yevein Metzula of Rabbi Natan Neta Hanover written after that last cataclysm? He describes this phenomenon in the mid 1650s or so.
So yeah, there is a really strong shita which says that we do it for one reason. Because it is written. Smacks of Leibowitz to you? Too bad. Because that's how so many great men, gedolim, saw yiddishkeit for so long.
Chassidus is just the opposite. And anyone know how chassidus was formed? Not from chassidic sources please which are a bit hagiographic? From what we know, even from Polish sources chassidus of the Besht was totally elitist at the beginning and only was "dumbed down" later when he realized that the masses who were coming to him were totally unable to grasp the concepts that he was trying to teach and then it turned into the kavvana above all touchy feely dveikus just believe in the zaddik sort of stuff. It was NOT that at the beginning and there was no need for it, with his chassidim rishonim. Who were all lamden. Who were all rich. Who were all elitist and had the possibility of spending much of their lives learning. Rambam. Ramban. And not scared of what they learned.
But that's only after you have learned a LOT and realize what it is all about and that emunah is for US. Not for Hashem because we really don't have an inking of what he wants, just what we THINK that he wants and that was written down by people at various times. That doens't mean don't keep the torah, just the opposite. Of course you keep it. But give up that idea that by keeping it you are making an equal equation with the almightly that you keep, he gives life. Doesn't work that way. Don't expect. Unfair? C'est la vie.
GR you don't like it because it goes against everything you have been taught. But hey, you were taught chassidus which was an entire movement opposed to this thought because it scared the masses and so...a whole new philosophy was created. Yesh Meayin Creatio ex nihilo. Yofi. But it isn't what yiddishkeit was all about for centuries and centuries and centuries.
If the Rambam or Ramban would meet a great chassidic leader teaching his flock that the Ribono Shel Olam cares about every leaf and every stone and there is hashgacha pratis for all, you know what they would say? The would probably stroke their beards and say "nebuch" (or in arabic actually for the Rambam and in Old French for the Ramban) "the poor ignorant masses that they teach are so afraid of dying that they need these stories being told to them so that they don't get scared and don't leave yiddishkeit....."
Yeah well.
So you don't like it when Freidasima says it? The sources are there. Look at them. No wonder there are charedi schools who forbid women to learn this stuff. Because they treat women as little children and if a little child hears that there isn't instant equation of good=G-d being good to you...wow they might do terrible things.
I thought that in this generation of educated women we were beyond that stage of needing to dumb things down and give the cotton candy explanations suited for children.
friedasima, from the moment I posted what I did last night, I knew what your response would be, "well of course rabbis today espouse the views I call childlike, but only because they realize how childlike most of you all are."
I so called it.
Like I said, I have no problem with the discussing the fact that there are a variety of streams of Jewish thought. But once you start dismissing every other school of thought as childish or overly simple or whatever you want to call it, that's going too far. I'd expect better from someone who calls out segments of society for not accepting MO as valid.
Previous posters have already given sources against what you said earlier, so I won't bother.
eta - maybe I missed it, but I didn't see anyone here saying that being good = having good things happen to you. I think that's a straw man argument.
Next question -- why should we follow the instructions of a Being who does not have our best interests at heart?
But He does. Just our understanding of what are our best interests is lacking. That is what I believe.
I actually agree with part of what FS wrote. As I wrote before, I don't believe does only "good" in the way we understand in this world. That is part of golus - just go and read chumash as FS said. We all behave - we have rain in EY and we stay there and there is peace and enough food and we can all sit and learn Torah under our fig trees and vines. We sin - we get sent into galus and killed and starved and there is no rain in EY and we get exiled from there. We are in galus now and Hashem never told us it would be good in the terms we understand.
I really don't get all this talk of how there are so many tzarros today - what 70 or 100 or 500 years there were less? I stood in my street this summer as they took a mother of children in the double digits, the youngest of whom is about 2, to the Beis Hachayim. And all us neighbours cried. And I thought "how could Hashem have done this to these children?" and I imagined how for us this is BH not so common, but it probably in every shtetl every month the neighbours stood in the street at a levaya of a young mother.
I don't understand it. But I understand it that this is galus. And I also believe in hashgacha pratis - I believe that Hashem decrees what is to happen to every neshama and when their time is up in this world. And I believe Hashem knows what He is doing and one day we'll understand it too.
Sorry Lub ladies, but I get the chills every time you write about questioning Hashem. Vayidom Aharon - the highest level is just to be silent, understand we don't understand, and go back to being avdei Hashem. And even those of us who can't manage that can at least say - this is so hard, we can't understand, to us it looks bad (which is why there is a bracha of Baruch Dayan Haemes), but Hashem is behind it all and for Him this is the way the world should run.
Next question -- why should we follow the instructions of a Being who does not have our best interests at heart?
But He does. Just our understanding of what are our best interests is lacking. That is what I believe.
I actually agree with part of what FS wrote. As I wrote before, I don't believe does only "good" in the way we understand in this world. That is part of golus - just go and read chumash as FS said. We all behave - we have rain in EY and we stay there and there is peace and enough food and we can all sit and learn Torah under our fig trees and vines. We sin - we get sent into galus and killed and starved and there is no rain in EY and we get exiled from there. We are in galus now and Hashem never told us it would be good in the terms we understand.
I really don't get all this talk of how there are so many tzarros today - what 70 or 100 or 500 years there were less? I stood in my street this summer as they took a mother of children in the double digits, the youngest of whom is about 2, to the Beis Hachayim. And all us neighbours cried. And I thought "how could Hashem have done this to these children?" and I imagined how for us this is BH not so common, but it probably in every shtetl every month the neighbours stood in the street at a levaya of a young mother.
I don't understand it. But I understand it that this is galus. And I also believe in hashgacha pratis - I believe that Hashem decrees what is to happen to every neshama and when their time is up in this world. And I believe Hashem knows what He is doing and one day we'll understand it too.
Sorry Lub ladies, but I get the chills every time you write about questioning Hashem. Vayidom Aharon - the highest level is just to be silent, understand we don't understand, and go back to being avdei Hashem. And even those of us who can't manage that can at least say - this is so hard, we can't understand, to us it looks bad (which is why there is a bracha of Baruch Dayan Haemes), but Hashem is behind it all and for Him this is the way the world should run.
But what is wrong with questioning things in life? I learned in high school and later in life from one of my rabbanim, that questioning things that we are uncertain about is not a bad thing at all but very good to do.
Next question -- why should we follow the instructions of a Being who does not have our best interests at heart?
I just wanted to say that I completely understand your question. I have no idea is my answer. I wont go into specifics, but there have been certain things in my life that I am completely mystified as to how HaShem could think at all that that would be in my best interest and was very mad at Him. What should people do then? I have no idea. But I would say to question, question, question until you (the general you) do get answers that make sense to you.
Next question -- why should we follow the instructions of a Being who does not have our best interests at heart?
But He does. Just our understanding of what are our best interests is lacking. That is what I believe.
I actually agree with part of what FS wrote. As I wrote before, I don't believe does only "good" in the way we understand in this world. That is part of golus - just go and read chumash as FS said. We all behave - we have rain in EY and we stay there and there is peace and enough food and we can all sit and learn Torah under our fig trees and vines. We sin - we get sent into galus and killed and starved and there is no rain in EY and we get exiled from there. We are in galus now and Hashem never told us it would be good in the terms we understand.
I really don't get all this talk of how there are so many tzarros today - what 70 or 100 or 500 years there were less? I stood in my street this summer as they took a mother of children in the double digits, the youngest of whom is about 2, to the Beis Hachayim. And all us neighbours cried. And I thought "how could Hashem have done this to these children?" and I imagined how for us this is BH not so common, but it probably in every shtetl every month the neighbours stood in the street at a levaya of a young mother.
I don't understand it. But I understand it that this is galus. And I also believe in hashgacha pratis - I believe that Hashem decrees what is to happen to every neshama and when their time is up in this world. And I believe Hashem knows what He is doing and one day we'll understand it too.
Sorry Lub ladies, but I get the chills every time you write about questioning Hashem. Vayidom Aharon - the highest level is just to be silent, understand we don't understand, and go back to being avdei Hashem. And even those of us who can't manage that can at least say - this is so hard, we can't understand, to us it looks bad (which is why there is a bracha of Baruch Dayan Haemes), but Hashem is behind it all and for Him this is the way the world should run.
But what is wrong with questioning things in life? I learned in high school and later in life from one of my rabbanim, that questioning things that we are uncertain about is not a bad thing at all but very good to do.
I meant questioning as in challenging/ calling into question Hashem - I was talking about specific language that posters sometimes use here.
I didn't mean as in asking questions as to wanting to try and understand why something happened.
Next question -- why should we follow the instructions of a Being who does not have our best interests at heart?
But He does. Just our understanding of what are our best interests is lacking. That is what I believe.
I actually agree with part of what FS wrote. As I wrote before, I don't believe does only "good" in the way we understand in this world. That is part of golus - just go and read chumash as FS said. We all behave - we have rain in EY and we stay there and there is peace and enough food and we can all sit and learn Torah under our fig trees and vines. We sin - we get sent into galus and killed and starved and there is no rain in EY and we get exiled from there. We are in galus now and Hashem never told us it would be good in the terms we understand.
I really don't get all this talk of how there are so many tzarros today - what 70 or 100 or 500 years there were less? I stood in my street this summer as they took a mother of children in the double digits, the youngest of whom is about 2, to the Beis Hachayim. And all us neighbours cried. And I thought "how could Hashem have done this to these children?" and I imagined how for us this is BH not so common, but it probably in every shtetl every month the neighbours stood in the street at a levaya of a young mother.
I don't understand it. But I understand it that this is galus. And I also believe in hashgacha pratis - I believe that Hashem decrees what is to happen to every neshama and when their time is up in this world. And I believe Hashem knows what He is doing and one day we'll understand it too.
Sorry Lub ladies, but I get the chills every time you write about questioning Hashem. Vayidom Aharon - the highest level is just to be silent, understand we don't understand, and go back to being avdei Hashem. And even those of us who can't manage that can at least say - this is so hard, we can't understand, to us it looks bad (which is why there is a bracha of Baruch Dayan Haemes), but Hashem is behind it all and for Him this is the way the world should run.
But what is wrong with questioning things in life? I learned in high school and later in life from one of my rabbanim, that questioning things that we are uncertain about is not a bad thing at all but very good to do.
I meant questioning as in challenging/ calling into question Hashem - I was talking about specific language that posters sometimes use here.
I didn't mean as in asking questions as to wanting to try and understand why something happened.
Got it. Ok. Sorry for the mistake/confusion on my part.
No, what I wrote was certainly ambiguous. I didn't realize till you asked. (I also had to use a thesaurus to find the right synonyms to clarify what I meant!) I also still think the highest level is not to ask questions either, but how many people are on that level?
Shalhevet, what we are saying and what you are saying is not all that different. The end of the matter is that we are left with the question, "WHY?", to which we have no answer - in this world. And we will continue to ask it until Moshiach comes.
Who's the nasty one here? What makes you say that your posts are more "intellectual" than mine? If you want a private discussion, send PMs to your people. We all have the right to post on this thread. I might not be helpful to YOU, but YOUR arrogance, probably because of your lack of emunah, is rude and insulting. And why are you bashing under amother?
We are in galus now and Hashem never told us it would be good in the terms we understand.
