Due to the limitations of your reality, some of your best friends can enter only incognito.
In fact, the really big ones sometimes sneak in disguised as ugly monsters and vicious enemies. Otherwise, the guards at the gate would never permit them entry.
These are the events optimists call “blessings in disguise.”
Here’s how to fire the guards: Expand your mind, expand your world and sincerely rejoice in whatever G‑d sends you. Then the blessings will be free to enter in all their glory.
G D, has many ways of turning evil minds into good minds. I pray with my heart, soul and mind that G D, will use the heavenly light to burn right thru the evil that has effected many people. Too many are taking stands on the wrong issues that are confusing the younger generations into thinking and acting like wild animals on the lose from the darkest parts of the forests. Reply
Good Afternoon, Rabbi Freeman!
I hear you saying, "Expand your horizons!" I am smiling right now because it brings back memories of what my teachers use to say frequently. Angels bringing blessing(s) in disguise! Well, I guess I better start thanking the LRD now for Heaven's special sent gift. :D
Baruch HaShem, 🕊💜
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17 years ago I was a mess. I was a smoker and a beer drinker. I picked up McDonald’s double cheeseburgers every evening (I was working nights) on the way to work, and on the way home it was breakfast burritos (so-called). I had noticed my left arm ached sometimes walking from my car to the building. I had just met my wife online in a chat room concerning Judaism in Kentucky. I brought her up to Michigan when I had a heart attack, wasn’t expected to live.
While in Intensive Care I developed double pneumonia. My wife to be stayed with me every day, and asked a Rabbi to pray for me. I had been hooked up to a breathing machine for 2 weeks. Soon after the Chabad Rabbi prayed for me I was home, and it turned out there was no damage to my heart. Ever since I have been growing spiritually, got married, retired and moved to Kentucky. Everything from my youth on was coming to light as being for the best. Like pieces of a puzzle they have been hiding a beautiful landscape.
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I am losing my mother, a very difficult time for me and my family. It was to be my birthday celebration and she had a stroke. I surrendered to the grâce of G-d and I had so many miracles happening this week. Just today, I was going down the hospital lift (with another couple) to get some food, although not hungry at all, And when I got out the elevator the lady said to me I feel you need a hug! She huged me and prayed for me and she wanted to give me her number. This was a miracle today. I can’t even get a hug from my own sister, but G-d and our guardian angels are all there for us when we are ready to let them in.
A child dying is terrible, but we are not supposed to know all the answers. We are tested in our lives to progress spiritually, this is what I believe. We either pass the test or we fail. That’s life. Let’s humbly accept G-d's will.
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Dear Helen,
You and your family will be in my prayers during this very difficult moment.
Sincerely,
Rita
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Dear Helen,
You and your mother, her friends, the rest of your family and the hug lady are on my prayer list. I'm sorry to hear your news; however, your attitude is beautiful. May G-d bless and keep you, your mother and family, give you strength and encouragement and more peace. May G-d answer your prayers. Amen.
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Thank you Rita
I feel the bessing of all people who are praying for me. Thank you so so much. It’s a very hard transition as she is very scared.
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When you read the biographies of famous people such as Eli Wiesel, Eli Wallach Victor Frankel, Abraham J. Heschel, L. Kolberg, A. Maslow, the Rambam, former Prime Minister of Israel Golda Mier. and Mr. Rogers [to name a few] their notoriety came out of sometimes great pain and misfortunes that turned into a vision to better the world show us how to overcome tragedies and evil and connect to G-d. They discovered a blessing in disguise, a gift that they shared and that benefited mankind. Yes. I understand what the author is trying to say about blessings in disguise. No one likes abuse, pain, injustice, biases, illness, but it can give us a determination to find a cure, fight for peoples' rights and change/create laws, help us to hope, cope, hold on, and discover where G-d is and how He is helping us to move forward to create a world that is proactive and not indifferent.
Thank you,
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Amen to that. Despite the difficult time, I feel blessed that I can hold my mum’s hand in her final hours. So many did not have that privilege when they died of Covid. I feel blessed that I had my mum for a reasonable number of years. And love will carry on. We are not religious , but I called a Rabbi today and it did sooo much good to my father. Unfortunately I missed when they all prayed together as a Dr was trying to convince me to accept the morphine exit as I am opposed to it. Helping her with pain is one thing but exiting her without her consent is another and she is fully aware and conscious. Reply
If we forget that we are strangers on Earth, and for a short time, it is not easy to rejoice in whatever G.d sends us. If we remember that condition of non-permanent residents, it is because we would be very close to Him
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Hidden Let’s see if after you take a walk with me through a pediatric cancer ward if your opinions are still the same. Reply
Yitzuk, I can find you Holocaust survivors whose opinions are the same. The tzadikim who have guided the Jewish People through history—Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Isaiah, Rabbi Akiva, Maimonides, the Baal Shem Tov, the Rebbe’s and many others—witnessed the greatest tragedies of history and nevertheless passed down to us a tradition of everlasting hope and optimism.
Choose how you want to live—with hope or with cynicism.
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Baruch HaShem, Hi Yitzuk! Yes, hidden. But we must not be angry with G-d that He hides some things from our understanding. Let us not forget that from our current vantage point humans get to see only ONE part of the story of a soul's whole life span (unless we are prophets). We should remember that the soul exists before it reaches this earthly realm; that it may have existed in this earthly realm in the past; that there is a life following this existence; that each soul has a purpose that we may not be able to fathom but which is G-d's Will; and, that all of these "life realms" (in some realms we are clothed with a body which may not work well and in other realms we are totally soul) taken together make up the complete life span of a soul. To be fair to G-d, let us include all of those life realms into our 'calculation' or consideration of whether His plan for an individual soul's earthly existence is fair. Please whisper words of Hope in G-d for the Future over those tiny ones Peace Reply
Hope of course! But can we forgive G-d for allowing the Holocaust to happen?
What good does cynicism do but sway and poison other minds towards disbelief?
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This reminds me of the concealed images in pictures that you can see only when you unfocus. If you are looking at the picture in focus, you can’t see the form within the picture.
I must say that the plane in the forest is unsettling to the mind. Did it crash? Is help around? Are people hurt and in pain?
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revealed blessing One must understand sneaky as ignorance of law, as having bad judgment to determine what is good and bad. As this experience tests one whom they would come to trust. Good judgment helps all including the bad as they are revealed. Once revealed, look upon it as a blessing from above, as a parent that has acquired good judgment always teaches with compassion directs toward the good. As for the bad, who then would judge the Creator as He prepares the bad to become good in generations. Reply
All is as it Should Be
It's not really a limitation of reality it's the yetzer ha'ra's job to make sure I do not see or hear the good in all that happens to me. And there has to be a purpose for this as GOD created the yetzer ha'ra. That said; if I see the yetzer ha'ra I have to see the GOD that created it. If I see GOD behind all that happens then the power of the yetzer ha'ra can be turned to good.
There is a midrash that says; if the yetzer ha'ra makes you want to kill people then become a shoichet (butcher). Killing is not too good for the soul or the person being killed either but being a kosher shoichet brings a great benefit to the community and is a source for lots of brochos. Simply said; If there was no yetzer ha'ra there would be no butchers.
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Guardians are there. Do not abolish them. Instead, seek out a true friend. Let the old ones go. Reply
Blessings in disguise
This is incredibly insightful. Thank you so much for sharing.beautifuly put wisdom.
Your advise is that everything is designed to further the refinement of the soul
Painful or difficult Every incident little or large is designed to pull us up out of the
hypnotic gravitational pull of the dimension of receiving for the self alone.
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sneak under the Door This is going to sound like true confessions but I do have a point. I am a woman-poor and no children nor no Husband and I have no friends-except for one who I write to-What I am about to say might make no sense at all but I feel that I remember people of my past and they are not giving me advise in my mind that makes me laugh and sing-they tell me things that make me very very angry every day I live then sometimes sometimes they send me a message that really makes sense and people therapists in my past have asked me why I don't find a way to die...I say it is because of these memories and the fact that I get a few crumbs past to me under the door every so often Reply
PARDON MY STUPIDITY, BUT... ... were the Nazis friends in disguise? Surely the Nazis "felt free to enter in all their glory." Such blessings.... Reply
Quite right Aharon. I have yet to forgive G-d for allowing the Holocaust to occur. Such blessings we do not need! Reply
blessings in disguise possibly, you have to have had them to understand. over the years, several very evil people have shown up, for long periods of time, too -- gossipy, nasty, destructive people. and yes, it took all this time to realize G-d sent them. maybe to make sure i would never lose faith, even with all the grief, to keep praying, and try harder. because of these people, i learned more about myself, and though they seemed to be 'winning' and making life miserable, in the end, G-d carries you through, and you realize they are the losers because people of substance don't have to destroy or make fun - i ended up feeling sorry for them, and feeling so grateful to G-d for Jewish values. Reply
sneaky blessings Dear Rabbi, I have a problem with this matter. I do hear some people say it is a blessing in disguise etc. To me ugly monster or vicious monster is just that. I have certain misfortune or lot, it is so because of whatever reason due to fallen nature, but the L-rd always has a good plan for me, a plan for good not for evil, to give me hope and a future. A blessing is a blessing, a curse is a curse. There is no shadow of turning. His principle is yes and amen, not yes and no. Until the day I die if certain thing in my life not great like G-d says it should I still do not accept it, to the worst I have to wait for heaven to get rid of it, but I just do not see any good in evil at all. Rabbi , how come I am so far from the Rebbe' s teaching today? Reply
Thanks for the words The words shared were very proper for my current moment. Again, thanks for sharing. Reply
That's true...
But sometimes, when the guards aren't there, true ugly monsters can come in, and that's why it is very wise to keep them there, in alert, to filter the real ugly monsters; the blessings in disguise; and the blessing in disguise that must be fiercely fought till they are transformed in blessings without disguise that can come in without restrictions.
Anyway, all cases are indeed blessings to our own growth.
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Re: Please explain (Roy)
"Blessings in disguise" can often seem terrifying. That's just because we haven't opened ourselves up enough with faith and confidence in the Master Orchestrator of All Things.
Try reading again now. Does that help?
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In retrospect, some of the incidents were not what we would have asked for, but after they occur that was exactly what we needed as a lesson to go forward. Bad things turn out to be a balm if we take the opportunity with wide eyes. Yes, some illnesses are vicious enemies that rob us of health, time and productivity. Of course , I would not have allowed a tick to bite me, and inject its poison- yet, despite that it became a blessing in disguise. I overcame it ,and returned to school; thus. a new chapter of my life opened up. I am not grateful to the tick, but my illness became a vector in finding new venues to succeed ! I extricated myself of a profession to another more fulfilling , and continued to grow and enjoy life. This was 40 years ago, and B'H I go forward. The " monster " that bit me is dead ,and I am thriving and going ahead. Only H' knows why a bug chose me, but having emunah and bitachon as guideposts helped me to convert this "monster "into a blessing,