Igeret HaKodesh: Epistle 11 - Part 1

Thank you Ravi I want to hear It's always going to get better!
Thank you for imparting this wisdom
Whatever is to be-in all I will be joyful!
Baruch Hashem Reply

stripped down This is such an important message. Every time something goes wrong in my life it teaches me about how much I have. From surviving cancer (25 years) to dealing with a heart defect (13 years and counting) to realizing that physiologically I am like my dad who died of a heart attack at 57 (which will come in 2014 for me) to 911 to power outages to blizzards and hurricanes and even an earthquake, I learn to appreciate when the power is on and the weather is nice and I can do heavy housework or raise a few veggies in my tiny yard. So Torah study and prayers and keeping kosher and keeping Shabbat, etc. -- oh yeah, I'm there. But maybe I started long ago with not expecting Gd to make life perfect for my personal individual desires, with not thinking I was so important to the universe that it had to give me everything I wanted. Reply

Pandora's Box I responded to your commentary earlier today and found it upsetting, but, as you have said, this is a subject that is deeply puzzling and upsetting. I just received an email asking for contributions to Pakistan because thousands of children are at risk of dying from the consequences of recent floods. It does seem, the scale of human suffering like this, being so constantly in our "face" is mind blowing.

The world is beset by sorrow, pain, and terrible hardship. It never ends. I do believe it is emotion that carries the day and makes us empathic individuals who do act to "heal the world" as best we can. I don't believe in the utility of saying, "It's God's plan", even though yes, it is, but the imponderable part is that God keeps doing this, and that engenders emotion, whether or not the "story" comes out for all souls, all right in the end. I think we have to look at God's part in all of this. Despair is a part of the human condition and also includes "espoir" meaning HOPE in French. Reply

pain When will G-D find someone who can find a cure for the worst pain a child can suffer, RSD/CRPS/ Reply

The three pours. Why is it necessary to pour water from a cup onto the hands three times. Why can't a person go to the sink, put his hands under running water and let that suffice for hand washing?? Reply

what is godliness? I recently re read The Book of Job in a class with a Rabbi and actually it's a shocking story, of God making a pact that involves an innocent good man but he doesn't perceive the machinations that are behind the scene and he suffers. Now maybe some rabbis believe Job should have understood everything happens for a reason, as surely it does, but some reasons appear unconscionable, and the perpetration of certain kinds of suffering, if caused by God, well they do entertain deep thought and I am saying we are supposed to question God and that it is this angst, this very suffering that brings us into a dialogue with the Divine. I don't for a minute believe that suffering is meant to be experienced just as God's will in a greater story, to a greater purpose. Because emotion propels all of us forward. Because emotion, sadness, tears, weeping, are also part of what we are given, being human.

As it all mirrors, then do we turn away from suffering and say, So be it. God's will and not act? Reply

Epistle 11-Part 1 I'm sorry, Rabbi, but I found your class disappointing. I have been suffering in one particular area you mentioned for over 40 years. With the exception of Job's, the stories you referred to had fairly immediate, shall we call them, resolutions. I've hung in there as you say but so far see no good to my situation. I question the value of hanging in there and what I've accomplished and contributed in spite of the suffering I've endured. Reply

PARASHA KITETSE toda
G-d bless you and your family
G-d bless all the Jews around the world Reply