[Avodah] Do Not Separate Yourself and Do Not Believe in Yourself (for a while)

[T613K at aol.com]

From: Cantor Wolberg _cantorwolberg at cox.net_ (mailto:cantorwolberg at cox.net) 


>>Very interestingly, Hillel is often quoted with: "Al tifrosh  min  
hatzibbur"  Do not separate yourself from the community.  However, what  
follows immediately is "v'al ta'amin b'atzm'cha ad yom  mos'cha."  Do  
not believe in yourself until the day you  die.

This is very curious. We are always taught to believe in  ourselves.<<
 
>>>>>
Maybe American culture stresses "believe in  yourself" but I don't see where 
in the Torah there is any such  teaching.  The closest I can think of is 
"Yagata umatzasa,  ta'amin."  You must believe that if you put in the effort (to 
learn Torah,  or to keep the mitzvos) that you will have success.  This is not 
at all the  same thing as believing that if you are a tzaddik today, you are 
guaranteed to  always be a tzaddik regardless of what effort you put in in the  
future.




--Toby Katz
=============

President Reagan talked with the Soviets while pushing ahead  with the 
deployment of Cruise and Pershing missiles in Europe. He spoke softly —  after 
getting himself a bigger stick.  --Mark Steyn




**************Gas prices getting you down? Search AOL Autos for 
fuel-efficient used cars.      (http://autos.aol.com/used?ncid=aolaut00050000000007)
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avodah-aishdas.org/attachments/20080623/522b7020/attachment-0001.htm>