[Avodah] how to reconcile

[Micha Berger]

On Thu, Dec 31, 2009 at 11:33:23PM +0000, rabbirichwolpoe at gmail.com wrote:
:> Mah beinaihu? 
:> Isn't the point of every Divine punishment to teach a lesson?» 

: 1 Blame 
: 2 Guilt 

AIUI, you are drawing a distinction I would describe as that between
regular yisurin and yisurin shel ahavah. One is a lesson because a person
proved that they need one; IOW yisurin are punishment in the same sense
that the US "Rehabilitation Center" is really a prison.

Yisurin shel ahavah, OTOH, are what someone is told to assume their
problem is after yepashpeish bemaasav and exploring their bitul Torah
ruled out sins of commission and ommission. IOW, Hashem meting out a hard
lesson in order to someone who is capable of thereby becoming closer to
Him (thus: ahavah).

: 3 does it apply to others 
....
: So it matters if Yosef's ordeal is for g'dolei baalei emunah or for stam
: vanilla menschen. I say Yosef was on the madreiga that Huzqaq to wait

There, I'm not as sure. Something could be an error and require
an onesh, but only because the person was capable of doing better.
Different demands are made of different people. Punishment doesn't
correlate to it necessarily applying to others.

Skipping back to a different point in the material just ellided:
: As I explain it Yosef is blameless, but he inadvertantly set himself
: up. G'zeira shema he might take out the wrong lesson

This really relied on the diyuq halashon you consequently posted.
"Huzqaq" /zqq/ is a language of sechar va'onesh (see Rashi on Bereishis
12:2 "ve'esekha legoy gadol" where the term is used to introduce 3
berakhos provided midah keneged midah) but as you point out, one could
require a response from HQBH for reasons other than SvO. So there is no
reason to insist that's the meaning here.

R Avraham b haRambam writes on our pasuq: Ve'efshar shelo yihyeh alav
genus bazeh... underscoring that hishtadlus doesn't imply a lack of
bitachon.


On Sat, Jan 02, 2010 at 06:33:15PM +0200, Ben Waxman wrote:
: When I read that QL I had a bit of a problem with it. When is trying the 
: same as relying? How far does the QL go when he says "he should desist from 
: any physical reaction and rather he should simply trust and have faith in 
: Hashem, and surely it will be transformed into something good and 
: positive."? ...

RRW might save the medrash quoted by Rashi from the same question, but
usually that's the context in which this is asked. Other than real-life
situations.

This is why REED sets up his formula that one should only put in
hishtadlus in proportion to his lack of bitachon. Presumably putting in
less won't lead to success, and putting in more will reduce the bitachon.
(If so, it's leshitaso with his whole concept of moving the bechitah
point. You can't move the battlefront 20 miles in an hour; there are some
choices for which bechirah doesn't come into play; there are situations
where the bitachon simply can't suffice.)

Notice this relied on a Chassidishe or Novhardoker notion of bitachon,
that is both PREscriptive and defines the good outcome as one that you
want. Meaning: If you believe enough, you get what you want. The CI's
Emunah uBitachon is all about rejecting that definition in favor of
a DEscriptive bitachon -- the belief that nothing is miqreh and thus
everything has His Purpose. Not necessarily will it be what I want,
even in the long run. Nor is it that my believe is related to the outcome.

The CI's bitachon too is hard to reconcile with those rishonim (eg the
Rambam) who hold that hashgachah peratis is earned, and thus there are
events that even touch a person's life that are subject to teva and
aren't the product of hashgachah.

Something else we should note about all this... At the end of everying,
Yosef's yeshu'ah *is* through the sar hamashkim's intervention after
all.

This might reinforce my off-the-cuff suggestion that the problem wasn't as
much the hishtadlus in general, but in it taking the form of relying on
another person. As the medrash puts it "talah bo Yosed bitachono". Once
yi'ush set in, the hishtadlus worked. Still pretty "creative" rather
than well-founded, though.

And although this answer works for the medrash in Rashi and the Yalqut
Shim'oni, it doesn't work for the QL who lauds Yosef's passivity the
subsequent 2 years, rather than addressing the impassivity of the
discussion with the sar hamashqim.

: What does the QL mean for us to do?

Assuming something like REED's formula, I think it means for us to get
to the point where we don't need hishtadlus. Thus, we aren't to act like
Yosef AND there is a lesson to be learned from his story.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Good decisions come from experience;
micha at aishdas.org        Experience comes from bad decisions.
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