On Mon, Mar 11, 2013 at 08:17:22PM +0200, Daniel Eidensohn wrote:
>
> *R' Saadiya Gaon*[iii]*(Emuna V'De'os 5:3):*The righteous suffer for two
> reasons. The first reason is that it is for the few sins they have
> committed... The second reason is that it a trial...
What about yisurim shel ahavah?
I once delineated 4 approaches to the tragic, paralleling the 4 sons
<http://www.aishdas.org/asp/2002/04/pesach-5761-the-four-sons-confront-tragedy.shtml>
or <http://j.mp/XDHsWd>:
...
This is the wise son's reaction. "Who is wise? He who learns from
every person." The wise son is one who turns everything into a
learning experience. His response to the seder is "What are the
testimonial acts, the dictates, the laws, which Hashem our G-d
commanded you?" How does G-d teach us to react to the events of
Egypt and freedom? How am I supposed to react to tragedy?
When G-d presents tragedy to the wise son, they are called nisyonos
-- challenges or tests. Like the Akeidah, a learning experience for
Abraham, to get him to fully realize his potential.
The second son, the wicked son, needs a wake up call. What the gemarah
refers to as "yisurim". In the weekday prayer "Tachanun" we ask G-d
to forgive our sins "but not through yisurim or bad illness"....
There is a second kind of yissurim, yissurim shel ahavah --
tribulations of love. This is not where the person is being evil,
but he's not living up to his full potential. He too is in a rut,
and G-d calls to him to break out of it and improve. G-d calls him
to ahavah, to greater love and closeness to G-d.
This is the uncomplicated son, the one who believes with simple and
pure faith. ...
Similarly [to the ellided aggadic story], the person who is medically
needy because that keeps him close to G-d. The person who, had
he been healthy, would have been more distracted by the physical
opportunities afforded him.
This is the son who doesn't know how to ask. Unlike the wise son,
who asks "How shall I respond?" or the son of uncomplicated, pure and
simple faith, who asks "G-d, G-d, why have you forsaken me?" (Tehillim
22:1) this son isn't asking anything. He isn't capable of grappling
with this issue -- be it a tragedy, or be it the Exodus.
...
Tir'u baTov!
-Micha
--
Micha Berger Live as if you were living already for the
micha at aishdas.org second time and as if you had acted the first
http://www.aishdas.org time as wrongly as you are about to act now!
Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Victor Frankl, Man's search for Meaning