[Avodah] The good and the bad

[Micha Berger via Avodah]

On Tue, Jul 04, 2017 at 02:54:51PM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote:
: This is explained in the Gemara Megilla 25a, at the top: "It implies
: that [we thank Him] for the good but not for the bad, but that
: contradicts the Mishna that says that a person must bless for the bad
: just like he blesses for the good."

But that doesn't mean he must bless for the bad whenever he blesses for
the good.

Which is I think the chiluq that resolves the problems you raised.

: That other Mishna (in Brachos) teaches us that we are obligated to say
: one bracha or the other, depending on the events at hand. If one
: experiences some of God's goodness, he must thank Him for it. On
: *other* occasions Hashem does things that are painful, but that is
: irrelevant: Here and now one must thank Him for the good.

Actually, even painful effects of the same occasion. Like the textbook
case: Inheriting a large some of money requires making both Dayan ha'emes
and hatov vehameitiv.

: Thus there is no contradiction between the two mishnayos, as they are
: talking about two different situations...

I think they are both talking about the good and tragic in the same
situations. The first mishnah is prohibiting someone from even implying
in a non-response context that when experiencing tragedy, one can skip
Dayan ha'emes.

: So my chavrusa and I took out our siddur, to see if this is actually
: followed. The first page we turned to was Modim, in the Amidah. It
: turns out that Modim - especially the chasima of the bracha - is
: mostly about the idea idea that God *IS* good, not so much about that
: He *does* good....

Mah beinaihu? After all, all His "Middos" are about appearances and how
the effects of his Action look to us.

And actually, it pretty explicitly says in one point that it's about
G-d appearing to us as Good -- "'haTov' shimkha".

But as I opened, I didn't see Megillah as saying when we offer general
thanks, it must be about both. Rather, he cannot be the kind of peson
that skips thanking Him for those things He does "for our own good"
(to paraphrase the stereotypical parent line).

And thus, no problem in the 4th berakhah of bentching, either.

:-)BBii!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             When a king dies, his power ends,
micha at aishdas.org        but when a prophet dies, his influence is just
http://www.aishdas.org   beginning.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                    - Soren Kierkegaard