[Avodah] nisyonot

[Daniel Israel]

This is never how I understood this concept at all, but I have no source.  Who says we know what the nisayon was, and what constitutes passing or failing?  

Take someone who came to America in the 1880s and felt they had no choice but to take a job on Shabbos to support their family.  But the person was determined to raise children with Yiddishkeit as best he could and sent them to Jewish schools.  Did the person pass or fail?  What was the test?  We won’t find this man’s story highlighted in typical frum publications, but what is his schar for all the grandchildren he has in Yeshiva?

A nisayon is not a pop quiz in Kitzur Shulchan Aruch.  It’s a deep test in who we are as a person.  We don’t know what HaShem is testing us for, and perhaps we never know (in this world), whether we passed.

This seems clear to me.  OTOH, for myself, I know that a personal nisayon I regularly face is not to use this understanding as an excuse.

—
Daniel M. Israel
daniel at israels.me

> On Aug 28, 2023, at 2:52 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah <avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote:
> 
>> On Tue, Aug 22, 2023 at 05:11:19PM -0400, Joel Rich via Avodah wrote:
>> I was comforted to hear that R H Schachter believes that some people are
>> given nisyonot that they can't overcome and thus are held blameless (it
>> took me decades to come to believe that after being constantly told the
>> opposite). Your thoughts?
> 
> The alternative is to be prepared to blame a Holocaust survivor who lost
> his faith for becoming a kofeir.