EMUNAH & BITACHON-----why bad things happen

People say that when G-d makes a bad thing happen that our emunah is meant to become stronger. How can that be? For me personally, my emunah is weakened, how can G-d the King of the universe cause a family to be motherless,fatherless,brotherless,sisterless etc. It's destroying people??


There are people who only believe in Capitalism because they are rich. But when they lose all their money, they change their mind. If you only believe in an ideal when it suits you then you don't really believe in it at all. Rather, you believe in your own comfort. And anything that suits that goal becomes your ideal. So too with Emunah.

If the world would not be a world of darkness, if everything that happened would show us Hashem's Hashgochoh and Light, then we really would have no Emunah. Emunah means to KNOW that Hashem is running the world despite the darkness. That even though things seem wrong, still, they are all part of Hashem's Master Plan. How can such a belief exist except in a world of darkness? So Hashem made this world very messed up. It HAS to be messed up, otherwise we would not get any credit for believing.

As far as the ruining people's lives is concerned, even though visibly, and emotionally it seems that way, but people with Emunah know that despite the pain and the darkness, things are not as they seem, and that somehow, some way, when Moshiach comes and we see what REALLY happened here, we will thank Hashem for everything He did to us in this world. It's that kind of Emunah that we have to cultivate. Please see the Basic Judaism forum where this is explained at length.


You know, people always say 'don't ask questions' and 'you'll understand when moshiach comes'.

Well, what about now? How can we deal with this pain and be brought closer to G-d through this People are angry with G-d and can't understand it, and it's not good enough to say wait for moshiach because we don't know when it's coming?

If death is something that's meant to bring us closer to Hashem, why is it so painful and so hard for people to deal with it? Why does G-d choose the most righteous people to take from this world?



If you know that this world is by definition and necessity a world of darkness, where things re not as they seem, and it was meant to be so purposely, you will not feel this way. This world is a physical world. Physical worlds cannot display reality, since they are limited, our understanding is limited, and reality is only when you have unlimited information. That's why the word "sheker" in Hebrew consists of 3 letters which are all in one spot - kuf raish shin - right next to each other, but "emes", truth - consists of the first, last, and exact middle letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Because truth is when you have the whole picture, and falsehood is when you only have part.

In this world, because we are physical, and it is physical, we do not get the whole picture. We get like to peek through a little peep hole to see just a bit. But we're missing a lot because we are not infinite.

So imagine you’re peeking through that peephole. And you see someone strapped to a table with 6 people cutting him up horribly with knives. He's bleeding all over the place and you cry out to G-d to stop the atrocity in disbelief that He would allow something like that to happen in His world. Imagine, if, c"v, it was a close friend or loved one of yours, how angry you would be. But then the peep hole widens, and you see the people with knives wearing surgeons' uniforms, and the person being cut up actually undergoing a heart transplant to save his life. Then you know the whole story, and you're not complaining anymore. You're thanking Hashem for what a moment ago you were angry at Him for. This world is a world of darkness. In darkness, we cannot always see the whole picture.

More, we always cannot see the whole picture. You have to live your life with this realization. Someone walking around in a dark room will be careful to feel ahead of them so they don't bump into furniture. But if you think that the vague images you see in the darkness is all that there is, you're going to walk around and probably kill yourself bumping into things you don't see. That's how we have to live in this world. G-d guides is through the darkness with His Torah.

We have to accept the limitations of our vision and our inability to perceive what is really happening. When Moshiach comes its not that Moshiach is so smart He will be able to answer such hard questions, rather, the lights in the room will then go on; the "peep hole" will get infinitely large, and we will be able to see that our questions weren't really questions at all.

We live in darkness. That's a fact. We have a choice: Either accept it, or spend life getting hurt.

If you know that this world is by definition and necessity a world of darkness, where things re not as they seem, and it was meant to be so purposely, you will not feel this way. This world is a physical world. Physical worlds cannot display reality, since they are limited, our understanding is limited, and reality is only when you have unlimited information.