HASHKOFO-----lack of in bais yaakov 2

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smile4me Posted - 10 January to003 8:06

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k, a few questions...

1. I learned in school that Bais Hillel & Shamai were arguing about which is better, to have been created or not- & they both decided that it was better that we shouldn’t have been created. So why did Hashem make it like that?

2. We live in olam hazeh to get sechar for olam haba, so in olam haba, all we're doing is just having a nice happy life in a beautiful house & every year doing the same thing over & over? What’s the fulfillment in that? Why would I want that? Isn’t that like olam hazeh, but only w/ the good?

And how do you believe in olam habah? It’s to far away for me to really believe.

But if I'm scared or upset, I automatically talk to hashem. So I'm kind of using Him. Why did Hashem create us? We're like piece dirt compared to Him!

3.My teacher said that if 1 outta to ppl were gonna die, & 1 was man & 1 lady, the lady would have to die. but why? why is a man better than a woman?

4.Why do BY schools not explain why we're Jewish, but only to the not religious ppl? Aren’t we supposed to know why we're Jewish & not just do everything cuz my mother does it?

Why does Hashem want that? And if He doesn't, then why doesn’t anyone have answers? Are there really answers?

If you have time, can you please answer these q's?

thanx.

MODERATOR Posted - 10 January to003 8:41

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1. This doesn’t mean that G-d did something bad for us - everything G-d does is Good, and He created us. So that’s good, then. What the Gemora means is that since there are more prohibitions in the Torah than Mitzvos, the odds, on paper, are against us succeeding in this world. However, you left out the rest of the Gemora, which says, "but now that he's here, let him do Mitzvos", which means, that since we have Bechirah, we can choose to beat the odds. We're not dependent on the dice. We’re dependent on our choices.

2. - In Olam Habah we become connected to Hashem - "part" of Hashem, so to speak. Therefore, just as Hashem is perfect, so too we will be able to plug into that perfection. It’s not a house or some unfulfilling reward. it’s THE ONLY fulfillment and infinite pleasure that a person can ever have. The reason why material things are unfulfilling is because you have a soul that doesn’t care for them - and it is your soul that remains unfulfilled. But your soul - and your body - will be perfectly fulfilled and perfectly happy with Olam Habah.

3 - Its not that one is "better" - it’s that the man has more Mitzvos. And since unfortunately, someone has to die in this situation - there is no option to save them both - this criterion is better than throwing the dice, which we would be doing otherwise. It also says, therefore, that a Kohen gets saved before a Levi, and a Levi before a Yisroel, for the same reasons. We have to choose somehow, and so we choose based on who has more Mitzvos.

As proof that it has nothing to do with who's better, there is another halachah that says if someone says "kill that person or I will kill you," you have to be killed and not kill that other person. The reason is, the Gemora says, "who says you are better than him?" This applies even if the other person is a woman and you are a man.

So where there is a choice, you cant allow anyone to die - and we don’t know who's more valuable. But if have to choose one over the other, then we can either (a) flip a coin, or (b) decide based on who has more mitzvos. (b" is a better choice.

4 - The reason BY schools don’t explain Judaism in a way the BT schools do is because

(a) they think you don’t need that kind of education - they’re wrong about this, and

(b) they don’t know the answers themselves. They were never trained in that type of Hashkafa, the way kiruv people were. This is why 166 schools a year - including some very mainstream BY's import Rabbi Mechanic from Aish HaTorah or Chevy Garfinkel, or someone like that, to come and teach at least a mini-course to the students on this topic.

As I said many many times on the these boards - if you want this information, you should read the Hashkafa books of Rabbi Avigdor Miller ZLT, and Permission to Believe and Permission to Receive by Rabbi Lawrence Kelleman, and when you’re done with that, you’ll be qualified to teach these things yourself, since you’ll know so much more than so many other frum people in the world.