Getting closer to Hashem

It was a good day. I decided to start breaking open the Emunah discourse with a bit of important information to carry us through the next three weeks. Here is the post from facebookand the comments that followed.

Emunah Bitachon Besimcha Thursday, July 02 09: Let's begin the process of getting closer to Hashem by realizing that WHY is a stop word, and HOW is a go word. Why me? will never have a proper answer, How can I work things out gives us a path to work with. Today let us concentrate to stop asking Hashem Why, and begin asking Hashem... HOW! THANK YOU HASHEM

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Shoshanah at 10:04pm July 2

How about why should I do this mitzvah over that one? Is that a why question we can ask? How else do you learn to discern which mitzvah to do at what time and when a given mitzvah takes precedence?

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Richard at 12:03am July 3

Maybe asking HOW can I do both would be the question?

Emunah Bitachon Besimcha at 3:48am July 3

Asking WHY does God do this or that? Why me? These Why questions - the one that takes us away from Emunah, Bitachon B'Simcha. How can I come closer, How can I move forward etc. Those are good questions. Emunah is a paradox not everything can be understood. Asking Why people die, why bad things happen, they do not have any answers. Asking HOW to handle it, how to move forward, that we can answer. We need to stop victimizing our WHY? and staying focused on the HOW

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Shoshanah at 5:00am July 3

Thanks. What does it mean that Emunah is a paradox?

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Shoshanah at 8:17am July 3

I hear not getting into victim thinking, however there is one value in asking why and that is to correct our ways. e.g. someone who had a stroke or heart attack (lo aleinu) who had lived a fast paced life with no exercise and unhealthy food, needs to learn how to live a healthy balanced lifestyle. In this case asking why shows all the lifestyle ... Read More

Emunah Bitachon Besimcha at 2:41am July 5

Dear Shoshana
Asking How after a heart attack is to take steps not to get there again. Asking Hashem why did I get a heart attack is futile and has no answer. Emunah means when we do not understand God/Hashem. Our father Avraham was told go take your son to the mountain, and before Hashem said in Yitzchok your son there will be nations created, how are both possible? That is the paradox of Emunah/Faith. After something happens it is possible to go back and say I understand why, if we want to... but until then what we do as we move forward is believe that Hashem knows what he is doing and we have faith that it is all for the good.
This process of believing is a hard thing to process, that is why we are teaching it here one step at a time. We are not father Abraham, but over time we may reach a step closer to have faith in Hashem even on his level of belief. Stick with us - there are more baby steps yet to take.

THANK YOU HASHEM!