Eikev: “Heel... Osky... HEAL!”
7:12
If only you listen to these laws, safeguarding and keeping them, then God your Lord will keep the covenant and love with which He made an oath to your fathers.
Eikev – “on the heels of,” i.e. as a result of your choices, this is what God will do.
This parsha focuses on reward and punishment.
For example, near the end of the parsha we find the second passage of the Shema, which teaches the doctrine of reward and punishment, one of the 13 essential principles of Judaism according to Rambam.
Why is reward and punishment an essence of life?
It is quite Pavlovian, I think, although my friend assures me that Pavlov only used positive reinforcement. I guess God disagrees with Pavlov.
I know this firsthand. Mentally and physically.
It wasn’t until I suffered emotionally that I began to realise (after only a decade!) that my behaviour towards others had to change - “put the other guy first.” And it wasn’t until my back gave out that I discovered that I was feeding myself much as one feeds a turkey, and that I had a choice, pain or change. Did I choose change?
Or did the changes in my mind and body push me to change?
The answer of course is both.
Without motivations, we do not move.
But what we do with those motivations is now in the arena of our freewill.
Like a tennis match… with the Almighty.
He lobs some back pain - you say… "we’re having Chinese take-out!"
He lobs you a hang over and you say... "give me a hair of the dog!"
Until one day perhaps the doctor is pulling on the surgical gloves.
Or you learn.
Do we have to learn like dogs?
No - as the Mishna in Avos (1:3) clearly teaches, it is better to serve with clear awareness of the true nature of your relationship to the Almighty, which will always be one of love when we realise just who He is and who you really are.
But as long as we act like dogs, we have to learn like dogs too. I don’t say that in a mean way, by the way. My dog Oscar is sleeping here (like a dog!) on the chair next to me. I like him. I don’t make a “human” out of him, though. I don’t think that’s a Torah value. But he is a fun companion for me and the family, and I think that’s ok.
My body is more than a fun companion for my soul, however, it is the Temple wherein my soul resides.
It deserves more than a Scooby Snacks vs. The Stick method of teaching. It deserves the respect a Temple deserves, and in truth our body is only on loan to us, we don’t own it. The body is a “rental” from God. The rental fee is doing acts of kindness and justice, and we are asked to please keep the place in good order, within reason. Hence Hillel the Elder would say on his way to the bath house that he was doing a “kindness for his Creator.”
But the truth is reward and punishment is a sliding scale kind of deal. Of course to speak about specifics of how God calculates sins and merits is far beyond the human imagination, as Rambam says in the laws of Teshuva, one cannot measure the performance of mitzvos (or non-performance) by human standards, which includes “halachic” ones. The law is given to us - to bind us to the Almighty. It does not reveal to us His Judgements, but rather what He wants from us. But the more we know - the more seriously we are graded. Just as we have a different set of educational expectations of a child in elementary school as opposed to a PhD candidate. As well, there is a different scale of reward and consequence. But at least they are on the same basic scale.
The difference between the reward of one who serves the Almighty through the messenger Pavlov is on an entirely different scale than one who serves as a true servant, with love and loyalty.
Even so - as long as we're learning the way of the dog, we are stuck with an impossible philosophical quandary:
If reward and punishment are meant to teach us, we must therefore be able to conclude God’s Judgment of us - so that we might derive what His Will is - so that we may DO IT. In other words - we have to hear, and then we can do... right?
Imagine to yourself whether or not a child in nursery school knows what the teacher really thinks of them. They do not. But they do recognise the faces of happy, disappointed, and with a good teacher the child will know the line across which they dare not step. They do not need to know the mind of the Teacher, but rather how the teacher relates to them.
Ok - good - but still - how God "relates " to us is up to interpretation. Are we all meant to meditate in the mountains for years to distill the direction God is leading us in?
The answer is that the Torah teaches, in our very Parsha, is that do not need to philosophically interpret what God wants - because He is the Creator and Maintain-er of All - which means that if we but pay attention to the world around us we will in a short time see clearly that the world respond to us.
If we treat a person with kindness, in most cases it will come back. If we control our impulse to eat for example, we'll also learn control over our impulse to blurt our stupid things. In short - we will choose well in life, by allowing the Almighty to use our lives as the schoolroom in which we excitedly sit all the days of our lives.
We don’t need to be philosophers. We also don’t need to be visionaries. I don’t think Osky is a visionary - but he knows quick like likety split when I am displeased with him, and changes his behaviour. (One hopes)
How does Osky the wonder dog do this? Does he know the Tao of Snoopy?
Yes. He does. He is just himself - having a relationship with his loving master.
When he is naughty he knows it - because he feels the removal of that love - that is enough for Osky to take notice. Osky is a smart dog, but he is no philosopher. He is 5 years old (that's 35 to you!) and still thinks I want him to bring my slippers. I've never asked him once for that - but still - he likes to feel useful, so I pat his head and put them back, later. I don't mind - if it makes him happy... but the Almighty care more about us than I care about Osky.
He wants our every action to be life-directed and purposeful. It's ok if we make mistakes, it's even expected. The verse says the righteous person falls seven times, and gets back up. It's not the falling that's the issue - but rather whether or not (and how carefully-stably) we can get back up.
10:12 – 13
And now, Israel, what does God want of you? Only that you remain in awe of God your Lord, so that you will follow all His paths and love Him, serving God your Lord with all your heart and with all your soul. You must keep God's commandments and decrees that I am prescribing for you today, so that good will be yours.
The Sages learn from here a principal, that “All is in the hand of Heaven except the fear of Heaven.”
The fear of Heaven is a general term referring to self-control, us taking responsibility for our behavior. So what the verse means is: You take responsibility for you – and let God take care of the rest. The Torah makes clear that God is perfectly capable of taking care of our needs – He is the “God of the powers and the Lord of the lords….” And He chose to love you – that is all you need to know. Our focus needs to be on ourselves – “im ain Ani li, mi li - if I am not accountable for myself, who will be?”
7:17 – 26
You might say to yourself, 'These nations are more numerous than we are. How will we be able to drive them out?
Do not be afraid of them.
You must remember what God did to Pharaoh and all the rest of Egypt.
[Recall] the great miracles that you saw with your own eyes - the signs, the wonders, the mighty hand and the outstretched arm with which God your Lord brought you out of Egypt. God will do the same to all the nations whom you fear.
God your Lord will also send deadly hornets to attack them, so that the survivors hiding from you will also be destroyed.
Do not cringe before [these nations]. God your Lord is with you - a great and awesome God. God will uproot these nations before you little by little.
You will not be allowed to finish them off too quickly, so that the wild animals not overwhelm you. God will place [these nations] in your power.
He will throw them into utter panic until they are destroyed.
He will place their kings in your power, and you will obliterate their names from under the heavens.
No man will stand up before you until you destroy them.
You must burn their idolatrous statues in fire. Do not desire the gold and silver on [these statues] and take it for yourselves. Let it not bring you into a deadly trap, since it is something offensive to God your Lord. Do not bring any offensive [idol] into your house, since you may become just like it.
Shun it totally and consider it absolutely offensive, since it is taboo.
It seems as if HaShem is strongly reassuring us that we don’t need to worry about our enemies, although we are outnumbered. Notice the word we might say: “Eicha” – does this remind us of anything? As in the title to the book of Lamentations and the theme of Tisha B’av, the saddest day of the calendar year, perhaps?
What does that teach us about being defeated by our enemies? That it happens when we, like the ten bad spies, lose faith in ourselves as capable representatives of the Almighty - from whom nothing is impossible.
Compare the Rashi Breishis 1:1 in the name of R. Yitzchok (or see “My Sword” in the epilogue section).
In verse 26 here it says not to bring an abomination into our homes, lest we become an abomination like it. This brings us to a practical question we all face as parents, if we try to keep a high “religious” standard. (Religion is in “quotes” because Torah is not a “religion” but rather a life path. So there, Mr. Maher - New Rule).
In any event - today modern culture comes seeping in through the walls and literally through the airwaves all around us. How far do we have to run to escape the influence of the Taboo?
There are of course different approaches to this, as people and their environs are different, but here is my personal rule.
When it comes to the influence of culture we will no doubt be influenced, just as we would be by a cold snowstorm, or any external environmental factor.
One could try to hibernate and cut off contact from the world at large in the face of the storm, but how long can one successfully hibernate?
I perfer to turn against the tide of culture, and allow it to challenge me to better myself, instead of running away from it. I know what it is “out there,” I grew up there after all. I don’t fear the corrupting influence of the material world, for thank God I grew up on the streets of LA enough to know the material world has little to offer in the way of happiness.
Culture can entertain, but a life overflowing with entertainment is a very boring life indeed. Doesn't reality TV prove this beyond the shadow of a reasonable doubt?
Life is meant to be lived.
The Torah is concerned that if we bring an idol into our house we will end up serving it and become an abomination like it. I think it is quite obvious that the internet indeed is full of the worst abominations of humankind, just as it is full of the greatest in us. Because Mr. Gore’s brainchild, the internet, has just turned humankind into a hive. For what greater purpose? For what fortunate truth?
The future will tell - but as we trust in the One Above, there’s no worry.
But if the internet in our home is the station we plug into, or plug our children into, to avoid the living of life itself, then we are lower than the poor suckers in the Matrix who take the blue pill. Because we take the ADSL plug and stick into the base of skulls without any help from the Matrix.
8:1-5
You must safeguard and keep the entire mandate that I am prescribing to you today.
You will then survive, flourish, and come to occupy the land that God swore to your fathers.
Remember the entire path along which God your Lord led you these forty years in the desert.
He sent hardships to test you, to determine what is in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not.
He made life difficult for you, letting you go hungry, and then He fed you the Manna, which neither you nor your ancestors had ever experienced.
This was to teach you that it is not by bread alone that man lives, but by all that comes out of God's mouth.
The clothing you wore did not become tattered, and your feet did not become bruised these forty years.
You must thus meditate on the fact that just as a man might chastise his child, so God your Lord is chastising you.
The Targum Onkeles translates “chastise” as mailaf, meaning “teach.” But the Hebrew yiyaser often means punish. How does one teach their child through punishment?
When we think about all the things that the Children of Israel suffered in the desert, we find in each case that there was a ready solution to their issues – just as the verse states – “to see if we would observe the commandments or not.”
What commandment is being referred to here?
All of them - but specifically, whether or not they would trust in the Almighty's ability to help, and PRAY.
When facing hunger and adversity a person faces a fork in the road.
Either they will abandon their beliefs as useless, for look, they are suffering!
Or they will cling even more closely to their beliefs... because they are not an empty security blanket - but real!
Notice in the above verse that it is not only the Manna from heaven that teaches us that our bread comes from the word of God, but also the experience of hunger. God made us feel hunger, real hunger, and that’s ok.
The lesson is that all things are from God - not only the bread He brought forth from the ground - but all things.
In fact this is a good place to learn the meaning of a blessing we say at least every Shabbos.
“Hamotzei lechem min ha’aretz”
Doesn’t that blessing contradict a verse in Genesis? Doesn’t the Almighty curse mankind with the words:
To Adam He said, 'You listened to your wife, and ate from the tree regarding which I specifically gave you orders, saying, 'Do not eat from it.'
The ground will therefore be cursed because of you. You will derive food from it with anguish all the days of your life.
So who brings forth the bread from the earth - the creative power of the Almighty, or the sweat and toil of the farmer?
The answer is simple:
To one who makes a blessing before their food - even though the honourable farmer is the messenger (as well as soil, rain and sun) still the answer is #1.
When we make a blessing with kavana it helps us develop our awareness that it is ok to be dependent on God - He will not abandon us, and He is always able to provide. God loves us, wants only the best for us, and even difficulties are here for us to learn from, and the faster and more accurately, the better!
Above all the first and worst mistake is to assume negative things about God’s motivations. (See Rashi Devarim 1:27) Those assumptions are what are called in modern psychology projection.
We believe God hates us or wants to punish us if we feel that way about ourselves, or if we hate God for placing moral or ethical “demands” upon us that we feel we cannot or don’t want to live by.
If we feel pain, we blame God both for not relieving the pain, and we resent the very system which makes us dependent on Him, as if a creature only held in existence by the ever-present Will of the Creator has any other options….
When a person feels pain, we often want to find someone or something to blame. This paradoxically takes away our ability to find serenity. I’ve heard it said that we cannot avoid pain, but we can avoid suffering. Serenity comes when we accept that there are things we cannot control, and focus instead on changing what is in our power to change. What was in the b’nei Yisroel’s power to do, and is always in all of our power to do - is to pray – to ask God for help.
On another level, a parent teaches their children at times by allowing them to suffer the consequences of their actions without trying to shield them.
This is always a tough call, and a difficult thing to do because we love our children and don’t want to see them suffer. But if we (for example) allow a child to take a sick day in order to get an extra day to study for a test they weren’t ready for, we are missing teaching them something much more important than getting good grades at school. We could teach them that life will hold them accountable for the actions, and that lesson is more vital than Calculus.
We may cause them temporary discomfort and a bad mark on a test, but in the end we will save them from many a heartache. Of course, one has to pick their battles, and we are given sechel (reason) for a reason. The point is - we don’t do our children favors when we help them avoid responsibility.
If only you listen to these laws, safeguarding and keeping them, then God your Lord will keep the covenant and love with which He made an oath to your fathers.
Eikev – “on the heels of,” i.e. as a result of your choices, this is what God will do.
This parsha focuses on reward and punishment.
For example, near the end of the parsha we find the second passage of the Shema, which teaches the doctrine of reward and punishment, one of the 13 essential principles of Judaism according to Rambam.
Why is reward and punishment an essence of life?
It is quite Pavlovian, I think, although my friend assures me that Pavlov only used positive reinforcement. I guess God disagrees with Pavlov.
I know this firsthand. Mentally and physically.
It wasn’t until I suffered emotionally that I began to realise (after only a decade!) that my behaviour towards others had to change - “put the other guy first.” And it wasn’t until my back gave out that I discovered that I was feeding myself much as one feeds a turkey, and that I had a choice, pain or change. Did I choose change?
Or did the changes in my mind and body push me to change?
The answer of course is both.
Without motivations, we do not move.
But what we do with those motivations is now in the arena of our freewill.
Like a tennis match… with the Almighty.
He lobs some back pain - you say… "we’re having Chinese take-out!"
He lobs you a hang over and you say... "give me a hair of the dog!"
Until one day perhaps the doctor is pulling on the surgical gloves.
Or you learn.
Do we have to learn like dogs?
No - as the Mishna in Avos (1:3) clearly teaches, it is better to serve with clear awareness of the true nature of your relationship to the Almighty, which will always be one of love when we realise just who He is and who you really are.
But as long as we act like dogs, we have to learn like dogs too. I don’t say that in a mean way, by the way. My dog Oscar is sleeping here (like a dog!) on the chair next to me. I like him. I don’t make a “human” out of him, though. I don’t think that’s a Torah value. But he is a fun companion for me and the family, and I think that’s ok.
My body is more than a fun companion for my soul, however, it is the Temple wherein my soul resides.
It deserves more than a Scooby Snacks vs. The Stick method of teaching. It deserves the respect a Temple deserves, and in truth our body is only on loan to us, we don’t own it. The body is a “rental” from God. The rental fee is doing acts of kindness and justice, and we are asked to please keep the place in good order, within reason. Hence Hillel the Elder would say on his way to the bath house that he was doing a “kindness for his Creator.”
But the truth is reward and punishment is a sliding scale kind of deal. Of course to speak about specifics of how God calculates sins and merits is far beyond the human imagination, as Rambam says in the laws of Teshuva, one cannot measure the performance of mitzvos (or non-performance) by human standards, which includes “halachic” ones. The law is given to us - to bind us to the Almighty. It does not reveal to us His Judgements, but rather what He wants from us. But the more we know - the more seriously we are graded. Just as we have a different set of educational expectations of a child in elementary school as opposed to a PhD candidate. As well, there is a different scale of reward and consequence. But at least they are on the same basic scale.
The difference between the reward of one who serves the Almighty through the messenger Pavlov is on an entirely different scale than one who serves as a true servant, with love and loyalty.
Even so - as long as we're learning the way of the dog, we are stuck with an impossible philosophical quandary:
If reward and punishment are meant to teach us, we must therefore be able to conclude God’s Judgment of us - so that we might derive what His Will is - so that we may DO IT. In other words - we have to hear, and then we can do... right?
Imagine to yourself whether or not a child in nursery school knows what the teacher really thinks of them. They do not. But they do recognise the faces of happy, disappointed, and with a good teacher the child will know the line across which they dare not step. They do not need to know the mind of the Teacher, but rather how the teacher relates to them.
Ok - good - but still - how God "relates " to us is up to interpretation. Are we all meant to meditate in the mountains for years to distill the direction God is leading us in?
The answer is that the Torah teaches, in our very Parsha, is that do not need to philosophically interpret what God wants - because He is the Creator and Maintain-er of All - which means that if we but pay attention to the world around us we will in a short time see clearly that the world respond to us.
If we treat a person with kindness, in most cases it will come back. If we control our impulse to eat for example, we'll also learn control over our impulse to blurt our stupid things. In short - we will choose well in life, by allowing the Almighty to use our lives as the schoolroom in which we excitedly sit all the days of our lives.
We don’t need to be philosophers. We also don’t need to be visionaries. I don’t think Osky is a visionary - but he knows quick like likety split when I am displeased with him, and changes his behaviour. (One hopes)
How does Osky the wonder dog do this? Does he know the Tao of Snoopy?
Yes. He does. He is just himself - having a relationship with his loving master.
When he is naughty he knows it - because he feels the removal of that love - that is enough for Osky to take notice. Osky is a smart dog, but he is no philosopher. He is 5 years old (that's 35 to you!) and still thinks I want him to bring my slippers. I've never asked him once for that - but still - he likes to feel useful, so I pat his head and put them back, later. I don't mind - if it makes him happy... but the Almighty care more about us than I care about Osky.
He wants our every action to be life-directed and purposeful. It's ok if we make mistakes, it's even expected. The verse says the righteous person falls seven times, and gets back up. It's not the falling that's the issue - but rather whether or not (and how carefully-stably) we can get back up.
10:12 – 13
And now, Israel, what does God want of you? Only that you remain in awe of God your Lord, so that you will follow all His paths and love Him, serving God your Lord with all your heart and with all your soul. You must keep God's commandments and decrees that I am prescribing for you today, so that good will be yours.
The Sages learn from here a principal, that “All is in the hand of Heaven except the fear of Heaven.”
The fear of Heaven is a general term referring to self-control, us taking responsibility for our behavior. So what the verse means is: You take responsibility for you – and let God take care of the rest. The Torah makes clear that God is perfectly capable of taking care of our needs – He is the “God of the powers and the Lord of the lords….” And He chose to love you – that is all you need to know. Our focus needs to be on ourselves – “im ain Ani li, mi li - if I am not accountable for myself, who will be?”
7:17 – 26
You might say to yourself, 'These nations are more numerous than we are. How will we be able to drive them out?
Do not be afraid of them.
You must remember what God did to Pharaoh and all the rest of Egypt.
[Recall] the great miracles that you saw with your own eyes - the signs, the wonders, the mighty hand and the outstretched arm with which God your Lord brought you out of Egypt. God will do the same to all the nations whom you fear.
God your Lord will also send deadly hornets to attack them, so that the survivors hiding from you will also be destroyed.
Do not cringe before [these nations]. God your Lord is with you - a great and awesome God. God will uproot these nations before you little by little.
You will not be allowed to finish them off too quickly, so that the wild animals not overwhelm you. God will place [these nations] in your power.
He will throw them into utter panic until they are destroyed.
He will place their kings in your power, and you will obliterate their names from under the heavens.
No man will stand up before you until you destroy them.
You must burn their idolatrous statues in fire. Do not desire the gold and silver on [these statues] and take it for yourselves. Let it not bring you into a deadly trap, since it is something offensive to God your Lord. Do not bring any offensive [idol] into your house, since you may become just like it.
Shun it totally and consider it absolutely offensive, since it is taboo.
It seems as if HaShem is strongly reassuring us that we don’t need to worry about our enemies, although we are outnumbered. Notice the word we might say: “Eicha” – does this remind us of anything? As in the title to the book of Lamentations and the theme of Tisha B’av, the saddest day of the calendar year, perhaps?
What does that teach us about being defeated by our enemies? That it happens when we, like the ten bad spies, lose faith in ourselves as capable representatives of the Almighty - from whom nothing is impossible.
Compare the Rashi Breishis 1:1 in the name of R. Yitzchok (or see “My Sword” in the epilogue section).
In verse 26 here it says not to bring an abomination into our homes, lest we become an abomination like it. This brings us to a practical question we all face as parents, if we try to keep a high “religious” standard. (Religion is in “quotes” because Torah is not a “religion” but rather a life path. So there, Mr. Maher - New Rule).
In any event - today modern culture comes seeping in through the walls and literally through the airwaves all around us. How far do we have to run to escape the influence of the Taboo?
There are of course different approaches to this, as people and their environs are different, but here is my personal rule.
When it comes to the influence of culture we will no doubt be influenced, just as we would be by a cold snowstorm, or any external environmental factor.
One could try to hibernate and cut off contact from the world at large in the face of the storm, but how long can one successfully hibernate?
I perfer to turn against the tide of culture, and allow it to challenge me to better myself, instead of running away from it. I know what it is “out there,” I grew up there after all. I don’t fear the corrupting influence of the material world, for thank God I grew up on the streets of LA enough to know the material world has little to offer in the way of happiness.
Culture can entertain, but a life overflowing with entertainment is a very boring life indeed. Doesn't reality TV prove this beyond the shadow of a reasonable doubt?
Life is meant to be lived.
The Torah is concerned that if we bring an idol into our house we will end up serving it and become an abomination like it. I think it is quite obvious that the internet indeed is full of the worst abominations of humankind, just as it is full of the greatest in us. Because Mr. Gore’s brainchild, the internet, has just turned humankind into a hive. For what greater purpose? For what fortunate truth?
The future will tell - but as we trust in the One Above, there’s no worry.
But if the internet in our home is the station we plug into, or plug our children into, to avoid the living of life itself, then we are lower than the poor suckers in the Matrix who take the blue pill. Because we take the ADSL plug and stick into the base of skulls without any help from the Matrix.
8:1-5
You must safeguard and keep the entire mandate that I am prescribing to you today.
You will then survive, flourish, and come to occupy the land that God swore to your fathers.
Remember the entire path along which God your Lord led you these forty years in the desert.
He sent hardships to test you, to determine what is in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not.
He made life difficult for you, letting you go hungry, and then He fed you the Manna, which neither you nor your ancestors had ever experienced.
This was to teach you that it is not by bread alone that man lives, but by all that comes out of God's mouth.
The clothing you wore did not become tattered, and your feet did not become bruised these forty years.
You must thus meditate on the fact that just as a man might chastise his child, so God your Lord is chastising you.
The Targum Onkeles translates “chastise” as mailaf, meaning “teach.” But the Hebrew yiyaser often means punish. How does one teach their child through punishment?
When we think about all the things that the Children of Israel suffered in the desert, we find in each case that there was a ready solution to their issues – just as the verse states – “to see if we would observe the commandments or not.”
What commandment is being referred to here?
All of them - but specifically, whether or not they would trust in the Almighty's ability to help, and PRAY.
When facing hunger and adversity a person faces a fork in the road.
Either they will abandon their beliefs as useless, for look, they are suffering!
Or they will cling even more closely to their beliefs... because they are not an empty security blanket - but real!
Notice in the above verse that it is not only the Manna from heaven that teaches us that our bread comes from the word of God, but also the experience of hunger. God made us feel hunger, real hunger, and that’s ok.
The lesson is that all things are from God - not only the bread He brought forth from the ground - but all things.
In fact this is a good place to learn the meaning of a blessing we say at least every Shabbos.
“Hamotzei lechem min ha’aretz”
Doesn’t that blessing contradict a verse in Genesis? Doesn’t the Almighty curse mankind with the words:
To Adam He said, 'You listened to your wife, and ate from the tree regarding which I specifically gave you orders, saying, 'Do not eat from it.'
The ground will therefore be cursed because of you. You will derive food from it with anguish all the days of your life.
So who brings forth the bread from the earth - the creative power of the Almighty, or the sweat and toil of the farmer?
The answer is simple:
To one who makes a blessing before their food - even though the honourable farmer is the messenger (as well as soil, rain and sun) still the answer is #1.
When we make a blessing with kavana it helps us develop our awareness that it is ok to be dependent on God - He will not abandon us, and He is always able to provide. God loves us, wants only the best for us, and even difficulties are here for us to learn from, and the faster and more accurately, the better!
Above all the first and worst mistake is to assume negative things about God’s motivations. (See Rashi Devarim 1:27) Those assumptions are what are called in modern psychology projection.
We believe God hates us or wants to punish us if we feel that way about ourselves, or if we hate God for placing moral or ethical “demands” upon us that we feel we cannot or don’t want to live by.
If we feel pain, we blame God both for not relieving the pain, and we resent the very system which makes us dependent on Him, as if a creature only held in existence by the ever-present Will of the Creator has any other options….
When a person feels pain, we often want to find someone or something to blame. This paradoxically takes away our ability to find serenity. I’ve heard it said that we cannot avoid pain, but we can avoid suffering. Serenity comes when we accept that there are things we cannot control, and focus instead on changing what is in our power to change. What was in the b’nei Yisroel’s power to do, and is always in all of our power to do - is to pray – to ask God for help.
On another level, a parent teaches their children at times by allowing them to suffer the consequences of their actions without trying to shield them.
This is always a tough call, and a difficult thing to do because we love our children and don’t want to see them suffer. But if we (for example) allow a child to take a sick day in order to get an extra day to study for a test they weren’t ready for, we are missing teaching them something much more important than getting good grades at school. We could teach them that life will hold them accountable for the actions, and that lesson is more vital than Calculus.
We may cause them temporary discomfort and a bad mark on a test, but in the end we will save them from many a heartache. Of course, one has to pick their battles, and we are given sechel (reason) for a reason. The point is - we don’t do our children favors when we help them avoid responsibility.