Sunday, July 01, 2018

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Is G-d Angry?

   by Reb Gutman Locks

Is G-d Angry?

Eliyahu asks:

     It was you who got me to read the Torah for the first time about 15 years ago. I'm a bit stuck now. When I read the Chumash (Torah) I have great difficulty not thinking of Hashem as an easily angered character. I've asked many, many Rabbis for help. None have helped.


Gutman's reply:

     Hashem has many names. Each Name stands for a different way that He relates to us at different times depending on the need. Sometimes He seems like our Father, sometimes like our King. We do not talk to our Father the same way that we talk to our King.

     We all see things from our own perspective. Personally, I am always amazed that throughout our history such wonderful exalted people have made so many foolish mistakes, and at the same time I wonder what hope there is for someone on our level.

     Perhaps the greatest mistake was when a few weeks after freeing the Jewish people from the harsh Egyptian slavery, and then giving the Jews standing there His wonderful Torah by showing them the most exalted visions imaginable, that a few weeks later they set up a golden calf to worship? How is that possible? Oy!

     Way before that, the first man was specifically told not to eat that fruit, but he ate it anyway! Is this nuts or what? His wife after eating it gave it to him to eat. What in the world did she do! Their first child murdered his brother! On and on…

     After seeing how Sarah's slave Hagar acted against Sarah, Avraham still took her back and gave her a child!

     Our father Yitzchak preferred the evil Esau to the righteous Yaacov… on and on…

     Moshe hit the rock when Hashem told him to talk to it.

     Dovid, the beloved of Hashem, did some really nutty things …

     These were the most holy, humble, beloved people Hashem created, yet look at their all too human mistakes.

     Now, while we are on the subject shall I list my mistakes? Oy! Really oy! It would take a huge book to do such a thing.

     Every day I thank G-d for His kindness for allowing me to be in the world. Thank G-d someone like me can turn from what I was doing and live a life surrounded with good people trying to do good things.

    My point is, each of us looks at the particular Name of G-d from our own perspective, from where we are holding, the Name that fits our current place.

    And you? Thankful? Angry? Indifferent? ?


1 comment:

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