Find favor and understanding in the eyes of Gd and man
One of my sister’s friends from pre-school grew up in a home where the parents did not know how to discipline the girl’s older brother. I remember that my sister’s friend would come over to play and she would have marks on her arms, red welts, and tears running down her face. She would come over to get away from her brother. As she grew up, she found that the theme of being hurt and abused continued, through college, and even into her marriage, into her children’s school experience and beyond. She often shares with my sister how she feels she has a Ph.D. in abuse, but she has no idea why. Nevertheless, she has remained a kind person, and has become solid in emunah. Every day she prays that her service be pleasing to Hashem and that those inflicting the harm should no longer have any reason to do so, that Hashem should no longer find it good in His eyes to deliver the pain and suffering she endures.
From Birchas Hamazon: “Vnimzah chain vseichel tov bainai elokim vadom” So may we find favor and understanding in the sight of Gd and man.
Her example is one where she came to realize that if her service is pleasing in Hashem’s eyes, then Hashem will make it that she is pleasing in the eyes of people.
In Mishlei, it says “my child do not forget My Torah and let your heart guard My commandments. For they add to you length of days and years of life and peace. Kindness and truth will not forsake you. Bind them upon your neck; inscribe them on the tablet of your heart, and you will find favor and goodly wisdom in the eyes of Gd and man.”
What a young child cannot control is the instinctive urge for revenge and justice. When we experience hurtfulness at the time when we need protection, assistance, understanding and loving and gentle guidance, our basic will, our primal will can become corrupted – it shifts from wanting to do what is good and right in Gd’s eyes and instead we develop internalized coping and survival mechanisms that may appear to work but that inherently are corrupted because they leave Gd out of the picture. What small child could be expected to do otherwise? This is why a loving and emunah-dik environment in a household is so crucial.
Yet as we grow older, what is familiar is attractive to us, even if painful, because we know what is involved. Sometimes we bring the past into the present by trying to prevent it in the future. And our past traumas dominate our existence and sub-consciousness, preventing us from living in the present and having a relationship with Hashem where we can truly serve Him for His sake.
If we fail to learn Torah principles and Jewish wisdom, if we fail to correct the corruption of our primal will that occurred when we are young, we subconsciously become engaged in painful activities due to emotional bonds from the past. But we ARE responsible for these mistakes and for correcting and straightening out the corruptions to our primal will. Why? Every soul has a unique tikkun, a unique repair that Hashem sent us here to fix. He makes sure that we are placed in the position we need and provides the circumstances so that we can have a chance to do our tikkun.
Rabbi Silver in the Code of Jewish Conduct referring to the prohibition against taking revenge refers to the Chofetz Chaim, “Even in a case where we are emotionally abused or physically hurt, the issurim of nekima and netira still apply. According to them, nothing in this world is important enough to warrant taking revenge. The true cause of the pain inflicted by them is our aveiros and they were the tool to bring about this experience that we needed”
The secret is to develop proper yiras Shemayim, proper fear of Hashem. If instead we react to our emotional makeup by exacerbating situations, human nature is right there to inflict upon us the reminders that Hashem is not yet viewing us as having improved our selves significantly in His eyes. Hashem has many sticks in His hand with which to strike us, for our own good, to bring us back onto the path, to help us find again the correct mountain to climb upon which we can begin to serve Him.
Mesillas Yesharim p. 101 “”there is appropriate fear and there is foolish fear. There is confidence and there is recklessness. The Lord blessed be He, has invested man with sound intelligence and judgment so that he may follow the right path and protect himself from the instruments of injury that have been created to punish evildoers.
It is here that a leap from an individual to a global message to inspire us to improve our selves as the Jewish people comes into focus.
Mesillas Yesharim continues “One who allows himself not to be guided by wisdom and exposes himself to dangers is displaying not trust, but recklessness; and he is a sinner in that he flouts the will of the Creator…who desires that a man protect himself…
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Do we have proper fear of our own sins and the consequences? When we fear, is it a bit of corrupted primal will that is causing us to fear something other than Hashem?
Mesillas Yesharim continues “where there is a likelihood of danger, it is different. ..that is, where there is a recognized possibility of injury, one must be heedful, but where there is no apparent danger, one should not be afraid…We do not assume an imperfection where we do not see one.”
Or is it, in fact, clarity that the harm is before us because of something we need to correct, a harm that Hashem can remove in an instant if we succeed with doing our tikkun and repairing what we need to repair in His eyes?
How can we make our selves more pleasing in His eyes? We appear goodly in His eyes when we strive to be Gdly, by learning, by emulating, and by giving.
Many thanks to Rabbi Yaakov Zalman Labinsky for his website : http://www.becomingdivine.com
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