Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Questions, Answers & Their Importance

These questions were submitted anonymously by the same person and answered by R' Dovid Levine.

Q: Why did Hashem bring us a neshama if we would get big troubles in life?

A: Hashem gave us a neshama so we could choose to do His will, rectify the world according to His plan, and, consequently, enjoy indescribable eternal pleasure.

Q: I have always wondered why does Hashem try to hide His face doesn't he want us to know He is there with us at all times?

A:Hashem hides because we are not great enough for Him to show Himself and still have free will. For the world to reach its purpose, we need to have free will to serve him. If He showed Himself, everyone would feel no choice but to do the right thing. Also, in order to increase our accomplishments and reward, Hashem raises the challenge by hiding in nature.

Q: I have recently learned that there is four different kind of galus there all very bad the one we are in is very very long why does there have to be more than one different galus?
A: The world needs to travel a long path to rectification. We need to travel along four roads of galus to reach the objective. Each one of the four roads bring us closer to the ultimate redemption.


Q: Its been years years and a lot of years! when will moshiach finally come!
Q: I heard all about moshiach but how do I really know it will come? how do I know its not a joke I hear all about it
A: The more important question is are we doing our job. Moshiach is mostly Hashem’s business, and it is not supposed to be the focus of our life. We need to focus on fulfilling the mitzvos and improving our emunah and middos.
We get great reward when we have doubts and still try to accept what the Torah says. The Torah refers to Moshiach and his times in several places: Beraishis 49:10, Bamidbar 24:17-19, Devarim 30:1-10, 32:34-43. Look them up. Many more times the ultimate redemption is spoken of by our prophets in Na”ch. Just as the exiles the Torah warns about came true, so will the redemption it promises.

As always, questions are encouraged so that I can work on getting the best answers for you.You can submit it anonymously on the right, post your question as a comment or if you would like, you can send an email to inspirationalinformation1 [at] gmail [dot] com and the answer to your question will be sent to your inbox.
It is so important to ask questions about yiddishkeit. Although it is important to remember that "the first thing to understand is that we can't understand," that's just a prerequisite to any question you have. But if a person were to live their lives repeating this line to themselves and not seeking answers, they'd be in very big trouble!

Torah is not about stifling questions and never getting answers. If our rabbanim and gedolim did that, we wouldn't have clarity in any area. That's what all the meforshim are all about - they asked, (understood that we may not be able to fully understand) and then dug deep to try to find the answers-and got them! That's how a person can develop and appreciate the depth of Torah and the beauty of it, from the questions AND the answers!! If not for all the questions, how would we have torah sheba'al peh? All the seforim on all topics that we have now come from people's thirst for knowledge and answers!! So if you ever have other questions, make sure you ask someone. Don't let yourself be satisfied with "we cannot understand" - when it's the first stage. Ask. And then if you don't get the most satisfying answer, you should have that line in the back of your head. But keep searching, keep asking and keep looking because you will find the answer!!

When I was in high school, a girl in my class asked a question to our teacher (a good, deep question) and the teacher said she would answer her after class. (I guess she felt it was too long of an answer to give over to the whole class in middle of the lesson and the answer would be deep and possibly fly over some girls heads) and I was stuck with that question for a long time...until one day I took out the Hamodia and saw the exact question and an amazingly clear answer right before my very own eyes!! I was so floored and the answer was so good and so deep! (I just wish I would have saved that page from the paper.)

So just keep in mind how very important it is to ask-because that is the foundation of our Torah. Questions and answers give us a love and appreciation for who we are and what treasure we have!! May you always feel so lucky to be a Jew and may you always find the best answers to your important questions!! :-)

6 comments:

  1. Beautifully written :) Such a good point about asking questions. It also helps to have someone to ask. Probably all of the stigma associated with asking people questions that bother us is due to past experiences (and therefore, expectations) when we were rebuffed, scorned, mocked, looked dumb at etc, etc. Reading this article makes us want to be not just askers of questions, but also good listeners who can hopefully provide answers to friends who ask us things. Thanks!

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  2. Thank you so, so much for making this website available. The first step is for me to know that I have somewhere/one to ask if I am ever confused, so THANK YOU!!

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  3. I just wanted to say thanks for visiting me and that I find your site here very interesting and will definitely be coming back :)

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  4. R-Thanks. It's sad when girls are looked down upon for asking questions. That's the way they can grow and increase their understanding of Torah! By encouraging questions, we can hopefully help girls get their answers. I agree with your last part-how important it is to get answers to our own questions so when others have the same questions we can help them out!
    (hint...hint...)

    luv-Thank you for coming to this site and always leaving your comments! That helps me want to continue writing-when I see someone is reading it. I'm glad we are here for you-keep asking and quenching your thirst for knowledge!

    Sara-Thanks for visiting here too. You are always invited back! :)

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  5. wow! some of these questions i had in my mind 4 a while as well! i had 60 questions written down before but now i dont know what happend 2 them since finals came....
    i just know that when i was in 7th grade i was the 1 always, always asking questions, and the girls in my class got realy anoyd at me for asking questions, then when it does lets say come to pesach i would ask a bunch of questions but after2of them some ppl. always get anoyed at them...but then whenever i do ask a question there are always ppl. who dont want to answer them-so how do we know who, and when to ask questions?

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  6. Liat-I'm so happy that some of the questions you had were answered here!
    Keep asking so that you will find the answers and feel so much better afterwards! It is important to find someone who knows you well enough to know where you are coming from so they can answer any question you have. Also, there are many books on all topics that can help answer the questions you have.
    You also have this blog-you can ask and ask away and I hope we'll be able to answer you!

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