3 replies to this topic

[OrYekarot]

Nope, not necessarily.  At least, not in this gilgul.

 

And honestly, I don't live for olam haba, that's not why I keep mitzvot.

 

Now, I'm not saying that I don't believe in G-d, because I do.

 

But prove to me that everything is for the good.  Because honestly,  it's not.  I challenge you to prove it.

[Rabbi Shapiro]

First, it's a posuk. 

 

טוב ה' לכל.

 

And Chazal say כל דעבדין מן שמיא לטב

 

That should be enough, but also, it makes no sense logically that Hashem would do anything bad, as Rabbeinu Tam explains at the beginning of Sefer HaYoshor - since Hashem is perfect and can benefit from nothing He does, it follows that when He does something it is not for His own benefit but for the benefit of the creations. And since He cannot benefit from doing anything bad to the creations, since He is perfect already, the only possible reason for Hashem to act - ever - is for the benefit of the creations. All other options are illogical.

[thinking613]

Why does the fact that Hashem is perfect mean necessarily that He does only good?  Why wouldn't it make sense to say that Hashem is perfect and isn't affected by anything He does, so therefore it doesn't matter whether He does "good" or "bad" because it doesn't affect Him anyway? Like, if nothing matters to Him, what would make Him decide whether to do good or bad? Aren't either options equally ok if nothing matters to Him?

 

Also I know that "painful" doesn't necessarily equal "bad", but if Hashem really did only good then how could He possibly create pain?  I understand that from our perspective, sometimes "the way the world works" is that you need to go through pain in order to get to the "good" but HASHEM is the one who set it up that way! He could have set up this world WITHOUT needing pain to get to the good!

 

I once heard that the reason is that Hashem doesn't want us to feel Nehema DiKisufa - and therefore He had to set up a system where we "earn" the good through pain/effort.  But if Hashem wants to give us good, why didn't he set up the world in such a way that we WOULDN'T feel nehema dikisufa when we receive good without investing effort???

 

Thank you.

 

 

 

First, it's a posuk. 

 

טוב ה' לכל.

 

And Chazal say כל דעבדין מן שמיא לטב

 

That should be enough, but also, it makes no sense logically that Hashem would do anything bad, as Rabbeinu Tam explains at the beginning of Sefer HaYoshor - since Hashem is perfect and can benefit from nothing He does, it follows that when He does something it is not for His own benefit but for the benefit of the creations. And since He cannot benefit from doing anything bad to the creations, since He is perfect already, the only possible reason for Hashem to act - ever - is for the benefit of the creations. All other options are illogical.

[Rabbi Shapiro]

The reason that Hashem's perfection necessitates His only doing good is, because logic dictates that to do something there needs to be a reason, meaning, an objective that is met that would not be met without the act.

 

Therefore, doing good contains such a benefit - for the recipient of the good. But doing bad has no benefit for the recipient of the bad. People only do bad because they themselves benefit from it. And since Hashem does not benefit from anything, He cannot do bad. But there is a benefit to the recipients of the good if He does good. 

 

As far as pain, we need pain as a deterrent. Since in order to fulfill Hashem's plan of bestowing good, we need people to choose to do good via free will, therefore, pain is a benefit, because if there would be no pain (punishment) for doing bad, there would be many more people doing bad. And the alternative to pain, i.e. forcing people not to do bad, would not meet the requirements for Hashem's plan, i.e. freee will. (See the Bechirah forum for details on why we need free will.)