Today, 24 of the Omer, 4 weeks and 3 day towards the Omer.Tiferet she b’ netzach: Harmony within Eternity.
We often assume that people of faith are more resilient when life hurts.
This belief is encapsulated in the central tenet of the Hasidic ethos: "Ha kol le tova” – “everything is for the good.”
From a Jewish mystical perspective, the world is ultimately ruled by goodness, driven by hashgacha (divine providence).
The divine Source of Life, as the Mei HaShiloach reminds us, desires only to “do good” to all creatures.
So, when times are tough, the pious ones are taught to look beyond the tragic, and see the greater good that will ultimately emerge.
Easier said than done, isn’t it?
But that is not even the point of the Mei HaShiloach here.
The Challenge of the Believer
In his commentary on Parashat Emor, perhaps to speak more to people’s real-life experiences, the Mei HaShiloach seems to challenge his own Theodicy.
He turns the Hasidic logic upside down, suggesting that it may actually be more difficult for someone of faith to face life’s challenges.
Why is that? If one believes everything is random, there is no one to blame when things go wrong.
“But the human who knows that everything is from Heaven, precisely because of this, can get frustrated.”
אך האדם היודע כי הכל נעשה בידי שמים לזה יוכל לבוא תרעומות.
Suddenly, the person of faith finds themselves burdened with another challenge: if I believe the divine source of life rules, how can I not be resentful when life feels unfair?
From 1940 to 2024, from Camps to Encampments
Recently, I listened to the pain of a student from Switzerland—a young, soulful woman studying dance and Middle Eastern studies.
Coming from a secular background, she had sought to connect with her Judaism, a heritage she felt carried a treasure for her, but which had been severed by her Holocaust-survivor grandfather, who emerged alive but angry at Judaism and God.
This young Jewish woman, born despite the Nazis’ efforts to erase her race, now sees her university occupied by hateful crowds dressed in keffiyehs, cheering those who butchered her people, shouting “Death to Jews” and “From the River to the Sea,” while blaming her for genocide.
Leaving the university, she passes a Holocaust Memorial now defaced with red handprints.
The despair she feels today, the Mei HaShiloach wrote about nearly a century before the Shoah, and almost two centuries before October 7th.
If God Is Good, Why Do Bad Things Happen?
When life hurts too much, it can impact our most precious possession: our trust in the Source of Life.
During the Shoah, millions of religious Jews lost their faith.
After October 7th and in the face of rising global antisemitism, the question confronts us again.
In these difficult times, it may be helpful to turn inward and conduct our own cheshbon nefesh (soul accounting).
This is what we do during the counting of the Omer.
Between Pesach and Shavuot, during “seven whole shabbatot” (Leviticus 23:15), we focus on healing our midot (soul qualities) by connecting to those of God.
Without being explicit, in his theodicy explanation, the Mei HaShiloach refers to the sefirotic tree of life, the map of divine attributes we are made in the image of.
When life hurts, he says, it is because Life Source acts from a place of din—judgment, corresponding to the sefirah of Gevurah (strength, but also harshness, boundary-setting).
Everything has a role
While the divine is ultimately good, each quality has its role in balancing existence.
All caregivers know that sometimes, you must act from a place of din.
Leniency isn’t always the best gift you can give to someone.
God’s inherent goodness can be hard to see when we face din.
Life’s challenges are often beyond our control, but also, beyond our understanding.
This is why the Talmud instructs us to bless for the bad just as for the good. And for bad news, such as mourning, we bless “the Judge of Truth” (Tractate Brakhot 46. b) reminding ourselves that human grasp is limited.
Life doesn’t always meet us with chessed (loving-kindness).
Sometimes there is a Tsunami; sometimes the fire does end up destroying the house; sometimes one doesn’t survive the terrorist attack; sometimes the illness wins. Sometimes the divorce does happen.
In these moments, those left after the storm are faced with having to rebuild and reconfigure their lives.
This is what Ram Dass, after his stroke, called the “Fierce Grace” of God.
From destruction and loss, we are called to start anew. But from there, hidden gifts lies away: Great, unexpected blossomings can occur.
Reframing “Everything Is for the Good”
If you look around, you’ll find examples everywhere.
In my family, before he met my mother, my step father of blessed memory had a wife. She passed away suddenly from cancer, leaving him and their teenage daughter alone.
My stepsister is not particularly spiritual, and even less so religious. But she once told me something I will always remember:
“Somehow, my mother’s death made me a better person.
I will never say it is good that it happened, nor that it wasn’t incredibly painful. But it woke me up. I used to be spoiled.
Somehow, this loss made me better.”
This is a way to understand ha kol le tovah.
Not that any tragedy is good in and of itself.
But sometimes, on a higher plane, for reasons way beyond our grasp, it seems like God’s plans involve taking down the house and breaking us open so that something else can emerge.
You don’t need to be religious to choose God.
God is just a code name for the Source of Life.
God is everywhere. God is already here.
God is writing through these lines; God is reading through your eyes.
God is breathing through you, and through me, right now.
Including through those who want you and me dead today.
So when life hurts, we can listen for God’s secret message, whispered to us.
God’s Whisper as an invitation
For the Mei HaShiloach, when Life acts from a place of din, God’s murmur comes to the rescue.
In Parashat Emor, the Mei HaShiloach suggests that the choice of the term “emor” (say) rather than the usual "daber" (speak), signifies “speaking softly,” a murmur.
ואמרת היא בלחישה
The Zohar calls this “sod ha lechishut,” the secret of whispering. For the Mei HaShiloach, this is God trying to appease us when life hurts:
“To whisper into the ears of the servants of God that they should not resent the midah of din (judgment), because always, the intention of God is to do good.”
היינו ללחוש לעובדי ה' שלא יהיה להם תרעומות גם על מדות הדין,
כי תמיד כוונת הש"י אך להיטיב
Murmuring signifies intimacy, speaking to one’s ear.
Here the Mei hashiloach seems to be pursuing the theme he evoked in last week’s parasha, kedoshim: this idea that the divine is coming to meet us, and that we can also relax into receiving.
As we are walking from Pessach to Shavuot, the festival of the receiving of the torah, we are all, men, women, and everything in between, invited to lean into the feminine quality of kabbalah, reception.
In these hard times, knowing the divine whispers in our ears, we are called to listen.
When Life’s Challenge Becomes Man’s Calling
Making ourselves available to the divine murmur becomes our task.
Today, seven months into the Gaza war and amid so much human suffering, the holy whisper seems to say:
“Yes, my love, humans can be ugly.
Don’t take it too personally. This is because the ego is so small.
But you all are so much more than that. Trust and keep looking.”
What good can come after October 7th?
It will be up to us, all of us as Israelis and Palestinians, and as a Humanity, to find out.
It may be too early to see anything now. We are all hurting.
“No rush,” God seems to whisper.
“You will see if you look. Take your time.
Just start looking.”
To hear the whispers, we must listen.
The Task of Listening
Divine murmur is a sign of intimacy and chessed from God, but it is also a calling for us.
We need to quiet ourselves if we want to hear the whisper.
So here is the task for the Cohen—the “servant of God,” which, on a deeper level, is each of us:
Today, are we willing to be quiet enough to hear the Whisper?
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