{"id":1328,"date":"2012-08-07T12:03:27","date_gmt":"2012-08-07T16:03:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ramchal.wordpress.com\/?p=1328"},"modified":"2012-08-07T12:03:27","modified_gmt":"2012-08-07T16:03:27","slug":"all-is-not-right-with-the-world-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/2012\/08\/07\/all-is-not-right-with-the-world-5\/","title":{"rendered":"All is not right with the world (5)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Now, there\u2019s a Talmudic statement that speaks to a lot of this, featuring R\u2019 Akiva and as found in T. B. Berachot<\/em> 60b.<\/p>\n

“Once Rabbi Akiva was traveling with a donkey, a rooster, and a candle, and when night came he tried to find lodging in a nearby village but was turned away. Although he was forced to spend the night in the field, he didn\u2019t lament his fate. Instead he said, \u2018Everything that the All-Merciful does is for the good\u2019\u201d. We\u2019re expected to be perplexed by R\u2019 Akiva\u2019s disbelief in the reality of rah<\/em>, but we\u2019ll see how right he was.<\/p>\n

\u201cA wind came and blew out his candle, a cat ate his rooster, and a lion came and ate his donkey (while they all lay in the field), and again Rabbi Akiva’s reaction was that \u2018Everything that the All-Merciful does is for the good\u2019\u201d. Again we\u2019re perplexed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat night a band of marauders came and took the entire town captive while Rabbi Akiva was asleep in the field, and he was thus spared. When R\u2019 Akiva realized what happened he said (later on to his disciples, or see below), \u2018Didn’t I tell you that everything that the All-Merciful does is for the good\u2019?” The point is that not only did R\u2019 Akiva avoid death by having slept in the field, though that seemed to be an instance of rah<\/em> at first, but as Rashi explains it, it\u2019s also true that if the candle, rooster, or donkey wouldn\u2019t have been done away with that the band of marauders would have seen or heard them, and would have captured Rabbi Akiva, too.<\/p>\n

Hence, the message here is that while it seemed to be rah<\/em> that R\u2019 Akiva was forced to spend the night in the field and couldn\u2019t get a room at the local inn and that his things were taken from him, all that proved not to be rah<\/em> at all, but rather quite for good as far as he was concerned, since his life was saved. And we\u2019re to surmise that in fact everything is for the good, nothing is rah<\/em>, and that everything that God has come about in the world is for the ultimate good even when we don\u2019t realize it.<\/p>\n

Of course, one could point out that rah<\/em> did apparently happen to the townspeople who were captured by marauders, as well as to R\u2019 Akiva\u2019s donkey and rooster, but perhaps they have their own tales to tell that would underscore R\u2019 Akiva\u2019s which we\u2019ll never know, after which R\u2019 Akiva would have said to them, \u201cSee, didn’t I tell you that everything that the All-Merciful does is for the good?\u201d.<\/p>\n

(c) 2012 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman<\/p>\n

Feel free to contact me at feldman@torah.org<\/a><\/p>\n

———————————————————-<\/p>\n

AT LONG LAST! Rabbi Feldman’s translation of Maimonides’ “Eight Chapters” is available here<\/a> at a discount.<\/p>\n

You can still purchase a copy of Rabbi Feldman’s translation of “The Gates of Repentance” here<\/a> at a discount as well.<\/p>\n

Rabbi Yaakov Feldman has also translated and commented upon “The Path of the Just” and “The Duties of the Heart” (Jason Aronson Publishers).<\/p>\n

Rabbi Feldman also offers two free e-mail classes on www.torah.org entitled “Spiritual Excellence<\/a>\u201d and \u201cRamchal<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Now, there\u2019s a Talmudic statement that speaks to a lot of this, featuring R\u2019 Akiva and as found in T. B. Berachot 60b. “Once Rabbi Akiva was traveling with a donkey, a rooster, and a candle, and when night came … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1328"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1328\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rabbiyaakovfeldman.aishdas.org\/ramchal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}