Oct 31, 2015

Volunteer or Patient

Someone in a shiur quoted a hospital volunteer as saying that in heaven it is decreed how much time we will spend in hospitals.  Either we can be in hospitals as a patient or as a visitor.

This is like what it says (Gemara Bava Basra 10):  Rabbi Yehudah b'Rabbi Shalom says, Hashem's judgment on Rosh Hashanah decides losses as well as gains.

The story is told of Raban Yochanan ben Zakai, who dreamt one Motza'ei Rosh Hashanah that his nephews would lose seven hundred Zuz during the coming year. Throughout the year, he persuaded them to keep giving tzedaka (so as to fulfill the dream in the finest possible way). When, on the following Erev Yom-Kipur, they were still seventeen Zuzim short - the king's tax men came and claimed from them seventeen Zuz.

When Raban Yochanan ben Zakai reassured them that they were not destined to lose any more, and told them about his dream, they asked him why he did not inform them about the dream earlier, in which case they would have given all the money of their own free will. He told them he wanted them to give the money purely for the sake of the Mitzvah, and not for the least ulterior motive.

So we see this idea that we have a destiny that will be fulfilled in some form or another and we have a choice of how it will be done.  See this post here for other examples.

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