Cultivating Emuna

In a discussion, someone said about emuna that knowing that we are maaminim doesn't help him.  It's a concept, not a reality to him.

Which led to the question - do we cultivate emuna or generate emuna?

Cultivate would mean to develop what is already there.  To generate would mean to produce it when it wasn't there before.

I was surprised he said what he said.  I think we think differently about emuna if we know it's inherent, and not something external that we have to acquire.  If I had some way of knowing about a latent talent that I have, for music or art or anything else, I would try to cultivate it! If I had some way of knowing that I had no ability in a certain area, I wouldn't put my efforts in that direction.

We are told that we are "believers, children of believers." That's who we are.  Emuna is not extraneous to us.  It's right here.

Different Approaches to Emuna

In a shiur by R' Doniel Katz, he says:

"Emuna is feeling Hashem as a reality and this informs my actions, it's stronger than my fear or ego.

It's not dependent on how much Torah you learn or how many mitzvos you keep.

An ignoramus can, in certain situations, deeply connect to G-d.

Emuna is not something taught; it has to be revealed.

It is not something external but something inherent within us that needs to be awakened. It wells up in us like sap in a tree.

It says Mordechai was 'omein es Hadasa,' the word for raising her is omein. Emuna is something developed, nurtured, drawn out."

All this made me think of those who are working on "teaching emuna" with proofs that G-d exists and the divinity of Torah.

We are "maaminim bnei maaminim" - believers, children of believers.  That needs to be the acknowledged starting point.

A Tzadekes in Our Time

This article here was published in 2002 about Mrs. Henny Machlis a'h and this one here in 2009.  I read them back then, and was amazed.

To my dismay, I read of her tragic passing at the young age of 58 on October 16 - 3 Cheshvan, after a horrible illness here.

I'm seeing new articles about her, here and there.  They tell about her remarkable outlook on life, how she truly believed and did not merely say that Hashem is in charge, how she loved children so that nine out of her fourteen children were born via C-section, how she excelled bein adam la'Makom and bein adam la'chaveiro.  And she was born in Brooklyn, to kind parents to be sure, but it wasn't like she came from an exotic locale, born to a kabbalist, and raised in unusual circumstances.  That's what make her accomplishments that much more incredible as well as doable. 

And Emuna - Faith Too

 

continued from previous post

 

There is one other theme, that of Emuna - Faith, which is enormously popular now too.  So why didn't I write that there are three themes, rather than two? Because I think that the hashgacha pratis theme and the emuna theme overlap, although of course, they are two different concepts.

 

R' Lazer Brody's translation of R' Shalom Arush's Garden of Emuna is enormously popular with over 1.5 million copies sold.  There is even a "universal" edition which is non-denominational. 

 

 

More recently, R' David Ashear's emuna messages have become very popular.  I wrote about his 4 minute shiurim and emails here and there is also his book and R' Yechiel Spero's book.

 

 

 

And for a number of posts on emuna-faith, see here

 

 

Warding Off Disaster

It's no wonder that we read of the high use of anxiety medication in the US and particularly among the frum population.  I say the following without having done any actual research on this; this is just the sense that I have about changing times.

Although there were always sad stories and troubling world events, the frequency of tragedies and how close to home they reach, seems unprecedented in the past 50 years.  For example, when I was a young adult, I probably heard of Lou Gehrig's disease (ALS) but that's as far as it went.  At this point, I've been menachem avel someone's whose brother died of it, the rebbetzin of my former shul is suffering from it, my friend's father died of it, and I have heard and read of several more in the frum world.

Another example, up until ten years ago, I don't think I heard of any child (not talking about an infant) dying in their sleep.  Now I can think of three.

The feeling that something can drastically change for the bad, out of the blue, is reasonable since it has been happening with seemingly greater frequency and to people we know or to people close to those we know.  The Twin Towers coming down, the Har Nof shul massacre, the frequent ads from Chai Lifeline and RCCS reinforce the possibility of a disaster about to happen.

What to do about it? One idea - Rabbi David Ashear is quite popular now.  He does a 4 minute daily emuna message which can be heard on the phone: (605) 475-4799 access code 840886# or received by email: Emunadaily@gmail.com