IYOV 1

Ok hello everyone I hope you have had a lovely succus so far. Due to lack of supply unfortunately I (Benjy Goldberg) will be writing the diveray torah on IYOV. I am basing a lot of this on a book called “mission possible” by Rabbi Eliezer Parkoff and I lot on my own ideas feel free to question and argue with me on anything that seems weird or wrong. I do have a lot of ideas on subjects like these, but there won’t be enough time to cover most of them just with these weekly instalments. I would also like to apologies in advance for all the many spelling mistakes I will definitely make.

The man theme in IYOV is reward and punishment this is not a simple subject, we are told in the yom kippur davening the story of the ten martyrs,(ten of the greatest jewish rabbis who were all brutally killed) in this tefillah you see how even the angels don’t understand what hashem is doing when he punishes people. So I don’t expect we will unlock the secrets to g-d’s infinite calculations over the next four weeks. An interesting thing to notice about that tefillah and many horrific events over time, none of victims complained about the punishment they only mourned over the death of the other great leaders, the same way a death of a relative often causes much grief for their loved ones, while for them it could be reasonably painless and peaceful. But the fact of the matter is often people unfortunately do suffer and more than not, it’s hard to understand why.

When our story starts IYOV has everything, plenty of wealth, a peaceful family and a good name in the community. He is a tzadik that seems to have no faults. Then the saton comes in the picture, now the weirdest thing here is it seems that g-d and the saton are playing a game with IYOV’s life, there is a Christian idea of a bet between g-d and the devil, and we must be sure not to think that to be the case here. This is merely metaphorical in no way does hashem compete with anyone. Supposedly on a very basic level the saton as the accusing angel is proposing a test for IYOV and hashem lets him do it but only on his possessions not himself.

The shock is fast and extreme, IYOV in the space of five minutes losses everything his flocks and his family all from extraordinary circumstances. IYOV automatically rips his cloths tears out his hair (over the lost cattle because it is against the torah to tear out hair because of a death) and says “naked I came out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return there.” Iyov understood that everything is hashem’s and that even though he may have worked for something in truth it is all from hashem, and hashem owns it all, so he simply says “hashem has given and hashem has taken away” he uses the four letter name of hashem to show rachamim (mercy) saying nothing in this world is mine and hashem has rights over all of this so he has no room to complain.

It then says “...IYOV did not sin...” he had passed the first test

It is important to note that IYOV did mourn, and it did not count as a sin.

There are two stories I would like to share with you that connect to this whole discussion. First a story of a Rosh hayeshivah who used to have a very big gemach for charity where many people would come to borrow money. One day he decided to invest this money and buy a lot of wood and sell it overseas. The boat was gone for many days the rabbi moved on with other thing. One day news came to the yeshivah the boat had sunk and all the rabbis tzedokah money had gone with it. No one wanted to be the one to have to go and tell the rabbi, finally one boy who was close with the Rav, offered to give over the bad news and no-one objects.

The boy knocks on the rabbi’s door and enters. “Rabbi does one have to thank good even for a bad thing that happens” he asked. The rabbi replied “yes”, “but what if it was really bad, like someone died” the rabbi gave him a funny look and said “yes even still”. The boy asked again “ok, but what if it was really really bad and you were really really upset”, now the rabbi was getting feed up and the thought the boy was just mucking around. He said “yes! Why are you wasting my time I thought you were a good boy.” Finally the boy said “but what if it was really really really bad, like if for example all your money that you had saved for tzedokah and you used to buy woods to sell overseas had been lost in a ship wreck.” The rabbi gave a smile stood up and gave the boy a hug and said “yes even still. boruch hashem, and thank you for telling me in such a way”.

The next story is about a young boy called Moshe. It was Moshe’s tenth birthday and he got up early ran downstairs and there on the kitchen table was the present he had asked for, the new RC racer 2009, the best remote control car that was out. He was ecstatic and played with it for a whole hour before he had to go to school but before he left he turned to his six year old brother Yakov, and told him not to touch the car and asked his parents to guard it for him till he came home after school.

After school Moshe ran home and couldn’t wait to play with his new car but as he turned the corner of his road he stopped, he saw his house, all the blinds were shut, and all the lights were off. He came up to the door and it was open inside he saw his father sitting on the floor in the dark.

“Moshe come over here I need to tell you something” the father said in a quiet, slow voice.

“What’s wrong daddy” Moshe said as he came to sit down next to his dad

“Today after you left we let Yakov play with your new race car, he was playing outside and he didn’t really know how to use it and by mistake it went into the road, he tried to get it but he didn’t look, so didn’t see the van...” the father had tear in his eye and Moshe began to cry “...he didn’t see the van and...and...and the van ran over your new car” with that the father brought out from behind him a mangled ball of broken plastic which was once Moshe’s RC racer.

Moshe was thrilled he had thought the worst, when he heard this he ran upstairs and burst into Yakov’s room, Yakov screamed “please don’t kill me” and was in complete shock as Moshe came and gave him a massive hug.

These stories show a look on the happy side approach which is not always the answer but often the things that upset us are small little things, and sometimes there nothing at all just things we invented in our heads. Sometimes a bit of thought and we can see through the darkness.

Have a lovely shabbous and enjoy the rest of succahs I think it’s a bit ironic that we are starting IYOV right in the middle of the chag of simcha, but it was probably meant to be showing us how we take the g-d and the seeming bad from hashem as he knows best for us.