IYOV 10

MAZEL TOV we have finally finished IYOV (this is one of those books very few people have done and you should all be very proud.

So let’s discuss the last perek “42”. The malbim wants to say here that IYOV never actually believed the things he said, but rather was playing “devil advocate”. He never believed what he said he just wanted to have the answers to his questions, so held a discussion and he played the role as the accuser. Hashem then tells off IYOV’s three friends for not really believing what they were saying but just arguing. Finally IYOV has his possession’s returned, according to the malbim nothing was ever lost all the messengers where only to trick him and really the Satan was just holding IYOV back from his flock and family (rashi and others disagree) now everything IYOV had is doubled and he lives out the rest of his days happily (one opinion says IYOV actually failed his test but hashem wanted to pay him all his reward in the world so not to pay him in the world to come and that’s why he had a good life)

I would like to thank Rabbi Eliezer Parkoff who is the author of the book I have been using to write most of these diveray torah on IYOV.

Ok now that the book is finished in truth it was not that conclusive G-d doesn’t really give too many concrete answers. In truth G-d couldn’t have answered IYOV, as IYOV couldn’t understand but in the end when IYOV had that connection with G-d he realised that he could never understand him but he is true and just.

There is a very intriguing section in the torah when Moshe turns to hashem and says “show me your glory” and G-d replies I shall put you in the cleft of a rock and afterwards you will see my back.

There is a beautiful story that fits perfectly into the answer of what is actually going o here, the story is about a man looking at a pair of footprints on the beach, this is the path that he took in his life, he sees at the beginning very small child footsteps and they slowly grow large as he gets older and he sees how different parts of the beach are different parts of his life. The whole way along the beach a parallel set of footprints ran next to his, this is G-d walking beside him. He comes to a section where the beach is covered in rocks and crabs and he looks down and sees only one set of footprints, he turns to G-d and says “G-d why did you leave me when times got hard” G-d smiled at him and replies “by child I was carrying you”

This is what hashem said to Moshe. I can never really show you myself, the only time you will ever get a glimpse of me is when you are in troubles and times are really hard, and when you are recover you will look back and see G-d was there all along helping you. I didn’t want to talk about the holocaust much in these letters but you do see that every single person who survived had a story, they had something, a help from above that helped them survive.

Just to connect this with what I started with I mentioned the 10 martyrs that we read about on yom kippur, and how they were brutally killed, the story goes that the angels and tzadikim all turned round to hashem and said “hashem why is this happening” and he replied “be quite or I will have to destroy the whole world” rabbi Farhi once asked, what is hashem saying is he just being a bully “if you don’t shut up I will kill you”? No of course not rabbi Farhi explained hashem’s words like this, the way G-d calculates reward and punishment is so deep and complicated, to show you he would have to destroy everything and restart the whole creation again so you can see for yourself.

But there is one more thing I want to explain to you especially as teenagers and I say this a lot. Sometimes you can just be in a down mood, there doesn’t have to be a direct cause but we have to try our best to weather the storm with minimal damage and when we have the opportunity grow to whatever we can.

I wish you all that you should grow up and be happy people, one of the biggest brochus I can give, always remember to try and stay hopeful and in the big scheme of things everything will turn out ok as long as you try your best. Any questions about anything please send me or ask me personally mazel tov again and have a great shabbos.