- Never forget that Hashem loves every member of Klal Yisrael; He chose His people, Israel, with love.
- Always remember that there is no such thing as an accident; Hashem orchestrates everything that happens.
- Always know and remind yourself that everything that the “Merciful One” does is for the good (:ברכות ס)
- Review the idea stated in the Rambam, that often something which seems good turns out to be not so and often we see that things that seem bad bring about results which are unbelievably good (רמב”ם פי’ המשניות ברכות פ’ ט, מ”ח)
- Review the idea that sometimes in order to grant us great blessing that we do not have the merit to deserve, Hashem brings upon us painful suffering which evokes Divine mercy on us and He is then able to grant us the infinite blessing that we could not have been privileged to receive by merit alone (תוס’ רי”ד)
- The monetary value of losses is included in Hashem’s decree on Rosh Hashana. The personal, emotional and sentimental pain should be viewed as Hashem’s way of entitling us to His kindness and mercy to achieve infinite blessings which we would not have been able to achieve without the pain and suffering.
- Chazal tell us that when we suffer beyond what we deserve, the pains are “יסורים של אהבה”, “pains of love”. Because He loves us Hashem wants us to reach higher levels of connection to Him and to attain more reward than we could have before this suffering (גמ’ ברכות ח.)
- Seeing and hearing of all the miracles that happened to spare people should be used to appreciate Hashem’s Hashgacha Pratis (Divine supervision and intimate involvement in every aspect of our existence) and that appreciation of His loving, kind and merciful Hashgacha should help us to realize that our own personal suffering is certainly a product of His love for us and will certainly lead to great blessings.
- We must strengthen our Bitachon (trust) in Hashem’s kindness and mercy that He will surely help us to heal, to persevere and to come out of this traumatic suffering even better off than before. The Navi tells us that when we feel the intensity of Hashem’s mercy, even the intense suffering of the past seems as if it were only a mere moment. (‘רד”ק ישעיה נד’, ז)(See Bitachon Builder, Bitachon in Business, A Patient’s Guide)
- The Seforno on Tehillim Perek 92 offers us an approach to deal with any questions about the fairness of what happens in this world. He says that the tireless, endless efforts of the righteous and their amazing good deeds tell us that Hashem’s ways are completely just and fair. This seems very difficult to understand. Obviously the question of His fairness is not a question of logic. We can’t possibly understand the logic of His ways. The question of His fairness is an expression of the emotional pain of our suffering. It seems that seeing the extent of the goodness of righteous people soothes pain emotionally and restores not only our faith in man’s goodness but in Hashem’s goodness and fairness as well.
Please note: the real benefit from this presentation can best be achieved by a thoughtful and focused review of these 10 concepts over and over, again and again.
