Yesterday was the first day I actually walked (or limped) in 49 days. I am very grateful to God for sending me to the local hospital in Uman where there is a great doctor [Alexandr Sergevitch] and a great nursing staff. After I broke my leg and foot in three places, I was offered a new apartment by a fellow Sasha and my son came from the USA to take care of me.
So God's mercies are great. However this all still leaves me wondering about what lessons were meant to be learned?
I mean to say-- that there is a principle brought in the Talmud: "אין יסורים בלי עוון" "There are no troubles without sin." So any kind of trouble I have is always with some kind of sin. Either some sin caused it, or that the sin simply took away some kind of Divine protection.
I might have seen this in the gemara Shabat itself or the Gates of Repentance by Rabbainu Yona. [In both places that statement of the sages is brought.] But I think I probably saw it in one of the books of Musar from the disciples of Reb Israel Salanter.
[I should mention I was sick in my stomach after being released [from the local hospital in Uman] and went to the "hospital of the region" where also there was a great staff of doctors and nurses that helped me get better. In fact after taking the medicine they prescribed, the pain went away within about one or two minutes-and that was about the most excruciating pain I have every felt.
Clearly repentance as a concept is simple: to correct what one is doing that is not in accord with the Law of Moses. That is simply to keep the law of Moses. However what that actually means in practice is not clear to me. What generally was done at the Mir yeshiva in NY was for people to emphasize certain basic principles in the hope that that would help to come to keep the entire Torah. So in practice what almost everyone did was to emphasize not speaking lashon hara [i.e.not to speak evil about others] and to learn Torah. Those were clearly the two most important principles at the Mir. One could easily say in my case there is a need to get back to these two things.
So God's mercies are great. However this all still leaves me wondering about what lessons were meant to be learned?
I mean to say-- that there is a principle brought in the Talmud: "אין יסורים בלי עוון" "There are no troubles without sin." So any kind of trouble I have is always with some kind of sin. Either some sin caused it, or that the sin simply took away some kind of Divine protection.
I might have seen this in the gemara Shabat itself or the Gates of Repentance by Rabbainu Yona. [In both places that statement of the sages is brought.] But I think I probably saw it in one of the books of Musar from the disciples of Reb Israel Salanter.
[I should mention I was sick in my stomach after being released [from the local hospital in Uman] and went to the "hospital of the region" where also there was a great staff of doctors and nurses that helped me get better. In fact after taking the medicine they prescribed, the pain went away within about one or two minutes-and that was about the most excruciating pain I have every felt.
Clearly repentance as a concept is simple: to correct what one is doing that is not in accord with the Law of Moses. That is simply to keep the law of Moses. However what that actually means in practice is not clear to me. What generally was done at the Mir yeshiva in NY was for people to emphasize certain basic principles in the hope that that would help to come to keep the entire Torah. So in practice what almost everyone did was to emphasize not speaking lashon hara [i.e.not to speak evil about others] and to learn Torah. Those were clearly the two most important principles at the Mir. One could easily say in my case there is a need to get back to these two things.
