By Dr. Zev Ballen
My Rebbe, Rabbi Shalom Arush says that one of the most important things that we need to do is to cleanse our hearts from anger. It is easier to hate than to love, so what can we do? Shaindy is someone who feels caught in this dilemma right now.
She grew up in a religious home where nothing was real. Her father's constant yelling sapped the beauty from their lives, and left only the veneer of Judaism in their home and in their hearts. Nothing that Shaindy did was good enough or fast enough for her father, despite how hard she tried to please him. When she got married, Shaindy felt free for the first time in her life - but now due to circumstances beyond her control, she is once again living in her father's house - only this time with a husband and two children. Why is G-d doing this? What good will come from opening the wounds of her childhood?
Dear Father,
I want to introduce myself. I am your daughter, Shaindel. I have come back, maybe for the last time to be with you in the house of my youth. It is very painful for me here, but I'm learning that everything that Hashem does is for my absolute good. So I've asked myself. What possible good is there to hearing you yell and criticize everyone in this house? What good is it that I am acting like you toward my own children? What good is it for me to be feeling so angry and so frightened?
I want to share with you what I have learned from speaking to Hashem. It's very important for me to be here now. There are lots of skeletons in my closet. Of all your children, I was the most worried about not hurting you. We were all off the derech (not observant) but I hid it well. Now I'm the angriest of your children. Father, I'm just like you. I want to destroy. I want to ruin. I didn't realize this until recently. I was hiding it from myself - but that's not what Hashem wants. I need to stop hiding. Hashem doesn't want me to make aliyah now and continue to hide from my problems in Israel. Hashem knows that without you in my life, I would not work on myself. I would not uproot my anger and fix it once and for all.
Father, why do you hate for no reason? My husband's a good man. He believed in me when I didn't believe in myself and married me. He's helped me re-connect to being Jewish. Continue reading...
Have a great week!
Dr. Zev Ballen
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