The Beauty of Tribulations

“You need to go to the hospital, dad is in the ER and it sounds bad. I’m on my way over the mountain,” my sister-in-law said when I answered the phone.

“I’m on my way” I replied and hung up. Grabbing my keys I hugged my son and thanked my mom for watching him. It was late. We were both tired; my dad had just come home from an ER visit and 4-day hospital stay the night before.

My dad’s illness wasn’t the only recent tribulation but rather it was one in a string of recent significant challenges that had come under the umbrella of my watch. Thankfully, due to the efforts of Rabbi Arush and Rabbi Brody to spread emuna into the world, I have been learning and living my emuna and had been engaging it with each challenge. However, when we brought my dad home from the hospital I had a vision of a cloud of judgment hanging over my household. I know that may sound terrifying, but it wasn’t. It helped me to understand there was another step I needed to take… more growth was necessary in my emuna.

The hours few by as I assisted the ER nurses in managing my father-in-law’s symptoms. Finally he stabilized and I headed home in the dark with prayers of thanks on my lips. A storm was brewing, the dark clouds were not unlike the cloud of judgement I had envision almost 24 hours previously.

I opened my eyes. The sun was up. I’d slept later than usual. I made my way out to my office. The view out my window was shockingly beautiful. Deep snow had fallen overnight covering the mud and rain-flooded fields, coating the trees and sparkling in the bright morning light. Large, fluffy flakes were still falling creating a sense of quiet and peace. In my awe-struck state I realized the beauty of tribulations there in the blanket of snow.

You see, everything is from Hashem and everything is for the best and therefore our tribulations are also from Hashem and for the best. When we pass through them with emuna we come out the other side stronger, spiritually cleaner and closer to Hashem. Just as the storm clouds from the night before passed and in their wake left beauty, so too can our tribulations pass and leave us in a more beautiful state of being.

I was able to say “Thank You Hashem” for the tribulations in my life and mean it. However, the learning wasn’t over.

The lesson of the snow was beautiful and it reinforced the first and second levels of emuna: 

1. Everything is from Hashem
2. Everything is for the best

But the earlier vision of a cloud of judgment took my learning deeper… to level 3: 

       3. Everything Hashem does is for a purpose

You see, it is no coincidence that I had just been studying this section in The Universal Garden of Emuna: 

“…once a person attains the second level of emuna, namely, he lives his faith that the Creator does everything for the very best and thanks Him accordingly, he is ready to live a life of tranquility and joy. It seems that this level is enough…. If a person attains a life of tranquility and joy, what else does he need? Know full well, that if a person doesn’t know how to process the messages that the Creator sends him by way of life’s events, he won’t be able to fully attain the emuna that everything the Creator does is for the best. He’s liable to lose his emuna. Therefore, one must strive to attain the third- or upper-level emuna that everything the Creator does is for an ultimate purpose. This emuna brings a person closer to the Creator… Therefore, we need third-level emuna for it is the complete emuna that enables us to perform our mission on earth.”

The vision of a cloud of judgement taught me I haven’t truly been applying level 3 emuna to my life. I’ve been living fully in the first and second levels of emuna… going along, as Rabbi Arush states, “living a life of tranquility and joy” by engaging my second level emuna with all of these events in my life. And the thing is, it was working. Despite the whirlwind of issues going on around me I have been quite happy and satisfied.

However, in actuality, I’ve been failing to truly live my emuna! I was accepting the events with a good attitude, but I was not trying to get to know the Creator more deeply through them.

And since I was failing to grow into upper-level emuna, the Creator was forced to begin sending more tribulations and multiple odd series of events in rapid succession into my life until it finally got so weird that I had to ask “What is going on here?” Only then, when I began desiring to know the purpose behind the things going on, was I able to see the true beauty in the challenges, tests and tribulations as being loving tools to bring us into closer proximity with the Creator.

It’s time I take this long list of odd events and tribulations that make up this cloud of judgement and have a deep conversation with Hashem about what the message is in each one of the situations. If I’m willing to engage in that conversation, hear His messages and desire to understand His purpose, then He won’t need to keep the unusual events and situations around any longer and that cloud of judgement will disperse.

Listen to Rabbi Arush’s advice – strive for level 3 emuna. I have a feeling it is totally worth it. 

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Jennifer invites you to participate in a regularly held Noahide on-line study group that reviews the garden series books of Rabbi Arush. You can contact her at jenniferjwoodward@gmail.com to be added to the weekly newsletter for dates and times. Visit the blog at noahidenews.blogspot.com.