Hashem Loves Me

People tell me their hardships and then ask me why the Creator hates them. They whine, "If He didn't hate me, why would He torment me so badly?" It reminds me of the lifeguard who saved a drowning person by putting him in a half-Nelson and pulling him out of the water. Rather than thanking the lifeguard for saving his life and pulling him out of the water, the guy who almost drowned sues the lifeguard for twisting his arm…

Don't forget this important rule: the creator who hates you is a creator that you created. The Creator who really created you loves you, more than you can possibly fathom.

Why do so many people think that the Creator hates them?

Our sages teach us that when the primordial snake tempted Adam and Eve to eat fruit from the forbidden Tree of Knowledge, he injected them with "spiritual venom". The snake told them that Hashem is jealous of them, and that if they eat from the forbidden fruit, they'll be just like Him, able to discern bad from good. So what happened?

Before Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, everything was good, paradise on earth. But, once they ate from the forbidden Tree of Knowledge, they learned a new concept – that there's a notion of "bad" in the world.

With emuna, there is no bad in the world. It's simple to understand.

You love your children. You therefore want the very best for them – best education, best of health, success, fulfillment, best possible future, abundance, the absolute best soul-mate, all their heart's wishes – you name it! Guess what – Hashem loves you a zillion times more than you love your own children. Your wish list for your children is only an iota of Hashem's wish list for you.

Since Hashem determines everything and exclusively runs the world, and since His love for each of us is infinite, then it's clear that everything He does for us is good. And, since everything is good, we can thank Him for everything, both for the obvious good and for the seemingly bad, which actually is very good, despite the fact that we don't necessarily understand how. Yet, it's not our job to understand; it's our job to believe.

By believing that everything is good, we accomplish our very mission and purpose on earth. We attain both emuna and proximity to Hashem.

That's exactly what the evil inclination (EI) – the primordial snake – doesn't want us to do. The EI fights tooth and nail against any of us attaining emuna and getting close to Hashem; it therefore resorts to its main weapon of spiritual venom and injects people with the false propaganda that Hashem hates them, Heaven forbid.

Think of all the negative emotions in the world. If you delve to the root of it all, especially sadness and depression, you'll find the snake's spiritual venom, which would easily show up if there were such a thing as a spiritual blood test.

As soon as a person remembers that Hashem loves him/her, despite the fact that circumstances seem otherwise, emuna kicks in and a person gains a new lease on life. If anything, never forget that Hashem loves you. Without this awareness, there is no emuna, for the fact that Hashem loves us is the basis of all emuna. I can prove this form all over Torah, the Gemara and Zohar, but I don't want to belabor the fact. Just remember the one simple fact and that's all you ever need to know:

Hashem loves me. Repeat that to yourself every minute of every day and soon, you'll really feel it.