Thank you very much.

In practice, the question (of Viktor Frankl’s daughter) still stands..

I didn’t understand. It doesn’t stand at all. In my opinion, He caused neither the illness nor the healing.

Fine, I’m asking according to the view of the Sages. What can I do—I don’t accept the idea that He did not cause the illness and the healing, and yes, that isn’t your fault that I don’t accept it.

In fact, the same question can also be asked about the Exodus from Egypt. He put us there, so why must we thank Him so much for taking us out?

I answered you according to the religion of the Sages. And indeed, it doesn’t seem reasonable to me either.
And true, you can ask this about many other things as well.

With God’s help, 6 Kislev 5780

The Torah describes the exile in Egypt as an “iron furnace” in which the nation is tempered. Suffering is an inseparable part of the process that brings refinement, both because “the good is recognized from its opposite”—the depth of suffering lets us truly understand the depth of redemption; and also because in a time of suffering a person must develop extraordinary inner strength to cope with his situation, strengths that teach a person what he is capable of.

And so at the time of redemption the song of thanksgiving will be sung: “I will give thanks to You, O Lord, for though You were angry with me, Your anger turned away and You comforted me” (Isaiah 12:1). We will give thanks not only for the redemption, but also for the suffering that brought about a strengthening of our consciousness and our powers.

Best,
Shatz

And according to Rabbi Michael Abraham’s approach, one should thank God for His non-intervention, by which He signals to us that we’ve matured 🙂

Rabbi Nir’s article is interesting. However, it really does not answer at all the need to give thanks, but shifts to a different plane—social life. But even there, the one who took him out of social life and returned him—also put him there in the first place. So the article is not related to the questioner’s issue except that it’s from the same Talmudic passage.
But the question really is difficult, and as stated, according to the view of the Sages. And as stated, there are many such difficulties. Doesn’t the Rabbi have an answer to this?
And even according to the Rabbi’s view that there is no providence (from always? If I remember correctly, I think the Rabbi wrote somewhere that once there was more providence, no?)—then for what am I giving thanks? For some law of nature? After all, God also made the opposite law?

I give thanks for creation and all the laws of nature. The assumption is that overall the world is good for me and I want to live in it, despite the ups and downs.

Rabbi Shatz,
As far as I can remember, the thanks we give for the Exodus from Egypt nowhere includes thanking for the enslavement and the suffering, only for the rescue from there.

What’s interesting is that the Holy One, blessed be He, supposedly sees it that way too; in Ezekiel chapter 16, the story of the people of Israel is told as a parable about a miserable baby girl born into impossible and wretched circumstances, until a good man found her and took care of her, etc. etc.

It looks as though only the good is attributed to the Holy One, blessed be He, and for that one must thank Him, but the bad somehow happened on its own—and that is what I don’t understand, since it never occurs to me for even a moment that that is really the case.
—

Regarding Rabbi Nir’s article,
The idea seems rather strange to me that someone who decided to travel from Mehasya to Pumbedita would need to give thanks for returning to social life, when he made his own calculation and decided that this journey was worthwhile for him. And in any case, he was not meant to be separated from society except for the period of time that he himself designated for it—so what exactly is he thanking for?

The fact that you decided on something and were willing to pay the prices required for it does not prevent you from giving thanks that you finished paying those prices, that you were helped to reach your desired destination, and to complete your stay in the desert.

With God’s help, 12 Kislev 5780

That God is the one who brought the people of Israel into Egypt is explicit in the Covenant Between the Parts, where God tells Abraham: “You shall surely know that your offspring will be strangers in a land not theirs, and they will enslave them and oppress them four hundred years.”

The purpose of the exile and enslavement in Egypt is hinted at in the title that the Torah and the prophets give Egypt—”the iron furnace.” Iron is put into a furnace in order to temper and strengthen it, and so too the people of Israel entered the furnace of exile and enslavement so that, from seeing the depth of evil, the aspiration for good would be internalized within them. One who has experienced pain and suffering knows how to appreciate his freedom.

In the midrash on the verse “a nation from within a nation,” there is another image—that of a midwife bringing a fetus out of its mother’s womb. In its mother’s womb, the fetus develops and matures to become “a living being that carries itself.” In Egypt we experienced not only pain and suffering, but were also exposed to the political and cultural power of the Egyptian empire, and within us arose the aspiration to create a powerful kingdom in which all political and cultural power would be directed toward doing good.

Best,
Shatz

Ezekiel, in his prophecy, refers to the spiritual corruption of the people of Israel, who sank there into the “forty-nine gates of impurity,” something that was not part of the decree of the Covenant Between the Parts, but rather the result of the environment’s influence on the children of Israel. And for this dragging after Egypt, Ezekiel rebukes the people of Israel: “Your father was an Amorite and your mother a Hittite” (16:3).

In chapter 20, Ezekiel says that already in Egypt God rebuked Israel for following the ways of the nations: “And I said to them: Cast away, each of you, the detestable things before his eyes, and do not defile yourselves with the idols of Egypt.” But the people of Israel did not listen, and nevertheless He brought them out for the sake of His name: “And I acted for the sake of My name, that it not be profaned in the eyes of the nations… and I brought them out of the land of Egypt…”

That is to say: there were two causes for the suffering in Egypt. The foundation was the destiny of the Covenant Between the Parts, which was meant to temper and refine the people of Israel; but the suffering was intensified because of the failure of the people of Israel and their being drawn after the sins of Egypt.