Another insight from my husband:
God gave us free will. Why restrict it by taking oaths?
The reason that there is a ceremonial annulment of vows on the Judgement Day (Yom Kippur) once a year, is to restore our full free will.
A vow to God restricts our free will. If there is a vow we've forgotten about or uttered unintentionally, it still leaves a mark on our spiritual being. If we, even unknowingly, break it - it is a sin. If we keep it, it restricts our full range of potential actions as a human being.
How appropriate to do the vows annulment process during the time of judgement, the determination of our fortune for the next year. To fairly determine our portion for the future year, our being has to be capable of full range of potential action. Annulment of vows frees us to do just that.
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Who is a righteous person?
I am going to revive this blog; it is not going to be only book reviews (since the last post we had another baby... now I have three little ones and work full time, so time is a problem), but random things of depth that I come across in my daily life.
Recently my husband shared a profound idea with me.
The only person who is completely in control of his or her behavior is a righteous person ( tzaddik in Hebrew).
All the rest of us at least sometimes cannot completely control what ends up coming out of our mouths or our behavior.
This has to be understood properly. It doesn't mean that we can excuse every outburst by the upbringing we had, or justify our short fuse by having inherited it from a parent, or our mistreating a friend by a depression we are going though.
Even if we cannot at times control our behavior completely, we are still responsible for it. It is our responsibility to try to improve our self-control, and to work on our shortcomings. Moreover, it is our task in life.
It is our responsibility to overcome our upbringing, to rise above our negative traits we inherited in our genetic makeup, and to get treatment for that depression.
Recently my husband shared a profound idea with me.
The only person who is completely in control of his or her behavior is a righteous person ( tzaddik in Hebrew).
All the rest of us at least sometimes cannot completely control what ends up coming out of our mouths or our behavior.
This has to be understood properly. It doesn't mean that we can excuse every outburst by the upbringing we had, or justify our short fuse by having inherited it from a parent, or our mistreating a friend by a depression we are going though.
Even if we cannot at times control our behavior completely, we are still responsible for it. It is our responsibility to try to improve our self-control, and to work on our shortcomings. Moreover, it is our task in life.
It is our responsibility to overcome our upbringing, to rise above our negative traits we inherited in our genetic makeup, and to get treatment for that depression.
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