Despair Orthodox Quotes

Stand at the brink of despair, and when you see that you cannot bear it anymore, draw back a little, and have a cup of tea.

something which in itself is meaningless cannot be rendered meaningful merely by its perpetuation. However, the rabbi evaluated his plight as an orthodox Jew in terms of despair that there was no son of his own who would ever say Kaddish7 for him after his death. But I would not give up. I made a last attempt to help him by inquiring whether he did not hope to see his children again in Heaven. However, my question was followed by an outburst of tears, and now the true reason for his despair came to the fore: he explained that his children, since they died as innocent martyrs,8 were thus found worthy of the highest place in Heaven, but as for himself he could not expect, as an old, sinful man, to be assigned the same place. I did not give

We should not be distracted by anything; neither by dreams, whether evil or seemingly good, nor by the thought of anything, whether good or bad, nor by distress or deceitful joy, nor by self-conceit or despair, nor by depression or elation, nor by a sense of abandonment or by illusory help and strength, nor by negligence or progress, nor by laziness or seeming zeal, nor by apparent dispassion or passionate attachment. Rather with humility we should strive to maintain a state of stillness, free from all distraction, knowing that no one can do us harm unless we ourselves wish for it.

What had been a region of model farming became almost a desert, for more than half the population was exiled or sent to concentration camps. The young people left the villages, the boys to go to the factories if they could get jobs, or to become vagabonds if they couldn’t. *** An echo of the tragic fate of Russia’s German Protestant population reached the world when the Mennonites flocked to Moscow and sought permission to leave the country. Some of these Germans had tried to obey the government and had formed collective farms, only to have them liquidated as Kulak collectives. Being first-class farmers, they had committed the crime of making even a Kolkhoz productive and prosperous. Others had quite simply been expropriated from their individual holdings. All were in despair. Few were allowed to leave Russia. They were sent to Siberia to die, or herded into slave labor concentration camps. The crime of being good farmers was unforgivable, and they must suffer for this sin. *** Cheat or be cheated, bully or be bullied, was the law of life. Only the German minority with their strong religious and moral sense—the individual morality of the Protestant as opposed to the mass subservience demanded by the Greek Orthodox Church and the Soviet Government—retained their culture and even some courage under Stalin’s Terror.

That is exactly what I did once, for instance, when a rabbi from Eastern Europe turned to me and told me his story. He had lost his first wife and their six children in the concentration camp of Auschwitz where they were gassed, and now it turned out that his second wife was sterile. I observed that procreation is not the only meaning of life, for then life in itself would become meaningless, and something which in itself is meaningless cannot be rendered meaningful merely by its perpetuation. However, the rabbi evaluated his plight as an orthodox Jew in terms of despair that there was no son of his own who would ever say Kaddish6 for him after his death. But I would not give up. I made a last attempt to help him by inquiring whether he did not hope to see his children again in Heaven. However, my question was followed by an outburst of tears, and now the true reason for his despair came to the fore: he explained that his children, since they died as innocent martyrs,7 were thus found worthy of the highest place in Heaven, but as for himself he could not expect, as an old, sinful man, to be assigned the same place. I did not give up but retorted, “Is it not conceivable, Rabbi, that precisely this was the meaning of your surviving your children: that you may be purified through these years of suffering, so that finally you, too, though not innocent like your children, may become worthy of joining them in Heaven? Is it not written in the Psalms that God preserves all your tears?8 So perhaps none of your sufferings were in vain.” For the first time in many years he found relief from his suffering through the new point of view which I was able to open up to him.

Jews don't cower; we hope. Because we believe the Messiah has yet to come, we do not look back at any Golden Age. We look forward with anticipation, and we fight for our future. As the Modern Orthodox rabbi Yosie Levine wrote last ear, ruminating on rising anti-Semitism and the approaching Passover, 'To be a Jew is to be a beacon of hope in a world perpetually threatened by the pall of despair. The whole trajectory of the Seder leads us to the final cup of universal redemption. It impels us to see the world through the prism of what it ought to look like, but does not yet.

Whether it be your heart that cries or your eyes, let your tears be not tears of despair, not tears of self-pity, not tears of hurt pride, but tears of repentance that lead to salvation.

suggested a link between the anti-establishment nature of Shabtai Zevi’s movement and the displacement and murder of tens of thousands of eastern European Jews in Ukraine less than twenty years earlier, during the Chmielnicki massacres (1648–1649). Jews had been sent by Polish Catholic authorities to settle and establish commercial outposts in Ukraine. They were received with hostility by local Ukrainian Orthodox tribesmen, who resented both their presence as Jews and the intrusion of Catholic Poland onto their lands. The Cossack leader, Bogdan Chmielnicki, led an uprising directed against Poland that unleashed massive violence against nearby Jews, as powerfully described by a contemporaneous Jew, Nathan Hanover, in Yeven metsulah (Abyss of despair). Estimates are that between 20,000 to 100,000 Jews were murdered, a stunning loss that concluded the centuries-long period of growth and tranquility for Jews in eastern Europe.

These are worthy goals, but they also rarely last. If each spouse is fundamentally dependent on the other for meaning, for happiness, for fulfillment, what happens when that steady stream of affirmation runs dry? Husband and wife often find that old exiled feelings resurface—emptiness, rejection, despair, loneliness, insecurity. Since these are unbearable, pressure is reapplied on the spouse to chase those feelings away. This popular scenario—that ultimate meaning, happiness, and fulfillment are found in another person—is a form of relational idolatry, and it is unworthy of the glory and honor of marriage.

We thank Thee for not destroying us together with our sins. Instead, Thou hast shown to us Thy usual love for mankind, and hast raised us, as we lay in despair, to glorify

Tata had married Amma in a civil ceremony on 6 May 1936 in Mangalore. The news of their inter-caste wedding had caused much social consternation among orthodox Brahmins as well as Bunts. One of Amma's maternal uncles from her Kadenja Guthu clan was so overwrought that he allegedly slapped his forehead in despair and cried out, 'che, che, che, yenna kulaku onji aibu!' ( What a blot on my clan!). There was also a Brahmin journalist in Udupi, aghast at this 'varna sankara' (radical or inter-caste mixing), who wrote defamatory articles in his tabloid. Tata, feisty as ever, successfully sued the journalist for libel. That aggressive champion of orthodoxy also struck to his principles and chose to go to jail rather than plead guilty and pay a fine.

disgracing a friend will break up a friendship. 21 If you draw a sword against a friend, Do not despair, for a restoration of friendship is possible. 22 If you open your mouth against a friend, Do not worry, for reconciliation is possible.