Excellent article and very well written! Thanks for posting!

Rabbi Rosenblat, with all due respect, I think that when you say "doing battle with God" and "The bottom line is that standing up for what you believe to be right means even standing up to God if you believe He's doing something wrong." It may be misconstrued as revealing against Hashem, rather than choosing life and knowing how to distinguish right from wrong. That is the big distinction amongst different religious movements, as Torah believers, we do not use God's name to kill and murder innocent people. We are taught to be and act in the image of God, and to fear God. However, the Musulmanos for example, use the name of God to kill and murder the innocents. That is not to say they are following the word of God. Their marginalized classes are the one paid, garbage money to commit the atrocities they do against Israel. Since these killers don't know any better, they accept and carry on the terror and killings in the name of their God, especially when their mothers would then say in reference to the Jews, "if my son kill them, I am proud of him". also, I have no recollection of ever seeing a well educated, wealthy muslim strapped himself in a suicide belt bomb blowing himself and others in his God's name, because they know better. However, they know how to use God's name to accomplish their terroristic abhorrent acts by enticing and instigating the less lucky ones. We on the other hand, were blessed to receive the Torah and abide by it. Because of Torah relevance throughout the generations, we are stronger and can stand firmly against the spread of anti-semitism. We don't follow, we lead. You truly made me think. God bless you.

In Isaiah, it does say, "Come now and let us reason together", says G-d. Reasoning together sounds to me like a conversation, debate, a little respectful arguing, is in order.
And I do relate to that "dark night of the soul." Am so happy that G-d is a lot smarter than I am.

This is great! Thank G-d for Torah, Judaism, and those who help spread His word, like you! :-)

I realize that this is not the concept you were trying to impart, but who are we to question hashem? Don't you think that as a result of people quesitoning hashem we now have the conservative and reform movesments. What comes next?

if they say right- don't say left...

Being brought up as Christian, we fell somewhere between submission and 'fighting' or doing battle with God. However, what they tried to tell us was that if we did not understand something about life or God's teachings, we had to accept it (blindly) in faith. I disagree - we were given brains by God and we are expected to use them to help ourselves and the world. Knowledge is power and 'the truth shall set you free' - also 'seek and you will find'. Blind faith is not good, but a means to keep 'the flock' docile and easier to manage, eg Karl Marx and religion being 'the opiate of the masses'. However the road is a long and winding path and one look up at the galaxies in the night sky is proof that our intelligence is extremely limited compared to the Creator - to keep these two concepts in balance would perhaps be the best way of life.

for many years i have struggled with what I refer to as my " dark night of my soul". Finding myself through Judaism and Aish have helped me and upon reading this I feel consumed with a relief as I felt I had also been fighting with G-d and against all the norms expected of me, and I felt lousy. Thankyou everyone for sharing it helps.I

We must ask ourselves:
Why did God say that He was going to destroy Sodom? Why did God say to Moses that He would destroy the Jewish people? Because God enabled Moses to lead the people out of Egypt, did that give them license to engage in idolatry, hatred, etc? How can we expect to have it both ways?

Our trademark as humans is that we think we know it all (e.g. Adam and Eve). But we fail to realize that because we are human our perspective is very limited - we are unable to see ALL of reality, and we have no conception of the interplay that occurs within the elements as a result of the thoughts that we think and the actions that we perform.

So we (the human race) go through major upheavals on a regular basis, but the fundamental lessons are not learned. And so we keep spinning along the same trajectory until we reach the point of critical mass, and everything goes bust.

This is the aspect of our faith that I have always loved. that we always question and each generation struggels to finds answers in the time and place in which they live. It sometimes amazes me that every generation seems to ask the same questions.

I have been studying The Torah for 7 years and in all those 7 years, I have fought my flesh trying to do the "right thing", not oppose G-d or what he is doing in my life, not to fight him. In everything I did, I would check my steps to see if I had crossed the line in my thoughts or actions, and in doing that I would constantly push down my feelings and passion and temporary lost my drive. There was no point in studying The Torah anymore in my mind because every time I did, those "wrong", or "bad" thoughts would come into my head. Little did I know that that was G-d letting me know he was doing something in me, manifesting something through me, and trying to be my G-d. Then, my mother told me to come onto Aish.com to study this weeks Torah portion, and here, I found the answer to why I was having those thoughts, and feelings. G-d is good! Thank You very much for this article, it definitely pulled me out of the gutter, back up off my feet, and standing strong again in my faith. Again, Thank you.:)

This is word for word, better than I could have said to my best friend who is struggling and has his entire life, with his faith and his identity. He has always been someone who wants to think for himself and been rational. And this non-thought is primarily what he opposed to in religion. I didn't have the words to give to him to make him understand that we are supposed to _speak_ to G-d, to plead, VAYIH_TAR, literally a pitch-fork, like a pitch-fork overturning hay, we over-turn ourselves to G-d, so that we may establish a Holy relationship with Him. I study the Torah Day and Night. To me the Torah is the word of G-d. No, the Torah is the word of G-d. But my friend, who is confused about his beliefs, needed this, my best friend, my best friend of 19 years. My friend of 23 years. I pray that this article, opens his mind, makes him realize that he is _indeed_ Jewish, and that Judaism is really what speaks to his Neshamah. Amayn. Amayn. Amayn. Thank you for quite possibly saving my friend's life.