In the normal scheme of things (read Teva) the job
of marketing and public relations (read spin) is to deftly cover up all of the
warts and such that are resident in whatever it is that is being promoted.
This is the way of the value deficient society in
which we live, and probably no more extreme example of this state of corruption
can be found than in the way in which this tzunami of a health plan has been sold
to the public from day one over six years ago when it was first proposed.
In eschewing politics as we should, to focus on the
hashkafa of the whole process, we see a masterfully orchestrated pageant produced
with enumerable variations on a central theme that is essentially a fairy tale.
If Moshiach were to be promoted to this extent maybe
more people would yearn and anticipate his coming as per the Rambam.
But I digress.
In any case, we see the marshaling of every
conceivable positive comment and image for the purpose of covering up the fact
that the reality of all this health care nonsense is exactly 180 degrees in the
opposite direction, far afield enough to seriously qualify as possibly the
greatest LIE ever let loose on an unsuspecting public.
Spin aside; it’s quite clear that if the electorate would
have been truthfully informed as to the actual contents of this law and the
intent of its promoters as to its implementation, nobody but nobody except for the
bunch that wants to burn the house down would have supported it.
Very nice, but what does all this mean to us?
It’s all about gam tzu l’tova.
In EmunahSpeak: PLAN B
we
averred that Plan A is always the best plan for a person because everything
Hashem does is for the best and moreover, Hashem wants what is good for you
more than you want what’s good for you. And that’s reflected in the fact
that we consistently come up with Plan B…. It’s all about seeing life’s curve
balls as the real Plan A rather the ruination of what we
thought was Plan A.
And in EmunahSpeak:
Seeing the Good we followed up that observation as follows:
It’s all quite a madreiga to be sure,
but
for most of us it is the madreiga of
grinning and bearing it, which means that if we’ve got our heads screwed on
right, really tight, we won’t have a meltdown when a pipe bursts in our house
putting most of what we own three feet under water. We’re not happy about
it, to be sure, and as much as we may try, we also seem to be incapable of
discerning the good that will eventually put in an appearance. And
nonetheless, we’ll say gam zu l’tova, accepting b’lev shaleim that it’s all
Hashem’s will.
As we said above, this is already a
madreiga. Maybe not high enough for a nose bleed, but it’s still something
to talk about.
This
is how we tend to look at life’s speed bumps, and as such it’s a study in
myopia.
We
discoursed at length vis á vis the healthcare disaster
because it serves as a springboard as to how we should understand the concept
of gam zu l’tova which is inversely proportional to everything we saw above.
It’s as if the Satan were hired to negatively promote
every shtickel of Tov that Hashem brings to the world.
You had a flat, toothache, lost your
wallet, lost your job, had a flood etc.
That’s the spin that the Satan has been entrusted to put on any given
point of your timeline in this world. It’s
something seemingly bad that’s covering up something that’s most definitely good
and if we knew what that good is we would be jumping for joy.
But unfortunately we don’t see it.
In EmunahSpeak:
Seeing the Good we also quoted the Tanya to say that it’s
not enough to simply accept an unpleasant situation. A person has to try
to motivate himself to see it as an occasion for simcha.
Your car broke down? Boruch
Hashem. It’s all gam zu l’tovah, our blindness to the tov
notwithstanding.
Sound advice to be sure but how do we
pull it off?
Just look at the health plan and
realize that the good on the other
end of your speed bump is the polar opposite of the bad (read awful) that’s on the flip side of the healthcare spin.
And let your imagination run wild.
