Question:
DISCLAIMER: Hypothetical only, but on my mind a lot these days.
What is the Torah view regarding someone doing something terrible on purpose with the intention of preventing any future terrible things? Specifically someone who knows they are up to no good in this world and can’t improve despite all efforts including self-improvement programs, learning, davening, consulting with rabbis, therapists, and other mentors, medication, therapy programs, and nothing works? This person tried extremely hard for many, many years and never improved and is causing a lot of terrible damage. How would Hashem view that person if they choose to leave the world before they can make an even bigger mess and cause more damage?
Answer:
H-shem would view that as the worst thing the person did in their life. If Hashem would feel that it would be the correct thing for the person’s life to end, he has enough ways to do it. If he didn’t do it, it is for very good reason. Most probably the person, although he may be very, very down, and right now things look bleak, but H-shem who sees our future, sees a brighter future than what we see now.
Our job in this world is to try the hardest that we can. Our job is not necessarily to be successful, but to try and put in the effort. By you putting in the effort, you are fulfilling your job in the world, and despite you failures, in shomayim you are a success. Everyone comes to the world in order to accomplish a certain job that will complete and perfect their neshoma. Some people’s job in the world is to trudge through the difficult times, and that in itself, the fact that the person just withstood the difficulty- with all its hardship, is his success… and perhaps a bigger success than others that “look” successful.
Another point. The fact that the person worked so, so hard until now, has given him a tremendous zechus in shomayim. W all know lifum tzara agra, according to the pain is the amount that we gain, in reward for eternity. It would be a terrible shame to lose that reward by doing something terribly foolish. The world from the way they see it in shomayim looks very different than the way it looks to us in this world, and those who had a hard time and persevered, are the ones with the greatest fortune in the world to come.
