Living Emunah By Rabbi David Ashear

It’s Not All or Nothing


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When a person is going through a difficult time, or if he experienced an embarrassing situation and is feeling a great deal of pain as a result. He thinks about it day and night and can't concentrate fully on anything else he tries to accomplish. He tries again and again to put it out of his mind but to no avail. One of the ways in which he can feel better about what happened is by internalizing that it came from Hashem. Although a person may have been learning emunah for years and has learned countless times that everything comes from Hashem, when it comes time to actually apply it, it is not so simple. Being that the circumstances which brought about the difficulty usually seem so natural, it's hard for a person to feel Hashem's hand behind it, especially when it seems like other people are the cause of their problem. However, just because a person's initial reactions are not like the greats of all time, it doesn't mean they can't achieve the level of emunah they hoped they would have had. All it means is they need an extra boost to get there. Whether it is listening to a few classes on emunah or reading a book on emunah, or speaking to other people about what happened, or just internally convincing themselves of the real truth, with a little extra effort, they will be amazed at the results. It is never all or nothing. Sometimes, just a little emunah will take the edge off and that will accomplish so much for the person. The more effort we put into it, the better the results will be. Rabbi Pinchas Shafer related a story that a man told about himself. The man said, he has a friend of many years whom he trusted and with whom he shared things that he would not tell just anyone. One day, that friend took advantage of their closeness in order to insult him terribly. The pain he experienced was unimaginable. It hurt him so much, he literally did not know what to do with himself. The negative emotions overwhelmed him. He tried to think it through logically and find some points in his friend's favor, but he was so distressed he was unable to do that. He decided he needed to work on his emunah so he called a hashgacha peratit hot-line and listened to a song with the words from the first Ani Maamin – "I believe with complete faith that the Creator, yitbarach Shemo , creates and orchestrates the entire Creation and He alone makes everything happen, as He always did and always will." He listened to this song again and again, dozens of times, until he finally felt calm and it was clear as day to him that this friend was just a messenger of Hashem. Once he calmed down, he started thinking about a possible message that Hashem might be telling him. He then recalled that he once hurt someone else with a similar type of insult, thinking he was acting l'shem Shamayim by doing so. But perhaps he was wrong and he needed to get forgiveness from that man. He then thanked Hashem for giving him this thought process. The very next day, in his regular learning, he was up to page 105 in Masechet Yevamot and encountered a story about a Rabbi who mistakenly embarrassed somebody else, thinking he was l'shem Shamayim for doing it. The Gemara , however, said he was wrong and he had to suffer the consequences. This man felt like Hashem was talking directly to him and, baruch Hashem, he was able to get forgiven. Whenever someone is struggling with emotional pain and it is so hard for him to think clearly, with a little extra work in emunah, it will make the situation much easier for him to deal with.
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Living Emunah By Rabbi David AshearBy Rabbi David Ashear

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