Living Emunah

The Midrash P’sikta Rabati in this week's parasha, Achareh Mot ( 3) says, fortunate is the person who, when going through a difficulty, does not complain about what's happening to him. The Midrash goes on to describe the great levels people could reach by accepting their yisurin without complaint. The Shomer Emunim writes in his ma'amar on hashgacha pratit that a person should train himself to immediately thank Hashem for every little affliction that takes place in his life. It is a tried and tested segula that embracing the way Hashem deals with a person removes the necessity to have more afflictions. It sweetens judgments and brings a great deal of kapara . The first step is to admit that whatever happened, no matter what it seemed like, came directly from Hashem. Not only does every little thing that happens to a person come from Hashem, anything that will affect a person in one way or another is also b’hashgacha pratit . Whether something happens to a person's possessions or his animals, whether an animal gets sick, how long it will be sick for, and which animal it will happen to is all min haShamayim . Rav Tzvi from Zidichov was once walking with his students and they saw a wagon with straw passing by them. The wagon was going fast and little bits of straw were falling off the back along the way. The rabbi told his students, “Every piece of straw that fell off this wagon was b’hashgacha pratit . It was determined which piece of straw needed to fall in which exact spot based on the people in the city nearby who were going to be the ones to find them. They were going to use the straw to make bricks and it was determined which brick the straw needed to be in, based on where the brick was going to be placed in the building in which it was going to be built in.” There are sparks of holiness in many inanimate objects and certain sparks need to connect to certain people's neshamot by being in their presence. These are from the deep secrets of Hashem that we can't possibly comprehend. The Shomer Emunim writes further, every leaf that falls off a tree is b’hashgacha pratit . Which leaf will fall in which order. How many people will step on each leaf. There are so many things that we can't see. There could be parts of a neshama that need tikkun inside of a leaf, as the Arizal taught us, and there is an exact order of operations that the neshama needs to achieve to make that tikkun . It's decided which fruit a worm will go inside of and eat. It's decided which fruit ends up on which person's table. It's brought down in the name of the Baal Shem Tov that if a person believes in Hashem's exacting hashgacha in every single thing that takes place, then Hashem will help him gather all of the objects that have the sparks of holiness that are necessary for his neshama and he'll be able to achieve his full tikkun in this world. This is yet another benefit that is gained by a ba’al emunah. On the other hand, if a person doesn't believe in this type of hashgacha, then chas v’shalom , he may miss out on attaining all of the nitzotzeh kedushah that his neshama needs. There are hundreds of pieces of meat in a butcher shop. A person needs siyata d’Shamaya to choose the piece that is necessary for him and his family members to eat according to their shoresh neshama . The more a person believes, the more Hashem will help him always get exactly what he needs. He'll buy the clothing that are necessary for him. He'll eat the foods that are necessary for him. And he'll be in all the right places at the right times. We don't know enough to fathom how deep the hashgacha of Hashem goes in this world, but the more we believe in it; in every last thing that happens, in every last detail, that it's all b’hashgacha , and especially if we accept the way that Hashem deals with us, the more benefits we'll have both in this world and the Next. Shabbat Shalom.

Rabbi Menashe Reisman asked, "How could it be that the Jewish people sang the אז ישיר after Kiryat Yam Suf with so much joy, being that the Chazal told us that 80% of the Jews died out during מכת חושך ?" That means so many of their relatives and loved ones had just passed away. There were so many orphans and widows, and so many of them lost children when the Mitzriyim threw their babies in the Nile. Yet, we say every day that they sang בשמחה רבה with great jubilation! How do we understand such a thing? It was the first Shabbat after the Belzer rebbe was freed from the nightmares of the Holocaust. He was in Haifa, and he said, "How could we possibly sing and praise HaShem when our families and friends have all perished?" When Miriam brought out the instruments for the ladies to sing with, they could have easily said to Miriam, "Now is not the time to sing. We lost so many of our family members." Yet, they too, sang with great jubilation. How is that possible? The Rabbi brought from the Shem MiShmuel as well as others who expounded upon a fundamental taught by the Zohar Hakadosh that the ים (sea)is a mashal for something being hidden. The world as we know it, with so many things that we don't understand, is also called the ים . When HaShem split the sea, it was not just a physical sea that He split. He also split open the covering of the world, which prevents us from fully understanding His ways. Every single person who passed through the Yam Suf was able to see with such clarity, the secrets of the world. When it says the maidservants saw more than the prophets of the later generations, it doesn't mean the maidservants were on a higher level than them. It means they were able to see things in a light that even the greatest Nevi'im were not זוכה to see. They did not only understand the present, they were able to see the past and the future as well. They understood at that moment why they had to be in Mitzrayim for so many years. They understood how every brick was coming to make a tikkun for דור הפלגה that sinned with bricks. They understood why the babies had to be thrown in the Ye'or as a tikkun for what took place during the generation of the mabul( השׁחית כּל בּשׂר את דרכּו ). And when they looked into the future, they were able to understand the tikkun that the people who died in Makkat Choshech needed to make. The Maharshak said, at the end of days, all those people who died in Choshech are going to come back and live again, and we believe we are living in the final generation. They saw their loved ones sitting at a seder table telling over the story of Yetziat Mitzrayim. They saw them celebrating and greeting the mashiach, and they had no questions. They were able to sing with the greatest joy because they had so much clarity. The Ramban explains that shirah applies to past, present, and future. The midrash says, from the day the world was created, nobody ever sang shirah to Hashem until the Jewish people at Yam Suf. Although many people thanked and praised Hashem throughout the generations, no one was able to sing shirah because they did not have the full understanding of everything that was taking place in their lives. When Hashem reveals himself in the future, we are going to sing the greatest shirah of all because then the entire plan of the world will be understood, even the persecutions of the Jews throughout the generations, including the Holocaust, and Lo aleinu, the massacre that we have witnessed. We anticipate that glorious day when we will all sing the greatest shirah and we hope it will come bekarov .

Learn emunah and bitachon daily with Rabbi David Ashear

Learn emunah and bitachon daily with Rabbi David Ashear

Learn emunah and bitachon daily with Rabbi David Ashear

Learn emunah and bitachon daily with Rabbi David Ashear

Learn emunah and bitachon daily with Rabbi David Ashear

Learn emunah and bitachon daily with Rabbi David Ashear

Learn emunah and bitachon daily with Rabbi David Ashear

Learn emunah and bitachon daily with Rabbi David Ashear