Welcome to Daily Bitachon. We continue in our special mini series with messages based on the situation that's going on in Eretz Yisrael, now with the threat from Iran. In the Haftara of Parashat Baha'alotcha , which was read on the first Shabbat of this war, Zechariah sees a vision of a Menorah and the angel asks him, Do you know what this is? He says, I don't know, what is it? The angel tells him, This is a message to Zerubavel telling him, לא בחיל, not with not with armies, לא בכח, not with strength, כי אם ברוח י, it's My spirit אמר ה' צבאות. We're going to win this with spirit. מי אתה הר הגדול? Who do you think you are, big mountain, לפני זרובבל, in front of Zerubavel. ל מישור, I'm going to smooth you out . What exactly is this message of כי אם ברוחי/ It's going to happen with My spirit? The commentaries on the Navi point us to a pasuk at the beginning of Ezra (1:1), where it talks about building the Bet Hamikdash: ובשנת אחת לכורש מלך פרס/ In the first year of Koresh , the Persian king. There were many Persian kings, but Koresh was the one that built our Bet Hamikdash העיר ה' את רוח כורש מלך פרס/ God aroused the spirit of King Koresh of Paras. ויעבר קול בכל מלכותו /And he made an announcement to all of his kingdom, and he wrote a letter and said, everybody please help build the Bet Hamikdash What are the words that are used ? העיר ה' את רוח כורש/God aroused his spiri t. The commentaries tell us, this is what Hashem meant with when he said to Zerubavel, We're going to win this war with My spirit- You're not going to have to fight anything. I'm just going to flick a switch and Koresh is going to decide to send out workers to accommodate the building of the Bet Hamikdash… And that's what happened. And that large mountain referred to above, that was blocking Zerubavel? That mountain also refers to the Persians. As it says in Ezra chapter 4, At the beginning of the kingdom of Achashverosh, , כתבו שטנה. They wrote words of prosecution. What were those words of prosecution? Stop building the Bet Hamikdash.. and the building of the Bet Hamikdash was impeded by Achashverosh. That's how we know he wasn't the best of people. Rav Saada HaGaon says there that if we continue reading onto the next pasuk, we see that the one writing these words of prosecution w as Shimsheh, the scribe. Who was this scribe Shimsheh? He was the son of Haman. The Gemara in Masechet Megila 16A, discusses the night Achashverosh woke up in the middle of the night, disturbed. Hashem aroused him, and he woke up disturbed. Why hadn't he paid back Mordechai? So he took out the Divreh HaYamim . Who was in charge of the book? None other than this same scribe, Shimsheh! Shimsheh was busy erasing the words We have to pay back Mordechai,but while he was doing so, Gavriel the Malach was filling it in. The Maharsha says this, again, was Haman's son! So Hashem is showing us that There can be all kinds of the negative forces and anti-semitism, but I will wake up the king in the middle of the night. I will send Gavriel in. I fight wars with spirit, not with regular tactics . And that is all we need. This Bet Hamikdash will be built very simply. It's not that complicated. Just a flick of the switch. And the very same Persians that stopped it then decided to build it. It's a flip of a switch. And Paras is Iran…. Similarly we now have the chancellor of Germany praising Israel for doing the world's dirty work! What's going on? It's just a flick of a switch. We have to believe that it's that simple for Hashem to turn things around. He doesn't need anything . כי אם ברוחי. Of course we do our physical Hishtadlut (and we'll soon get to spiritual Hishtadlut ). But at the end of the day, it's all כי אם ברוחי/ Hashem is in charge of spirits. That's a term used on God. So let's believe that with the flick of a switch, everything can change.