שער הביטחון - שיעור 2

My dear friends, >> After we laid the groundwork in the previous lesson regarding the merit of a person who trusts in the Holy One, blessed be He, what is the essence of all this trust in the Holy One, blessed be He? It is the peace of mind that a Jew possesses in this matter, both in his intellectual concerns and in his material affairs. The moment a Jew knows that he trusts and leans upon the Holy One, blessed be He, and has someone to rely on, and

he does not perform all his spiritual duties out of fear or dread—that the Holy One, blessed be He, is watching me now, so I must do it and He demands it of me, I must perform Torah and mitzvot—but rather, once a person trusts in matters of Torah, mitzvot, and so on, it is much calmer, easier, and better for him to fulfill them. Rabbeinu Bachya continues and explains to us: Because if he does not trust in Hashem, he will trust in others, and whoever trusts in other

than Hashem, Hashem removes His providence from him and leaves him in the hands of the one he leans upon.

On the surface, this is a somewhat difficult statement to hear. Right? After all, we know, we study Chassidut, we know that in Chassidut it is explained and clarified by the Baal Shem Tov that the Holy One, blessed be He, essentially never removes His providence from any Jew at any time in any situation. Right?

So what is the meaning here? A person’s nature is such that he is accustomed to leaning on something. He cannot live in uncertainty or under pressure. So he must lean on something, either on the Holy One, blessed be He, or on something else.

And when a person chooses to trust in someone who is not the Holy One, blessed be He—that is, he has, for the sake of example, a millionaire friend who he remembers saying that the moment he has a financial problem, he should turn to him and he will transfer it to the bank immediately, everything will be fine, and he will settle accounts with him later. So what, what is that person actually doing? He is not trusting in the Holy One, blessed be He, that He will provide for him at that moment and fill his needs and so on. He remembers in his head that he has a friend named Moshe who once told him he would immediately deposit all the necessary money into his account.

And then what does the Holy One, blessed be He, actually do? He removes His providence from him. What does that mean? As we said, the Holy One, blessed be He, will never remove His providence from a Jew.

So what is it? There is providence that is revealed and providence that is hidden. The moment a Jew chooses to lean on a flesh-and-blood human being rather than on the Holy One, blessed be He, then suddenly, the providence of the Holy One, blessed be He, is hidden. All the while a Jew trusts in the Holy One, blessed be He, it is revealed, and a Jew can see the abundance that comes to him and the blessings, and so on.

When he starts to trust in flesh and blood without the Holy One, blessed be He, consequently he begins to see that the providence is hidden. And then he also realizes that Moshe, his friend, is a flesh-and-blood human, and suddenly he forgot what he said, and he cannot transfer all the money, and so on. A Jew can always return and turn back to the Holy One, blessed be He, but what then? The Holy One, blessed be He, tells him, "Listen, you rely on him , I will leave you in his hands." In the meantime, yes?

My providence will be there, but it will be hidden. That is our point for today. Wishing everyone a peaceful Shabbat and good news. K.