A Parallel Dichotomy

Transcription

1 A Parallel Dichotomy Work, kids, and money are often major stresses in our everyday lives. Living in a society with a workaholic mentality, we are always striving, pushing, and fighting to make our futures successful. We tend to think we are invincible and can achieve any level of success as long as we try hard enough, but our efforts never seem to be enough. We are constantly pushed down by a society showing us that we are not doing our best which essentially fuels our ambitions to work even harder. However, this may be because our society lacks the Jewish outlook of ' בה.בטחון A person who genuinely trusts ' ה and realizes that He alone determines the success of our efforts will not feel an overwhelming compulsion to constantly work harder. At the same time, though, we must ask: does having complete בטחון in ה' mean that we do not need to put in any effort at all? The term השתדלות is used to describe our attempt at an active contribution to our successes. Just like we cannot expect a tree to grow when it was never planted; we need to take some גן sinned, he was in אדם הראשון action towards our success. Before gave him everything that he needed to sustain himself ה' and עדן without any physical effort. After he sinned, though, he sunk from that level to a lower one that required.השתדלות 1 The punishment of 2 He then.בזעת אפיך תאכל לחם,פסוק for his sin is stated in the אדם הראשון had to work and guard the land since the miracles that kept the land fertile were taken away. Thus, השתדלות became necessary. 1 מכתב מאליהו, בטחון והשתדלות,.p בראשית ג:י"ט 113

2 114 Having established that both בטחון and השתדלות are necessary, it becomes necessary to attempt to ascertain the proportions and boundaries of these two values. 3 is displayed when a person,מסילת ישרים according to,בטחון puts all of your burdens on.ה' One has to have complete faith that will take care of everything he needs. If you think you would הקב "ה ever be in a situation where no one will save you, then it is as if.ה' you do not have trust in This means that בטחון and השתדלות can work hand in hand. Realizing that everything comes from,ה' no matter how hard you work for it, clarifies that even though you can be doing your does not want it to happen, it ה' at the end of the day, if,השתדלות will not happen, and conversely, even if you do not work so hard for something, it could still happen. put us in a world that was filled with bad and good, and ה' He gave us the difficult task to find the good. By choosing it, we gain spiritual and physical strength. 4 Spiritually, we are submerged in materialism and profanity and we struggle to find ה' in our lives, but when we find Him, His presence elevates us. Physically, searching for פרנסה in this world is a constant challenge because we are always in competition with each other. Our struggle is to not get pulled into the mentality of secular society and to realize that we need to do our,השתדלות but we cannot do it.בטחון without An entire פרק of קכז ( תהלים ) is devoted to the message that without the blessing of ',ה no human initiative can have any success. Our efforts are nothing without ה' and He can decide to give us something simply because He loves us. This, however, 3 מסילת ישרים פרק כ"א 4 עלי שור, חלק שני, פרק ששי, דף תק"צח

3 A Parallel Dichotomy 115 leads to another question: if nothing can be accomplished without His blessing, then why is human effort necessary at all? People like to eat from the produce of their labor, but, on the other hand, even though we try to do everything, we know it all comes from.ה' 5 This statement highlights the paradox. What in fact is the point of both בטחון and השתדלות if they cancel each other out? The גמרא tells us that our פרנסה for the entire year is predetermined on ראש השנה 6. Some people who are vigorous workers think it is a מצוה to work based on the פסוק that says,ששת ימים תעבוד 7 but this is not accurate. There is no מצוה in that verse; the פסוק says one may work, not that he must work. However, the גמרא 8 says that we have to work because if you learn all day, you will wind up spending all of your time asking for money to survive, and then you will not have any time left for learning. Since our פרנסה is predetermined, no one can take it away from us and we have to have בטחון that ה' will give it to us. Working will not change the outcome of how much money we make, but since we are no longer on a high enough spiritual level to witness open miracles, we have to do work as part of our.השתדלות This explains one aspect of the paradox. There is another aspect of בטחון that is unrelated to making ה' he is trusting in,בזאת אני בוטח says, דוד המלך, when 9 תהלים a living. In to save him when he goes out to war. From this psalm we learn 5 עלי שור, חלק שני, פרק ששי, דף תק"צו 6 ביצה טז. 7 שמות כ:י"ז 8 ברכות לה: 9 תהלים כ"ז

4 116 about a מצוה to not be afraid when going to war. 10 When you are in this situation, you have to have complete trust in ה' or else all the Jewish blood that was spilled will be on your hands if you lose. War is something that is totally out of our control and you cannot win a battle unless you have complete trust in.ה' Although the need for בטחון is readily apparent in such an extreme situation as war, it is actually equally relevant in all circumstances 11. When יוסף was in jail 12, he tried to do his השתדלות by asking the שר המשקים to remember him when the שר המשקים got out of jail and yet Hashem punished him with another two years in prison 13. and not by doing ה' knew that he would only be saved by יוסף but since he was not on a high enough spiritual level to,השתדלות merit open miracles, he knew he would have to make an effort. However, he was only supposed to do the minimal amount of so it would not overshadow trust. Unfortunately he failed in השתדלות this task and there is much we can learn from his choice in terms of the necessity of putting in only minimal effort. The least amount of,השתדלות R Zundel of Salant says 14, is what allows the world to attribute its success to natural causes. had to stay in jail for an additional two years because he did יוסף too much.השתדלות He asked the שר המשקים to remember him twice and he only needed to say it once. The בית הלוי 15 says that there is a you have to השתדלות you have, the less בטחון scale; the more השתדלות do and vice versa. יוסף was on such a high level of בטחון and because 10 רמ"בם, הלכות מלאכים, פרק שביעי, הלכה ט"ו 11 חזון איש, אמונה ובטחון, פרק ב, דף כ 12 פרשת וישב, בראשית מ:י"ד 13 רש"י, בראשית מ:כג 14 מכתב מאליהו, חלק א, בטחון והשתדלות,.p בית הלוי על התורה, פרשת מקץ, דף כ"א

5 A Parallel Dichotomy 117 of this, he should not have asked the שר המשקים to remember him twice, but only once. The world that we live in is filled with worriers. We are born into a society where each person fends for himself and pushes his way up the social scale so he will not be at the bottom 16. Winston Churchill, as quoted in מכתב מאליהו 17, said, We have left nothing to chance. This epitomizes our society s mentality; we cannot trust in anyone else but ourselves for success. People think.בטחון they can control everything, which highlights the lack of Ironically, though, this overconfident mindset causes us to worry. Since people attribute their success to their own actions, they worry that if they are not alert all the time they will miss out. If we find the correct balance between our בטחון in ה' and our,השתדלות the way we live will change. When there is more בטחון in our lives, we start to focus on things that are more important, such as learning,תורה working on ourselves, and building a relationship with.ה' In fact, Rav Aharon Lichtenstein says that the greatest source of faith is "the רבונו של עולם Himself." 18 ה' in. Our history also proves that there is what to believe has saved us from countless tragedies when nothing seemed to be working out for our people. ה' is present in this world and all we have to do is open our eyes, put in the effort, and find that balance in our lives. When we do, it will propel us to lead lives that are more focused on,תורה and become better Jews. 16 עלי שור, חלק שני, פרק ששי, דף תקצ"ו 17 מכתב מאליהו, חלק א, בטחון והשתדלות,.p ראה Itself", Rav Aharon Lichtenstein, Leaves of Faith: "The Source of Faith