I think we all recognize that Yahadus consists of both creed and deed, that the Mitzvos HaTorah seek to instruct and regulate both belief and behavior. The overwhelming majority of mitzvos focus of course on deed, on behavior, but we know the Rambam's Yud Gimmel Ikarim, and we know that these Yud Gimmel Ikarim are encapsulated within mitzvos as well. Anochi Hashem Elokecha is one of the mitzvos, believing in Hakadosh Baruch Hu, the creator of the world. שמע ישראל ה' אלקינו ה' אחד is the second mitzvah, believing in the unity of Hakadosh Baruch Hu, that He is one who is the source of everything that exists. So we know at the beginning of Haskalah, Yahadus was distorted; this wasn't acknowledged, it wasn't recognized. But I think we all recognize that today, that the Mitzvos HaTorah again consist of both creed and deed, that they instruct us both with regard to belief and behavior. And moreover, I think we do see some points of intersection between the two, in that some of the Mitzvos Maasiyos, some of the mitzvos on the practical plane, seek to inculcate basic beliefs, whether it's the mitzvah of Shabbos, which is clearly geared towards reinforcing the emunah of כי ששת ימים עשה ה' את השמים ואת הארץ, that Hakadosh Baruch Hu created heaven and earth in six days. So there is some intersection, there is some intertwining between these two areas. But the topic that I'd like to explore with you this evening is how the Ikkarei Emunah, how the fundamentals of faith which Yahadus teaches us should be manifest in our behavior as well. And the basic theme, the basic thesis, is that our beliefs, our beliefs about Hakadosh Baruch Hu, about Hashgacha Pratis, and the various Yesodei Ha'emunah cannot be exhausted by simply checking off a yes in a questionnaire if we're giving a questionnaire. Sociologists are always trying to take the pulse of, be it American Jewry, or be it American people as a whole when it comes to issues of religion and religious belief. Do you believe in Hakadosh Baruch Hu, don't you believe? Do you believe in an afterlife, don't you believe? So we're used to, you check off the appropriate column. But rather the Torah expects that these beliefs again are something that we not only subscribe to intellectually, but it's something which also controls and molds our behavior. And this is something which can be illustrated by looking at many, many areas, but we're going to try to focus tonight on two areas. We're going to focus on our belief in Hashgacha Pratis, in personal divine providence, as well as our belief in the omnipresence of Hakadosh Baruch Hu, that Hakadosh Baruch Hu is, that part of Hakadosh Baruch Hu's infinitude is that Hakadosh Baruch Hu is everywhere. לית אתר פנוי מיניה, that there is no spot, there is no place where a person is not in the presence of Hakadosh Baruch Hu. So what implications do these have in terms of our behavior, in terms of our demeanor? So let's first begin with the belief in Hashgacha Pratis. Now just by way of full disclosure, the contours of the belief in Hashgacha Pratis which we're going to be assuming are agreed upon by many of the Rishonim: Rabbeinu Bachya, the Ramban, and the Sefer HaChinuch, but not necessarily all Rishonim. It's not necessarily the case that this is something to which all Rishonim would agree. And let's approach it through the Torah's account of the reconciliation of Yosef HaTzadik with his brothers, with the Shivtei Koh. Yosef, when he reveals, when he discloses his true identity to the brothers at the beginning of Parshas Vayigash, Yosef HaTzadik says to them, 'Gishu Na Elai', גשו נא אלי ויגשו, 'Gishu Na Elai', come approach me, and in fact they do approach him. And he says, אני יוסף אחיכם אשר מכרתם אותי מצרימה. I'm, I'm. I'm your brother Yosef, I'm the long-lost Yosef whom you sold into servitude and eventually I came down to Mitzrayim. And then Yosef makes a rather strange comment, seemingly strange. He says ועתה אל תעצבו ואל יחר בעיניכם, don't be upset, don't be agitated that you sold me here, כי למחיה שלחני אלוהים לפניכם. So already we begin to get the sense as though Yosef is whitewashing and exonerating what the brothers did. Don't, it's not really you did it, really HaKadosh Baruch Hu was orchestrating things. And Yosef HaTzadik then reinforces this, skipping one pasuk, Vayishlachani Elokim lifneichem, HaKadosh Baruch Hu who realized that there was going to be a famine and that Yaakov's household would have to come down to Mitzrayim, so HaKadosh Baruch Hu sent me before you לשום לכם שארית בארץ ולהחיות לכם לפליטה גדולה, that you would be able to survive, that there would be someone who'll look out for you here. And now if there was any ambiguity left in Yosef's take on what had happened to him, so he seems to clarify it entirely here with the next pasuk, Ve'ata, and now, לא אתם שלחתם אותי הנה כי האלוהים. You're not responsible for my being here but rather HaKadosh Baruch Hu is responsible for my being here. So it seems quite clear that Yosef is fully exonerating them and if all we had were these pesukim, right, if we just had just these pesukim and we were asked to describe what Yosef's reaction is, so Yosef basically seems to say that their bechira chofshis, their free will, was superseded and that HaKadosh Baruch Hu used them as instruments in His divine plan. That's what it would seem to be. And yet that seems to be a very, very difficult reading of the pasuk, why, because in the previous pasuk, in the very previous pasuk before we began reading, so ויאמר יוסף אל אחיו, Yosef says to his brothers, אני יוסף העוד אבי חי, is my father still alive? ולא יכלו אחיו לענות אותו כי נבהלו מפניו. They were so stunned and so overwhelmed and so, so, so scared that they couldn't answer Yosef HaTzadik. So the Gemara in Chagiga says, and it's a famous Midrash, that אוי לנו מיום הדין אוי לנו מיום התוכחה, woe to us from the ultimate day of judgment, woe to us from the ultimate day of rebuke, Sheharei Yosef, that the Shivtei Kah, the brothers, so they were only rebuked by a basar vadam, they were rebuked by someone mortal, by someone human, and yet they were just so overwhelmed and stunned into speechlessness, into silence. So על אחת כמה וכמה, how much more when we will have to stand in judgment before HaKadosh Baruch Hu. So what was the din, what was the tochacha here? So we're all familiar with a famous explanation of the Beit HaLevi that Yosef's question of Ha'od avi chai wasn't a, wasn't an innocent inquiry because at the end of Parshat Miketz when the brothers had last appeared before Yosef, so Yosef had already asked for an update on the condition of Yaakov Avinu, and they had told him everything they knew, and they hadn't been home since then because Yosef had had them arrested on the charge of stealing his gavia, his kos. So they didn't have any new information, so why was Yosef asking again? So the Beit HaLevi says that's where Chazal saw the tochacha, that's where Chazal see that there was rebuke here, that Yosef was saying Ha'od avi chai, is it conceivable that Yaakov Avinu has been able to endure all the suffering and the anguish that you caused him through your actions? So Yosef right here within this very same audience, Yosef clearly is indicting them, Yosef is rebuking them. Apparently Yosef thinks that until this point, without that final tochacha, the teshuvah isn't as yet 100 percent complete. So Yosef clearly is not exonerating them. So how does Yosef turn around and say לא אתם מכרתם אותי הנה, לא אתם שלחתם אותי הנה כי האלוהים?
You didn't send me here, you didn't dispatch me to Mitzrayim, it was rather HaKadosh Baruch Hu. So the answer is, and this is a little bit subtle, it assumes two premises, one of which is very much intuitive because it's something that we feel and we experience. And the other one is not as easily, as easily seen, it's not as easily experienced and for that matter, for that reason it seems initially to be counterintuitive, but let's try to understand. Yosef HaTzadik here is basically telling us an entire theory of history and of the interplay between Bechira Chofshis, human free will on the one hand, and Hashgacha Pratis, and divine providence on the other hand. And Yosef HaTzadik is here introducing the following distinction. There are two perspectives that a person can have on what happens, right? Two perspectives. There's the perspective of the subject, right? The subject is the one doing, the one acting, the one who causes. And then there's the one, there's the object, the one to whom something is done. So Yosef HaTzadik says as follows. From the perspective of the subject, if I'm looking in the mirror and I'm making a Cheshbon HaNefesh, I'm introspecting about things that I have done, so that a person should know that it's a pillar of Torah, the Rambam says, without this all of Torah is meaningless and is impossible, is that we have free will and that whatever we do, we do out of our own free will and because of that morally, religiously, we are 100% responsible and accountable for anything and everything we do. That's from the perspective of the subject. Okay, so therefore if I wronged someone, if I insulted someone, if I hurt someone, if I hit someone, so then I did that out of my own free will and I am 100% morally liable and accountable for what I did and all the consequences thereof. But what about from the subject of the object? What happens if instead of being the perpetrator I'm the victim? What happens if I'm victimized? So what's my perspective on that? So Yosef HaTzadik says: You are 100% morally culpable for what you did and because of that I am giving you mussar. הוכח תוכיח את עמיתך, I am giving you mussar. Haod avi chai, but I want you to know why are you scared? Ki nivhalu mipanav, why are you scared? Because you think the next step is that I'm going to take revenge, right? You think that if I recognize and am calling to your attention your liability, your culpability, that the follow-up, what happens in the next stage, the next stage is that I'm going to take revenge. No, you're making a mistake because from the perspective of an object, from the perspective of the one who was victimized, so then my belief is that if HaKadosh Baruch Hu didn't intervene and didn't foil your Bechira Chofshis, that means that for me this was predestined. For me Yosef HaTzadik says it was predestined for me that I go through this whole ordeal and end up in Mitzrayim. It was not predestined that you be the instrument. If you with your nefarious designs hadn't provided the instrumentation, so HaKadosh Baruch Hu doesn't lack means and methods of implementing His will. HaKadosh Baruch Hu could have had me get lost and fall into the hands of some other kidnappers. It didn't have to be you, but I recognize again as the object, from that perspective I recognize that what happened to me is כי לא אתם שלחתם אותי הנה כי האלוקים. It's one of the mysteries and miracles of Hashgacha Pratis. I remember many many years ago as a teenager I once asked my father Zichrono L'vracha: How can we study history, be it political history, be it military history, and analyze things on a secular level of cause and effect if we believe that ultimately the ultimate cause and effect is spiritual, that the Ribbono Shel Olam determines what happens? So what's the justification, or where does history fit in? And what my father Zichrono L'vracha answered me then is that one of the miracles of divine providence is that HaKadosh Baruch Hu sees to it that things unfold on two levels. Things unfold on two levels. Yes, ultimately what HaKadosh Baruch Hu allows to happen is determined again on the ultimate level, on the ultimate level of what HaKadosh Baruch Hu decrees for the world in response again to our actions, what we kivayachol force Him to do at times. And yet what the long-term causes of antisemitism are and what they were particularly in Germany and all the turmoil in Germany after their defeat in World War One and how all this fed into the cauldron of Nazism and culminated in the Second World War. That's all true. That's all true. The same way one can say, as the Chumash itself does, that the brothers were jealous of Yosef Hatzaddik and because of that they felt enmity towards him and because of that they sold him. But again, Hakadosh Baruch Hu allowed that to happen. Hakadosh Baruch Hu had his own reasons for not foiling their bechira chofshis. So the distinction here is again that there are two perspectives on anything that happens. If I'm the subject, if I'm the one who did, if I'm the actor, so then I have to recognize that Hakadosh Baruch Hu allows me to act with free will and because of that I have to accept the full responsibility for what I do. I can't say, listen, obviously it was bashert that you should get a bloody nose. No, I did it willingly. And I didn't do it because I got a nevuah, because I got a command from Hakadosh Baruch Hu to do it. So I am fully liable and accountable for what I do. But me'idach gisa, on the other hand, the person who is victimized, so he's supposed to recognize as Yosef Hatzaddik does and says that if you didn't, if Hakadosh Baruch Hu didn't foil this, if Hakadosh Baruch Hu didn't when the person fired, Hakadosh Baruch Hu didn't make him misfire as often happens, so it means that for whatever reason, so Hakadosh Baruch Hu did endorse the result for totally different reasons and for totally different motives obviously than the human perpetrator is doing it, but Hakadosh Baruch Hu must have ordained this result. Now the first of these premises that we act with free will is something again which is intuitive. I think we feel it. We feel when we make decisions that we have the ability to do or not to do, and we realize that we're acting of our own volition. It requires more reflection to understand and to appreciate the second, that again, the person who wrongs me, he's not the ultimate cause. Many years after thinking about these pesukim for a long time and thinking that this was the pshat, my brother showed me the Sfas Emes. You'll take a look at the Sfas Emes in Parshas Vayigash. So kedarko bakodesh, in three lines, the Sfas Emes condenses gufei Torah. He has profound and wonderful ideas which he compresses. So the Sfas Emes you'll see in Parshas Vayigash has this analysis of Yosef Hatzaddik's comment as well. You'll take a look just as further corroboration for this idea, there's a remarkable passage in the Sefer Hachinuch. The Sefer Hachinuch, commenting on the prohibition against nekama, taking revenge. So I think our initial reaction is, why does the Torah prohibit taking revenge? Because again, morally, it's a very corrupt mida. To even a score, to take revenge, is something which is morally corrupt, and for that reason, the Torah prohibits it. Sefer Hachinuch says nothing about the moral or ethical corruption involved. I don't think he disagrees with it, but he doesn't say anything about it. The Sefer Hachinuch says you know why the Torah prohibits nekama? Because if I seek to take revenge against you, so that means that I think that you were the ultimate cause of what happened to me. Because otherwise, what's the rationale for getting revenge? Is to get even, right? So that means that you must have been the ultimate cause of what happened to me. And the Sefer Hachinuch says that's wrong. A person should know, a person should know, he has the phrase yitein el libo that כי כל אשר יקרהו מטוב ועד רע whatever befalls a person, whatever happens to a person, whether it's good fortune or rachmana litzlan not good fortune, so the Sefer Hachinuch writes הוא סיבה שתבוא עליו מאת השם יתברך that the ultimate cause is from Hakadosh Baruch Hu, and from a person nothing can happen. Because if someone is seeking to wrong me and Hakadosh Baruch Hu doesn't want that result unsuccessful, that they won't succeed. Mimaila says the Sefer Hachinuch that's why the Torah prohibits nekama, because in seeking nekama, it's theologically wrong, not simply morally wrong, but it's theologically wrong. So let's reflect for a minute on again the our fundamental belief in hashgacha pratis. What do we see here in the encounter between Yosef and his brothers, what would we describe as the natural reaction? The natural reaction Yosef Hatzadik should be having is A, tremendous anger, tremendous anger, I mean just imagine, imagine the suffering that Yosef Hatzadik endured. There should be tremendous anger, there should be a desire for revenge, there should be a grudge, and yet Yosef says, I want you to know I feel none of that. I feel none of that, right? So Yosef's emotional reactions, how Yosef is acting, how he's reacting, all of that is conditioned by what? By the ikar haemunah, by the fundamental of faith that we have in hashgacha pratis. So it's fundamental of faith is not just something to which we intellectually subscribe. It's not just a yes on a questionnaire, but if it's something which is internalized, so then that conditions us, it conditions our actions, our reactions, and this is a perfect example. Let's take another still discussing hashgacha pratis, let's take another example of this. There's a very, very famous passage with which I'm sure you're all familiar in the Ibn Ezra in Parshas Yisro, where the Ibn Ezra says rabim tamu, many people are puzzled, are puzzled how can the Torah have a mitzvah not to covet? How can the Torah have a mitzvah not to covet? Just to dramatize the Ibn Ezra's question a little bit, let's say you have a poor homeless person rachmana litzlan, homeless person, hasn't had a square meal in days. So he's starving, he's walking around in tattered clothing, in weather like this, maybe even more frigid weather. And he walks outside a beautiful palatial mansion and he sees he sees the fireplace glowing and he sees it's warm and he can see on on the dining room table, he can see it's full of delicacies and he sees the upholstered chairs and he sees the comfort and the luxury. So how can a person how can he not covet? How can the Torah tell him okay don't break in and steal, don't break in and try to take over the house, the Torah can regulate our actions, but how can the Torah regulate that reaction? Now the Ibn Ezra obviously isn't writing in English, but I think if he were and if he were writing in in our contemporary jargon, I think the Ibn Ezra would make the question even more pointed by saying isn't it just an instinctive reaction to covet in such a situation? And how can the Torah how can the Torah regulate instincts? That the Torah can regulate actions, maybe even beliefs, but how can the Torah regulate reactions? It's not premeditated. That poor homeless person has this instinctive reaction, it's nothing premeditated. So how can you tell him no control, what do you mean control it? If someone hits you so the nervous system works, that you feel pain. So tell someone don't feel pain, you can't tell someone not to feel pain, it's an involuntary reaction. So too here isn't it an instinctive reaction, isn't an instinctive reaction involuntary? How can the Torah regulate it? The Ibn Ezra answers with his famous mashal, the famous mashal. He says let's say you have this villager, uneducated, poor, lower class villager. He says he doesn't for a moment entertain the possibility of marrying the princess. He knows that it's beyond the realm of possibility. What's beyond the realm of possibility a person doesn't covet. What's beyond the realm of possibility a person doesn't covet. So too the Ibn Ezra says if a person would realize that whatever one has, whatever one's lot in life is, however much wealth, whatever one's financial state is, whatever one's marital status is, assuming that one is doing his best to וברכתיך בכל אשר תעשה that one is doing his best to make his hishtadlus and is taking appropriate human initiative, so then one knows that what one's portion. Portion in life is that which Hakadosh Baruch Hu has apportioned to him. And with all the strategies and all the tactics in the world, a person can't get anything more or beyond what Hakadosh Baruch Hu apportions to him. If a person then realizes it, so then a person will say, "I may not know why Hakadosh Baruch Hu has decreed poverty upon me Rachmana Litzlan. I may not know why he's blessed him with comfort and why he's challenged me with poverty. I may not know the answer to that question, but I know that's his will. And I know that it's not this person's enjoying the luxury which is responsible for my deprivation. And what's more, it's beyond the realm of possibility for me to attain what Hakadosh Baruch Hu doesn't ordain for me." But so how exactly? This is the Ibn Ezra's moshal. But how exactly is he answering the original question? Again, it's an instinctive reaction, right? It's an instinctive reaction to covet. For this poor homeless person, isn't it instinctive? So the Ibn Ezra here is telling us something very profound. He says at the time we react instinctively, it's true, it is involuntary. But the process of forming instincts is very much voluntary. Yes, at the moment he walks by the home, yeah, at that point it is an instinctive reaction which happens so quickly that it probably is involuntary. But what conditions his reaction, what conditions his reaction, משל למה הדבר דומה, right? So let's say a person has a weakness for a certain food, right? And he sees that food. Okay, so ordinarily a person desires the food, he wants the food. Let's say he knows that someone injected, he watched someone walk over with a syringe and injected poison into the food. So what's going to happen? He's going to have the same involuntary instinctive reaction? No, it depends upon how he views it. He's not going to view it that way. He's not going to have any great desire to be able to eat that food. So instincts, it's true that when we react instinctively at that moment we're not controlling them, but our instincts reflect, again, beliefs and convictions. If a person has a belief, if a person has a conviction, again, which is deeply, deeply held and deeply, deeply rooted, that what a person has, again, a person is supposed to take all the appropriate human initiative, but then recognizes that thereafter whatever a person has is what Hakadosh Baruch Hu has seen fit to apportion to him, so then one's instincts are different, one's instincts are different. And by internalizing belief, the Ibn Ezra is explaining that one can create, one can mold instincts as well. When the instincts are active, at that point it's difficult, nigh impossible to control them, but we can control and mold our instincts. And again, here too, we see that this again, this belief in hashgacha pratis, this belief in personal divine providence, again, according to the Ibn Ezra, that the Torah expects us, that that should manifest itself again in my instinctive emotional reaction. It's not just something to which I intellectually subscribe, "Yes, Ribbono Shel Olam, I believe in personal divine providence," but "Yes, Ribbono Shel Olam, I act and I react even instinctively in accordance with my belief in personal divine providence." Let's just consider one other yesod ha'emuna, the second of the Aseres Hadibros, לא יהיה לך אלהים אחרים על פני. Not to believe in other gods. Al panai. What does al panai mean? So Rashi says, כל זמן שאני קיים, as long as I exist, right? Which means that since Hakadosh Baruch Hu is eternal, so it means that this mitzva is binding like all the mitzvos of the Torah for all eternity. The Ibn Ezra and the Ramban understand al panai in a, they have a complementary, a supplement understanding of what al panai means. And they say that the, I forget who quotes which psukim, I think the Ramban quotes the posuk וימת הרן על פני תרח אביו. What does it mean וימת הרן על פני תרח אביו? It means that Haran predeceased his father Terach. He died in his father's presence, right? And the Medrash reconstructs for us very dramatically how he died in his father's presence. But that's what the posuk says. So al panai according to the Ibn Ezra... and the Ramban means in my presence. לא יהיה לך אלהים אחרים in my presence, you can't believe in other gods in the falsehood of other gods and divinities in my presence says Hakadosh Baruch Hu. And what does that mean? So on which context does that refer to? So obviously again, this is a reflection of our fundamental belief again that Hakadosh Baruch Hu is omnipresent. Right? And that's when we refer to Hakadosh Baruch Hu as Hamakom, as in the way Tanchumin, condolences are generally extended, Hamakom yenachem eschem. So basically what Hamakom means is that הקדוש ברוך הוא מקומו של עולם, which means that Hakadosh Baruch Hu is omnipresent. That Hakadosh Baruch Hu is omnipresent. Now again, so this is a fundamental article of faith within Yahadus. So what are its implications in terms of again of behavior? Does this have implications for behavior as well? So basically, this is the most repercussive of all the yesodos ha'emunah. The Rama in Siman Aleph in Shulchan Aruch in his very first comment quotes a passage from the Rambam's Moreh Nevuchim. And the Rama hundreds of years later, this was made into a song. So the Rama quotes from the Rambam about שויתי ה' לנגדי תמיד הוא כלל גדול בתורה, right? That this is a major, major principle and pillar of Torah. Why so? So says the Rama and again, this is a quote from the Rambam in Moreh Nevuchim. So the Rama says as follows: כי אין ישיבת האדם ותנועותיו ועסקיו והוא לבדו בביתו כישיבתו ותנועותיו ועסקיו והוא לפני מלך גדול.
That the way a person moves, his movements, the way he conducts himself, the way he sits, the way he walks, the way he speaks, if a person feels that he's in the privacy of his own home, so then we let our guard down and we behave one way according to one standard. If a person feels that he's in the presence of a great king, so then we hold ourselves to a higher standard. We hold ourselves to a higher standard depending upon whose presence, right? We're at some times we're on our best behavior. So says the Rambam quoted by the Rama, כל שכן כשישים האדם אל לבו שהמלך הגדול הקדוש ברוך הוא אשר מלא כל הארץ כבודו עומד עליו ורואה במעשיו.
So how much more so, never mind just imagining, which isn't true, that we're in the presence of a great human king. But how much more so if a person realizes the truth that המלך הגדול הקדוש ברוך הוא אשר מלא כל הארץ כבודו,
right? That the kavod, the glory of Hakadosh Baruch Hu fills, permeates the whole world, omed alav, right? Hakadosh Baruch Hu is right here in our presence, right? We're really in his presence, right? But Hakadosh Baruch Hu is right here in our presence. So then says the Rama, so everything we do is transformed. Everything. Our entire demeanor. Everything. Even the way a person walks. Right? Sometimes you see from the way a person walks. Sometimes you can see ga'avah. You can see arrogance just in a person's gait. And other times you can see the opposite. You can see it from a person's movements and motion. Sometimes you see you can see eidelkeit and you see gentleness, refinement. And sometimes unfortunately one can see other things. Says the Rama, quoting the Rambam, if a person will only will only yasim el libo, כל שכן כשישים האדם אל לבו. If a person will only be cognizant, will translate that in a moment bli neder more precisely. If a person will only be cognizant of the fact that we're always in the presence of Hakadosh Baruch Hu, so then again, just imagine from our own experience when we're on our best behavior. Just imagine the discipline that we show in manners of speech. In manners of speech. There's so much pettiness that we let we let it slip. We let it go by without comment, without reacting because we're on our best behavior. Because we have guests, we have guests in the home. And we speak, we're careful. Make sure there's no vulgarity. We're careful to speak in a refined manner. And what's more, if one's in the presence of a dignitary or man malkhei rabanan, in the presence of a big talmid chacham, so a person speaks. manifestations, all of those transformations should always be with us if only ישים האדם אל לבו that again לא יהיה לך אלהים אחרים על פני in my presence and when Hakadosh Baruch Hu says in my presence, it means wherever we happen to be. So these are two examples if we had the time we could give many, many more of fundamental articles of faith, yesodos ha'emunah, again the examples we gave are hashgacha pratis belief in personal divine providence as well as Hakadosh Baruch Hu's omnipresence and how that should condition our behavior, how that should mold, again, not only our actions but our reactions as well, even those which are instinctive. But let's just spend one last moment. But how so? How so? What happens if what happens if I look in the mirror, right? Mirror, mirror on the wall. Why is it that I do believe in hashgacha pratis and why is it that I do believe in Hakadosh Baruch Hu's omnipresence and yet all these practical results and manifestations I don't see in myself? So what has gone wrong? What's amiss here? So there's a very sometimes sometimes when we're confronted with such questions so I think we're inclined to look for and to hope for some very deep and profound answer and sometimes the answers are very simple and very direct, not easy. Sometimes the more profound answers seem to offer a shortcut and seem to be easier to implement and sometimes the answers are easier to understand but more challenging to implement. And the principle here is as follows: that in order for these yesodos ha'emunah, in order for these articles of faith to condition our actions and reactions, in order not to be able to be choimeis, in order that our anger against other people should not only be undercut, should be preempted, it's not enough to believe. We have to internalize belief. It's not enough veyadata hayom but as the Torah follows up vahasheivosah el levavecha. It has to be internalized. So now at least we can formulate the question. Well, how does that process unfold? How does one internalize? So the Mesillas Yesharim says, you know, I wrote my sefer, Ramchal says, I wrote this sefer not to teach you chidushim he says. If you think you're going to gain what this sefer has to offer by studying it once, so in what virtually everyone thinks was an excessive display of modesty, he says, you're not going to find many chidushim in my sefer. So I don't think the judgment of history agrees with him on that score. But what he says later is 100% valid notwithstanding. Mesillas Yesharim says but what's needed is constant reinforcement, constant review, constant repetition because the more, the same way Rabbi Akiva watches the water, again, it's just the reinforcement, the constant repetition which results in penetration. So that's the way a person internalizes something also, right? That's the lesson Rabbi Akiva recognized in watching the water dripping on the stone. And that's what the Mesillas Yesharim says: hahasmodah, he says, the constant continuous reinforcement. A person thinks, a person reflects, let's talk about, a person sets himself, sets himself the goal again of internalizing belief in hashgacha pratis. The Chovos HaLevavos talks about this also, the need for constant reinforcement. So let's say a person sets himself the goal and says, you know, I'm lacking in many areas but I recognize this is one of the areas, I want to improve here. So a person takes an index card, writes down, writes down the roshei perakim, writes down an outline of our belief in hashgacha pratis. Again, that as the Sefer HaChinuch says in mitzvas nekamah, again what happens to me as the object, as the victim, it's no human being who's responsible for that, whether I understand his design or not, Hakadosh Baruch Hu is ultimately responsible. And a person reviews that again and again and again. Again, he takes a minute, two minutes out, twenty times a day, thinks about it, thinks about it. If he can, he even says it aloud to himself and he does that again and again and again. He reinforces it. So then just like the water does, penetrates. penetrates and wears away the stone, so too he internalizes that belief. And it's remarkable, if you go back and you look at some of the sources that we mentioned just by way of illustration, so the Rema quoting the Rambam, when the Rema says that שויתי ה' לנגדי תמיד, if only that we would maintain an acute awareness of being in the presence of Hakadosh Baruch Hu, how it would transform everything. So notice that the Rema does not say, Ksheyeda Ha'adam, when a person will know, Shehamelech Hagadol, that Hakadosh Baruch Hu is present, but he says, כשישים האדם אל לבו. Right? It's not enough to know. Knowledge doesn't, knowledge doesn't do it. כשישים האדם אל לבו. If you'll have a chance, take a Sefer Hachinuch on Sefer Vayikra and you'll see that he uses the exact same phrase. He also uses the phrase of Yitein El Libo. It's not enough to know the Yesodos Emunah. It's not enough for us to know the Rambam's Yud Gimmel Ikkarim, but we have to internalize those Ikkarim. If we internalize those Ikkarim, how do we internalize those Ikkarim? So there's no, there's no magical, profound, quick answer, but there's a rather very pedestrian, almost pedestrian, straightforward, long answer, just with reinforcement, constant reinforcement. And that helps us translate the Veyadata Hayom, what we believe and what we know with full conviction, into the Vahasheivosa El Levavecha. That allows us to internalize it, and then that allows us, again, to not only be Ma'aminim Bnei Ma'aminim, but also that that should be reflected in the entire range of our behavior, in our actions, our reactions.