Because what we generally translate Bitachon as trust, we usually associate Bitachon with future. Right? We'll contrast Bitachon with worry because trust means in terms of a sense of confidence and security moving forward. But when one reads the Chovos HaLevavos, so one realizes that he in the examples he gives of what Bitachon, how it plays out, so that's an inaccurate or incomplete understanding of Bitachon. So for instance in the, where is this in the hakdama here? Yeah, in the hakdama to Sha'ar Bitachon, so the Chovos HaLevavos writes when he's talking about the To'aliyos of Bitachon, so he writes Mehem, one of them is, כי הבוטח בהשם לא ימנענו רוב הממון מלבטוח בהשם, even if he has amassed considerable wealth, it doesn't prevent him from having Bitachon, בפני שאיננו סומך על הממון והוא בעיניו כפיקדון, צווה להשתמש בו על פנים מיוחדים ובעניינים מיוחדים לזמן קצוב.
So the Ba'al Bitachon, his attitude towards money is that he sees that money as a pikadon with which Hakadosh Baruch Hu has entrusted him. Another example before we try iy'H to elaborate this a little bit in Perek Beis, so the Chovos HaLevavos writes, כאשר יתברר זה לאדם, when a person realizes that all the qualities that one would be looking for in the one in whom one will place Bitachon, that one realizes that all those qualities are present in Hakadosh Baruch Hu, כאשר יתברר זה לאדם ויחזק הכרתו באמיתת חסד הבורא, and a person has a strong recognition of Hakadosh Baruch Hu's chessed, יבטח בו ימסר לו יניח הנהגתו אליו ולא יחשדהו בדינו.
Person doesn't, isn't choshed Hakadosh Baruch Hu, as it were. Person doesn't question Hakadosh Baruch Hu's judgment. So Bitachon is not only a sense of that one moves forward with Bitachon about the future, but Bitachon is a way of interpreting and viewing everything: past, present, and future. Once the Chovos HaLevavos points that out to us, so I think the Rav zt'l in the hesped for Rav Velvel when he's talking about Reb Chaim's derech, so he says that one of the simanim u'mufakim for Reb Chaim's chiddushim or chiddushim in Reb Chaim's style is that once, once you hear it, so you can't think otherwise. You can't, you can't even go back to, to understand how one ever thought about the sugya without, without that chiddush, without that insight. So once the Chovos HaLevavos points that out, so we realize that whatever is the basis for Bitachon in terms of the future, that why is it that a person has Bitachon, a sense of trust and security in terms of the future, because of, because of chessed Hashem, ahavas Hashem, hashgachas Hashem, yecholas Hashem, all of those qualities which Hakadosh Baruch Hu has, so that's also reason for how one should... interpret the past and how one should relate to the present as well. So that's maybe begin with his example about how a baal bitachon views money, how that shapes a person's attitude towards money. So how does one's attitude towards money, how is that molded by having bitachon? So first of all, if a person's a baal bitachon, so then he recognizes that whatever money he has is a gift from Hakadosh Baruch Hu. It's not kochi veotzem yadi, it's a gift from Hakadosh Baruch Hu. Again, it's the same, the same bitachon that Hakadosh Baruch Hu is going to give me what I need in the future, so that same bitachon when one turns around and looks to the past is that and what I have, what I've acquired until now is also because Hakadosh Baruch Hu gave to me. So it's Hakadosh Baruch Hu that he gave to me. And what's more, it's not my source of security because a baal bitachon knows that his source of security is the Ribono Shel Olam. So he views his money as a pikadon. Now that attitude of seeing oneself as a gizbar rather than an owner, usually, unfortunately ba'avonoseinu harabbim, our attitude when an ani approaches us is that, halevai this is on our good days, is that we're doing him a favor. And on good days, so we're gracious about doing the favor. Why are we doing him a favor? We're giving him our money. We're born and bred capitalists, this is my money. I'm giving him my money, so that's a gevaldigge, so I certainly give myself a pat on the back. And again, and if it's a good day and if he's not the fifth person in a row to come over, so on a good day, so one does it graciously. The Chafetz Chaim quotes a maamar Chazal on the pasuk, I think the Rabbeinu Bachya, רבנו בחיי בן אשר על התורה also quotes this pasuk in Mishlei and the Chazal on it about מלוה ה׳ חונן דל. That kavyachol, a person who's chonein dal, a person who extends chanina, grace, to a dal, to a poor person, kavyachol is malve Hashem. He's extending a loan to the Ribono Shel Olam. Dehainu, that the Ribono Shel Olam really provides us with all our needs. I, Reuven ben Yaakov, is in debt and we give him some money. So the pasuk says that it's as if we're lending money to the Ribono Shel Olam. Chafetz Chaim, and all this is in Ahavas Chesed, he also quotes that when an ani stands on one's doorstep, so the Ribono Shel Olam is there next to the ani and is saying to us, if only we hear, is saying to us, "you take care of my son, my ani, I take care of you." So if a person's money is not his own, not a capitalist mindset, a person's money is a pikadon, so then his attitude is as the Chafetz Chaim... says הוא מודה לבורא יתברך אשר שמו סיבה לטובתו. When a person gives tzedakah he's supposed to have the attitude of how extraordinarily grateful he should be to the Ribbono Shel Olam for allowing that Hakadosh Baruch Hu allows him to be an instrument for His capital A tovah. Now according to the Rabbeinu Bachya, you'll understand, we learned a little bit the sugyos of tzedakah, right? So one of the most basic dinim in the that Chazal darshen from פתוח תפתח את ידך לאחיך לעניך ולאביונך בארצך is dini kadimah in tzedakah, that achicha kodem, that עניי עירך קודם לעניי עיר אחרת, etc. So basically we sort of intuit these dinim. But the emes is, no, you need a chidush of the pasuk. It's a pikadon. It's a pikadon, so who's to say because someone's the gizbar of a tzedakah fund that he should be favoring achicha or aniyecha? No, Hakadosh Baruch Hu, it's a chidush of the pasuk. Hakadosh Baruch Hu says when I give you the money, I give it to you with that in mind, that it should be לאחיך לעניך ולאביונך בארצך. So that's takeh a chidush of the pasuk. It's not just the natural velavada, that first you're going to give your money to your brother and then to the local. No, it's not one's own money. It's a chidush of the pasuk that when Hakadosh Baruch Hu gives one the money, it's al menas ken. The other example we mentioned here from Chovos Halevavos in terms of how bitachon is not only an attitude towards the future, but an attitude towards the past and present, he says lo yachshidehu bedino. The Smag has as one, counts as one of the taryag mitzvos, he quotes the pasuk in Parshas Eikev of וידעת עם לבבך כי כאשר ייסר איש את בנו השם אלוקיך מייסרך
and says that tziduk hadin is a sefer mitzvah, it's a ספר מצוות עשה דאורייתא that a person is מצדיק עליו את הדין. The same thing, if bitachon is that I don't have to worry about the future because I may or may not understand it, but Hakadosh Baruch Hu is going to do what's right and what's good for me. So then that same sense of bitachon applies to the past. I may or may not understand it, but Hakadosh Baruch Hu is going to do, has done, what's good and what's right. The Rema writes in Yoreh Deah when he talks about tziduk hadin, he says that sometimes people make a serious mistake. Sometimes people say rachmana l'tzlan in the aftermath of a petirah, in aveilus, what can you do? Mah na'aseh? וואס זאל מען טאן? And the Rema says that one's not allowed to say that because the implication sort of is well, if I could, you know, if I could make things have happened differently than they did, then I would. Which sounds like I would have done things differently than the Ribbono Shel Olam. Ribbono Shel Olam set things should happen this way, I would have, I would have arranged things with a With a better, with a better outcome. He says no, that's not what Tzidduk HaDin. Tzidduk HaDin is not to be pragmatic and realistic. No, Tzidduk HaDin is again to have this sense of bitachon. It's bitachon about the past, is to have this sense of bitachon that it may be totally inscrutable to us but that we know that what Hakadosh Baruch Hu did was letovah. Again, may be totally shrouded in mystery, a total enigma to us, but that what Hakadosh Baruch Hu did is right. Sometimes people, people feel a little bit cynically that that attitude is sort of a cop-out. That whenever you have something you don't understand we say, well, we don't understand everything, and that's sort of a good, good way out of confronting all questions to which we have no answers, and people think it's a people think it's a cop-out. But the emes is like this, the way a person is supposed, the context in which a person is supposed to see that we don't understand is the following. A person is supposed to see it in a broader context, dahinu, a person is not supposed to begin by focusing on a prat. A person is supposed to think and reflect upon the following question: Is it realistic, what are the limits of human knowledge? What kinds of questions can we seek answers to? What kind of questions can we not seek answers to? And even in the domain in which we can ask questions, is it realistic, not only is it realistic, is it, is it in the least bit make sense to think that we should get answers 100% of the time? So, the answers to those questions are as follows. In terms of what kind of questions can we never ask because it's beyond the capacity for human knowledge? A person can't ask, and we have to be careful not to misunderstand, this question isn't really being asked and answered in the way that sometimes we think it is. A person can't ask questions like why Hakadosh Baruch Hu created the world. And the reason for that is that we can only, Hakadosh Baruch Hu as He is is beyond human comprehension. So, the only thing we understand, we know about Hakadosh Baruch Hu is how He reveals Himself in the world. We can understand Hakadosh Baruch Hu in terms of how He reveals Himself in the world. The very minute a person asks a question which goes outside of the world, so that's beyond the limits of human knowledge. So, that's why the question is, that's what Chazal mean in the Gemara in Chagigah about there are certain questions that a person is not allowed to ask, what was before, et cetera. We can only think in terms of about Hakadosh Baruch Hu in the world. We can ask, what does Hakadosh Baruch Hu want from us within the world. We can't ask why Hakadosh Baruch Hu created the world, because then you're asking to understand Hakadosh Baruch Hu outside of the world. To do that you have to have some shaychus to understanding Hakadosh Baruch Hu himself. So that's beyond human comprehension. Within the world, so there we can ask questions. So can we expect to, does it make any sense to always expect that we'll get an answer? So here, clearly, the answer is, again, משל למה הדבר דומה. You have parents with an infant, with a toddler, with a young child. So avada, to parent responsibly, the parents are not going to limit themselves to doing what the child can understand is in his or her best interests, because then basically the parents are reducing their intellectual capacity. capacity to the level of the baby, of the toddler and not only is that not compassionate, it’s outright neglect. To expect even within the world that we'll understand everything is to think that Hakadosh Baruch Hu's chochmah which is infinite is going to be limited by what we with our finite understanding can possibly understand. So yeah, we do say and we should say very often that we don't understand. But it's not because it's a cop-out. When you think of it, when you go מן הכלל אל הפרט, avadeh we're not going to understand everything, avadeh there have to be things that we don't understand. And that's the lo yechashteihu b'dino. That's the basis for tzidduk hadin. It doesn't mean that we understand. Sometimes we do, often, often we don't. But the point is that again bitachon is not just looking forward, bitachon is a certain, again, understanding of the role Hakadosh Baruch Hu plays in our lives. So that's not only true about the future, it's true about the past. That's the basic for the tzidduk hadin. Maybe digressing entirely from the inyan of bitachon for a moment, but just while we're on the topic of things we understand, things we don't understand. Probably digress for a long, long time about things we don't understand. But while on that topic, l'havdil, l'havdil. Sometimes people learn certain things in Chazal, certain drashos Chazal, and the drashah doesn't make sense to them. Sometimes they don't add the last two words: 'the drashah doesn't make sense to them.' So here too, one's reaction can go in either of two directions. One's reaction can be, you know, the pasuk doesn't really mean that and one can then ask, you know, what exactly is a person mechuyav to believe in terms of Torah she-ba'al peh to be complying with the Rambam's yud gimmel ikkarim? Or a person's reaction can be again, משל למה הדבר דומה. Let's say, ich veis, you're learning a language, you're learning French. So you're in your first semester of French and then you go sit in on a class of fourth year AP French. Tzarfatit b'tzarfatit, things of that sort, right? Shayn. So you don't know what's going on, you don't know what's flying. Doesn't I don't know. So the class doesn't make any sense, or the class doesn't make any sense to you? So again, l'havdil, the same way a person has to have a sense of proportion in terms of what it's reasonable to expect to understand about hashgachas and hanhagas Hashem in the world, l'havdil, l'havdil, בין הבורא ובין הנבראים, a person also has to have a realistic sense of how much he can expect to understand of divrei Chazal, divrei chachmei hadoros. It's not a blind faith either. It doesn't have to be a blind faith. If a person ever, ever was to'eim a little bit, a little bit an amkus of a of a Rambam, of a Rebbi Akiva Eiger, of a Reb Chaim, the light it sheds on the words of Chazal, and if a person sees just again how many layers of meaning and depth he had no clue to all this. So then it doesn't require blind faith to realize that when I'm learning another blind Gemara in which I'm not blessed to have a Reb Chaim, or Rebbi Akiva Eiger, or Rambam to expose the depth of it, so little wonder that there're going to be things that I don't understand. It's not a mystery, doesn't require a tremendous, tremendous leap of faith, just requires self-awareness that a person should know what he knows and what he doesn't know. That's why the emes is, the Chovos HaLevavos, I don't know if he ever, I don't know, I'd have to take a look, I don't know if he says this outright at all. But yitachen meod, the Meshech Chochma has a very, very beautiful piece where he explains that he thinks the mitzvah, that where the Torah commands us to have bitachon is u'vo sidbak. So that's what u'vo sidbak, he says u'vo sidbak for tzaddikim, kedoshim, perushim means whatever it means. But for, for the rest of us, he says u'vo sidbak means, it's interesting, it's the same sort of slang idiom that we have in English, you know, stick with me and I'll take care of you, right? So the Meshech Chochma says that's what it means in terms of u'vo sidbak, that u'vo sidbak also is included, encapsulates the chiyuv to have bitachon. But the emes is, the emes is even if you don't have a pasuk, l'chora you should have a chiyuv for the following reason. Reb Moshe has, he writes in Igros Moshe, he writes the following, again, the first time you hear it, it's a gvaldikke chidush, then when you think about it, you see that it's an emesdikke chidush. He says that Bnei Noach are mechuyav to daven. They're mechuyav to daven on eis tzarah. Where's it say anywhere that Bnei Noach are mechuyav to daven on eis tzarah? Doesn't say that anywhere. It says in, avada they can daven, Ninveh, גם הנכרי אשר יבוא מארץ מרחקה, Shlomo Hamelech talks about it in Tefillas Shlomo, the Beis Hamikdash was a center not only for korbanos, but a center for tefillah. Avada they can daven. But where do you see the chiyuv to daven? So Reb Moshe says as follows: because Bnei Noach have the chiyuv to believe in the Ribbono Shel Olam. He says anyone who believes in, who genuinely, sincerely believes in the Ribbono Shel Olam, in an eis tzarah will cry out to the Ribbono Shel Olam. Who doesn't? If a person, Rachmana Litzlan, has acute pain, physical, emotional, whatever, avada if a person believes it's instinctive to cry out to the Ribbono Shel Olam. So he says it's implicit in the chiyuv of believing in Hakadosh Baruch Hu. Tefillah is implicit in the chiyuv if a person believes, if a person doesn't daven in an eis tzarah, it's an indication that he doesn't really believe. So the emes is the same is true in terms of the chiyuv to have bitachon. If a person genuinely believes that Tov Hashem lakol, that צדיק ה' בכל דרכיו, that Hashem is Kol Yachol, that Hakadosh Baruch Hu is mashgiach. The Rabbeinu Bachya enumerates in Perek Beis, he says there are seven qualities that you would look for in someone to place your trust in him. That the person loves you, that the person is mindful of what's happening to you, that the person has the ability to take care of you, that the person knows what's best for you, that the person has been loyal to you in the past, that you're not subject as long as this person is present you're not subject. subject to you're not vulnerable to anyone else and that this person is as good and kind a person as can be. He says if you have all of those seven qualities, so then avada you're going to have bitachon. And he says that you only find all those seven qualities in the Ribbono Shel Olam. So the emes is if a person you can sort of flip that and model on what Rav Moshe says, if a person takeh be'emes would believe all those and would internalize that belief and would act on that belief, so then avada you have to be botayach. And any lack of bitachon again means one of two things: either I don't believe rachmana litzlan or rachmana litzlan that the belief is too superficial and that since it hasn't penetrated me, since it hasn't been internalized, so I don't act on it and that my instincts are not conditioned by the belief. That's why the Chovos HaLevavos explains that part of bitachon, part of bitachon is that a person trusts only in Hakadosh Baruch Hu. Doesn't have divided loyalties. In this context he quotes the pasuk in Megillas Eichah of מפי עליון לא תצא הרעות והטוב. And the Chovos HaLevavos understands it like Rashi does in Eichah, that מפי עליון לא תצא הרעות והטוב is a rhetorical question. Meaning what happens to a person, doesn't that come from Hashem? That Hashem is in charge, that a person is not going to be subject to accident, to happenstance. That it's a rhetorical question expressing hashgachas Hashem. I think we mentioned in the past the Rambam understands this to be no, this is a statement, it's not a rhetorical question, and ra'os and tov don't mean the things that happen to a person but the things that a person does and that it's an affirmation of bechirah chofshis that מפי עליון לא תצא הרעות והטוב means the good and the bad that a person does don't look to shift the blame for that, that doesn't come from Hashem, that's a person himself is responsible for it. And then Rav Chaim Volozhiner, like the Rambam, learns pshat that it's a statement, not a question, but for him ra'os and tov, like Rashi and the Chovos HaLevavos, means what happens to a person. And he says the pshat is like this, that it's not the pshat that rachmana litzlan when a person choteis, so then Hakadosh Baruch Hu has to actively intervene to punish. No, Hakadosh Baruch Hu created משל למה הדבר דומה, right? If a person ignores medical science and he'll be a chain smoker, three packs a day for 30 years and then rachmana litzlan he gets sick as a result, so we wouldn't describe that as a divine thunderbolt which is punishing him for smoking. We'd say that the person just went against Hakadosh Baruch Hu's briyah. You can't go against the Ribbono Shel Olam's briyah. So the Nefesh HaChaim says that Hakadosh Baruch Hu created the world, again the physical is always just a mashal, is always just a mashal on the ultimate spiritual reality. The same way we intuitively understand the getting sick from being a chain smoker we don't see that again. The same way we intuitively understand that getting sick from being a chain smoker, we don't see that again as a divine thunderbolt, but we see it as just going against the רבונו של עולם'ס בריאה. So the same thing is with mitzvos and the aveiros is the same thing that it doesn't require Hakadosh Baruch Hu to send a thunderbolt. That's how Hakadosh Baruch Hu programmed the world that aveiros are metamtemos, that aveiros are metamtemos, and that aveiros are mashchisos, and that mitzvos are metaharas and mekadshos and maalos, and not that it's going to be a divine thunderbolt.