…to keep your cholent hot on Shabbos anyway? If you are relying on your crock pot, then experience tells us that you will probably enjoy hot cholent unless the heating element fails, the power cord frays, there’s a blackout or some other horror interposes itself between your desire and what’s left of it post speed bump. All of this with the express consent of Hashem to be sure, delivered to your door by way of the natural order of things as manifested in our wear and tear world.
If you have sense enough to rely on Hashem to keep your cholent hot on Shabbos, then the heating element, the cord, the possibility of blackout and the other movable parts subject to the shelf life inherent in planned obsolescence all become irrelevant. If the heating element fails it’s only because Hashem wills it to be so, the age and condition of said heating element notwithstanding.
So Who are you relying on anyway?
And this is no small question because you rely on everything, dozens of times in any given day, Shabbos and Yom Tov included.
We foolishly rely on our cars to start when we turn the key in the ignition. We rely on that same car to go when we press down on the gas pedal and to stop when we do likewise to the brake. We rely on our fridge to keep our food fresh and the mailman to deliver the mail every day. We rely on the government to deposit our Social Security checks directly into our bank accounts on the third of the month. We rely on El Al to get us safely to Israel. And we expect Hatzalah to show up within two minutes of our call, if not sooner.
All of this reveals that the lives that most of us live could be characterized, at their core, as lives of misplaced reliance on machines that break, people that are unreliable, on events over which we have no control and a Weatherman that is right less than fifty per-cent of the time.
As Rabbi Chaim Malinowitz explains the view of the Chovos Halavovos in the Sha’ar HaBitochon, the avodah of bitochon is that we should rely on Hashem that the store will be open on time, that the milk will be fresh, that the cars will stop at the red light etc.. Bitochon and relying are active verbs. We are relying on Hashem that the bank will have our money, that our boss won’t fire us. We are relying on Hashem to bring us customers, not the size of the ad that we place in the media.
The avodah of bitachon is to train oneself to rely only on Hashem.
Not Hashem plus your accountant or your expertise. Hashem knows if you have bitachon in Him or you are relying on the doctor also or your own hishtadlus. Hishtadlus doesn’t make you a partner with Hashem. Think of it as the password to the game of life. It's the equivalent of saying "swordfish" to gain admittance. Once you have given the password Hashem takes care of 100% of the problem, not the 95% you supposedly left over for Him after you did your 5%. That Hashem’s 100% might work out to be zilch, zero, and nada of what we have set our minds on in any given situation is of no consequence because bitachon is not results oriented and therefore makes no promises. It defines how we think not what we get.
Not Hashem plus your accountant or your expertise. Hashem knows if you have bitachon in Him or you are relying on the doctor also or your own hishtadlus. Hishtadlus doesn’t make you a partner with Hashem. Think of it as the password to the game of life. It's the equivalent of saying "swordfish" to gain admittance. Once you have given the password Hashem takes care of 100% of the problem, not the 95% you supposedly left over for Him after you did your 5%. That Hashem’s 100% might work out to be zilch, zero, and nada of what we have set our minds on in any given situation is of no consequence because bitachon is not results oriented and therefore makes no promises. It defines how we think not what we get.
That we live lives of misplaced reliance flows naturally from the fact that we have misplaced reality itself.
Over and above any improvement computers have brought to the lives of literally billions of people alive today and billions more who have passed this way in the last thirty years or so, they have also enriched our understanding of how Hashem runs His world. The words virtual reality are more than simply a code name for the digital Potemkin village that holds forth on every computer screen only to vanish in a nano second with a flip of the switch.
Virtual reality is also an accurate description of what we carelessly refer to as the “real world,” the one we physically inhabit. And if the world we inhabit is actually nothing more than virtual reality then what is reality?
The only reality in this world is Ein Od Milvado, there is nothing beside Him. This means that when you are relying on Hashem you are dealing with the reality of the world as it truly is, not as we have been fooled into thinking that it is.
Rabbi Malinowitz further observes that anyone whose reliance in Hashem has blossomed into true bitochon stands in Hashem’s shoes and lives with Him in a cheder yichud where things like the law of averages and all of the other variables of this world do not apply. It’s as if Hashem takes the one who relies on Him above the stars as the Gemara says He did with Avraham Aveinu, where the beat is to a different drummer.
If bitochon defines how we think, that makes it a mindset. And if it’s a mindset then it’s simply a matter of attitude.
I suppose that would make the Baal Bitochon a Jew with Attitude.
So who are you going to rely on anyway?
