As per Webster:
“n: a very large ocean fish used for food that has the upper jaw prolonged into a long swordlike beak.”
Anyone who doesn’t know that swordfish is the password is too frum to be reading this, G-d bless each and every one.
“The avodah of bitochon is to train oneself to rely only on Hashem.
“Not Hashem plus your accountant or your expertise. Hashem knows if you have bitochon in Him or if 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 bitochon 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 bitochon in Him or if 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 bitochon is not results oriented and therefore makes no promises. It defines how we think not what we get.”
And so it is. The sum total of what we do in this world in inyonei gashmiyous, understood properly, amounts to no more than swordfish. This is how the Chovos Halavovos learns in the Sha’ar HaBitochon. R. Yisroel Elya Weintraub z”l, validated that understanding in a conversation with one of my sons in which he stated that the definition of bitochon means to RELY on Hashem.
It wasn’t until last night that the full import of what I had written blindsided me shortly after I posted my last piece. It was an epiphany (Yiddish, for a game changing revelation) of sorts.
I finally realized that swordfish is no less applicable to the realm of creative endeavor than it is to the mundane give and take of our daily existence. And NO, I’m not talking about recognizing the Yad Hashem in creative inspiration as opposed to falling into the trap of kochi v’otzem yadi. I learned that lesson the hard way about eight years ago when I finished what was to be my last screenplay.
Anyone who has ever been on a roll, be it in business, writing, Tosfos or in anything else where everything was going great with no speed bumps in sight knows the feeling. I was so hot at the time; I thought that I could write anything. And I even made the mistake of saying as much by uttering the five words that terminated my career as a screenwriter, if one can call making no money a career: “Hey, I can write anything.” That’s all it took.
Baruch Dayan HaEmes.
My head shut down immediately as if on cue, and soon thereafter Hashem allowed me to trace my inspirational famine back to those five fateful words, but to no avail. I did the best, most sincere teshuva I had ever done in my life, but I wasn’t about to be let off with a slap on the wrist. Not only could I no longer write anything, but seven years later I had yet to write even a little something.
No, it’s not about seeing through the mirage of kochi v’otzem yadi. That would have been enough, given where I was holding way back when I thought that I was a writer, but after last night generalities no longer suffice. We’re talking pratim here, and it’s Torah hashkafa that’s in the details, not the devil.
There is no muse, no inner voice, no well spring of creativity from which writers, composers, artists, and the like draw their inspiration. And you can throw in doctors and such for good measure. Every word, note, brush stroke, and diagnosis is spoon fed to those so endowed by Hashem.
Query: Endowed by Hashem to do what exactly? If every jot and tittle is by way of Hashem then what separates the creative personality from the unwashed masses?
In much the same way that a given radio frequency can pull in a broadcast set to that frequency, creative people have been hard wired from the get go of their existence to process the creative flashes that Hashem is sending them. It’s not that a writer has been given the ability to write. He has rather been blessed with the genius to take Divine dictation because it’s all from Hashem, typos included.
There is nothing for us to do other then to say swordfish by taking pen in hand, powering up the computer, or anything else that will meet the threshold of proper hishtadlus. Hashem does the rest, which as we have said, is in actuality everything.
