emunah, tefillah, a little mussar, and a shmeck of geula

Sunday, July 27, 2014

Through Eyes of Emunah



In EmunahSpeak: The Wake up Call, we spoke about the nissim that Hashem is showering upon us like rain in a cloudburst.   The main point there was that we should rely on Hashem, not the Iron Dome rockets and in any case, the Iron Dome rockets that shoot down the Hamas missiles, the missiles that don’t explode in shuls and houses, and those that fall into open fields are all the same nes.

We said there that the Rav (Moshe Sternbuch) makes it clear that we are being enveloped by nissim day and night, and that we are required to take five minutes a day to intensely focus on the fact that Hashem is both knocking the missiles out of the sky and scattering the rest to the four winds.  He lets us hear that Hashem has opened all of the Sharei Rachamim of Shomayim to deflect the missiles from harming Klal Yisroel and if we don’t recognize this we are sinners.

Recognize it we do.  But do we feel it?

Emunah enables us to see behind the teva and intellectually understand that when an Iron Dome rocket intercepts an incoming missile Hashem is making it happen.  That’s a very high madreiga to be sure, but it’s usually not high enough to affect us viscerally because our correct understanding of the matter notwithstanding, what we see is still the teva of a rocket exploding a missile albeit that we morph it into a nes in our heads.

What’s missing is the emotional component of the nissim that we are observing, and without that regesh what exactly is there to seep into our bones and give us a palpable feeling for what we are experienceing?

Understanding can only go so far, but seeing is believing, and that’s what separates the real Ba’ale Emunah (Baal Shem Tov, the Vilna Gaon, et al. and those few rare yichidim that are still with us) from the rest of us.  They see the world through eyes of Emunah, not merely by means of a heart full of it.  And for starters, those who see through eyes of Emunah don’t see any Iron Dome rockets or any other manifestation of teva in the present salvation of the Yishuv. 

In EmunahSpeak: The Wake up Call, we said that the Brisker Rav’s real gadlus was not his lomdus as great as it was.  It was his Emunah.  If we had that level of Emunah we would be going out of our minds right now. We would be higher than on Purim.
 
So what would the Brisker Rav z”l see that we fail to see in daily nissim that we are experiencing by way of the Iron Dome?

It would be k’eelu (as if) he saw the Yad Hashem smack the incoming missile out of the sky.  And from such a sight a person can dance already.

Those who view these nissim through eyes of Emunah actually witness the miracles, while the best that the rest of us can do is realize that they took place.

And that’s no small thing either.