In Your Faith: An Empowering Essay for Every Jew (Beshalach 5784) — Worrying About Tomorrow

Worrying About Tomorrow
A.
— To stand firm and see the salvation of Hashem
— A “purposeful” cause and a “serving” cause (Rabbi Dessler)
— “Where will my livelihood come from?” asked the young man. “What I received, none of you received,” said the wagon driver to the chasidim of the Rebbe of Chernobyl.
— The young man’s hands were miraculously saved.
— If you had not taken insurance, the house would not have burned down… (HaGaon Rabbi Yaakov Edelstein zatzal)

Tu BiShvat
B.
“The tree of the field” and “man” — how deep is their connection?
A. Ongoing investment and cultivation.

B. Our task is to “make an effort” to care for the growth, but not to manufacture “successes.”

C. Creation is “perfect.” The foundation of faith — the seasons of the year and their appropriate fruits.
D. Maran HaGaon Rabbi Elazar Menachem Shach in dialogue with a senior physician — a perspective on others — what we learn from the tree of the field — stepping on an orange — why are the fruits of the land round? E. The tree of the field suffices with water, soil, and fertilizer.
F. Worrying about tomorrow — and the tree of the field!
— Is there any connection between hostility or hatred, Heaven forbid, and the foundations of faith?
— A living, speaking painting — can such a thing be?
— The profound vision of a great person: entering into the feelings of another.
— Why did the Rav refuse to eat the porridge? “Honoring oneself through another’s disgrace.”
— “We cannot cause pain to a Jew,” said the mashgiach.

Provisions for the Road
When success does not shine upon you:
A. Do not be impressed by what the world broadcasts: the power of environmental influence, fashion, advertisements, “Coca‑Cola,” and the ways of the nations.
B. Sometimes one must know how to disregard the surroundings.
C. When success seems far away from you — do not panic at all!
— Profound and immeasurably fundamental points for proper cognitive work regarding life.

Worrying About Tomorrow — and Tu BiShvat
Quite often we encounter conversations among different people, and even among the younger generation, during ordinary discussion or in questions and guidance they seek from knowledgeable people, Torah scholars, and great rabbis… At their core, these matters are connected to what is called “worrying about tomorrow.”

Without a doubt, this is a very central point that arises from time to time during certain periods of our lives. Yet we must internalize and return to our hearts that the very heart of the matter depends upon, and is rooted in, the foundations of faith in the Creator.

Throughout life we stand before countless crossroads, and our task is only to stop — yes, to stand and contemplate. We shall open our essay with the lesson that emerges from the “Song” that burst forth from the mouths of the Children of Israel after the splitting of the Sea of Reeds, and we shall connect these ideas to the approaching day of Tu BiShvat.
All this and more appears in Chapters A and B of the essay before us.

Chapter A
To Stand Firm — and See the Salvation
It is stated in our parashah:
“And Moshe said to the people: Do not fear; stand firm and see the salvation of Hashem, which He will perform for you today; for as you have seen Egypt today, you shall not continue to see them ever again. Hashem will fight for you, and you shall remain silent” (Shemot 14:13–14).

We must contemplate these verses:
A. What is the meaning of the added command, “stand firm and see the salvation of Hashem”? Why must they stand firm in order to see the salvation — is it not enough merely to see it?
B. There seems to be a certain repetition here: after Israel had already been promised, “Hashem will fight for you, and you shall remain silent,” why did the verse repeat and say, “stand firm and see the salvation of Hashem,” which appears to mean the same thing — to see the salvation of the blessed Creator without any need for self-waged battle?

“And You Shall Remain Silent” — Even from Prayer
Our master, the holy Or HaChaim, illuminated the matter. The words “and you shall remain silent” are explained in light of the teaching of Chazal: there were four righteous kings, and what one requested, the other did not request. The highest level of them all was the request of Chizkiyahu, who said: “I have no strength either to kill, to pursue, or to pray; rather, I sleep on my bed, and You act.” And so Hashem did, as it is written, “On that night, an angel of Hashem went out…” (II Melachim 19:35). This is the level Moshe expressed when he said, “and you shall remain silent” — meaning, even from prayer: if you lack the strength, as Chizkiyahu said, remain silent, and He will fight for you.

The Midrash relates about four righteous kings: David, Asa, Yehoshafat, and Chizkiyahu. David said, “I will pursue my enemies and overtake them” (Tehillim 18). The Holy One, blessed be He, said to him, “I will do so,” as it is stated, “David struck them from twilight until the evening of the next day” (I Shmuel 30).

Asa stood and said: “I do not have the strength to kill them; rather, I will pursue them, and You act.” To him, too, the Holy One, blessed be He, said, “I will do so,” as it is stated, “Asa pursued them… for they were broken before Hashem” (II Divrei HaYamim 14). It does not say “before Asa,” but “before Hashem and before His camp.”

Yehoshafat stood and said: “I do not have the strength either to kill or to pursue; rather, I will sing, and You act.” The Holy One, blessed be He, answered him, “I will do so,” as it is stated, “When they began with song and praise, Hashem set ambushes… and they were struck” (ibid. 20).

Chizkiyahu stood and said: “I do not have the strength either to kill, to pursue, or to sing; rather, I sleep on my bed, and You act.” The Holy One, blessed be He, said to him, “I will do so,” as it is stated, “And it was on that night that an angel of Hashem went out and struck the camp of Assyria…” (II Melachim 19).

Chizkiyahu Slept and Hashem Fought
The greatest miracle was expressed in the days of Chizkiyahu, where salvation came with no action whatsoever on the part of the people. Chizkiyahu slept, and Hashem fought for them. That same quality and level existed then as well, on the eve of the splitting of the Sea of Reeds: the promise was not only that the war would be fought by Hashem, blessed be He, and not only that the Jewish people had no need to do or act in any way, but that even prayer was not required in order for them to see the salvation. They could remain silent, for Hashem would fight for them.

Indeed, this is astonishing: what is the meaning of this matter? Why did they not even need to pray in order to be victorious in the war?

Israel Had Become Accustomed to Slavery
To resolve this difficulty, let us examine the words of Ibn Ezra, from which we may draw a wondrous and precious pearl: “Stand firm and see the salvation of Hashem” — for you will not wage war, but only see the salvation of Hashem, which He will perform for you today. One must wonder: how could a large camp of six hundred thousand men fear those pursuing them? Why would they not fight for their own lives and for their children? The answer is that the Egyptians had been masters over Israel, and this generation that left Egypt had learned from youth to bear the yoke of Egypt, and its soul was lowly. How could it now fight against its masters? Israel was weak and untrained in war; see that Amalek came with a small people, and were it not for Moshe’s prayer, he would have weakened Israel.

At the Exodus from Egypt, the Jewish people were a nation of slaves. In their souls they were still enslaved to Pharaoh — lowly and submissive — and they had neither courage nor spirit to fight, certainly not against those who had been their masters only recently.

Why Did the Entire Generation that Left Egypt Die in the Wilderness? A Wondrous Revelation!
Ibn Ezra adds that for this reason it was good that the generation that came to conquer the Land was not the generation that left Egypt, but the next generation, which had not experienced slavery.

From his words it is clear that although Israel left Egypt, Egypt had not yet left them; it still dwelled in the depths of their consciousness. Physical departure from the house of bondage is not enough to implant the idea of freedom. For this, the nation had to undergo a complex process: the ten plagues that struck Egypt while the nation sat unharmed in Goshen; the wondrous Exodus; the miracle of the splitting of the Sea of Reeds and the other miracles described in our parashah; the receiving of the Torah; and forty years of walking in the wilderness until the conquest of the Land.

For hundreds of years the Children of Israel labored with crushing labor as degraded slaves. Pharaoh deliberately did not give them dignified tasks — both so that they would not eventually rebel against him and because he sought to disgrace and subdue them, uprooting from them every feeling of human importance and any sense of independence and selfhood.

It Is Easier to Take the Jews out of Exile Than to Take Exile out of the Jews…
Ibn Ezra’s words set before us an important and essential point: the decisive factor is not always the external physical state, but the internal psychological state. Israel grew up as slaves; their soul was the soul of a slave, and therefore they did not even imagine the possibility of fighting. The Egyptians still appeared in their eyes as all-powerful masters.

To become a free person, to change one’s stance and absorb that change deep within the soul, is a long process that takes years. Similarly, the Rambam writes in Moreh Nevuchim (III:32) that it is not human nature for one who grew up in the work of slavery, with clay and bricks and the like, to wash his hands of their grime at once and suddenly fight the children of Anak.

A common saying states that “it is easier to take the Jews out of exile than to take exile out of the Jews.” This expresses the fear of “what will the nations say,” the inability to stand upright and feel like a human being. Such feelings take a long time to uproot. Here too, slavery had penetrated so deeply into the souls of that generation that even after they were freed, fear of their masters remained within them.

A Purposeful Cause and a Serving Cause
The mashgiach, HaGaon HaTzaddik Rabbi Eliyahu Dessler zatzal, in his work Michtav MeEliyahu, guides us along the path of spiritual work. A young man traveled from his city to another city, to a yeshivah, to study Torah. If asked, “Why did you come here?” he would answer, “To study Torah.” But if he answered, “Because the train brought me,” he would certainly be lacking understanding, for the relevant cause is the purpose for which he used the train; the train journey is only a serving cause toward the purpose. The train ride is an appropriate answer to the less important question, “How did you get here?” But to the question “Why?” one must answer by describing the purpose of the journey.

This seems very simple, but would that we remembered it when thinking about the daily events we encounter. If we examine ourselves, we will see that usually we do not take interest in the purposeful cause, but notice and focus mainly on the serving causes. For example, during illness, we constantly investigate how the illness developed or what sequence of events led to it; even when asked why a certain person became ill, we answer by detailing the circumstances that caused it, such as that the sick person left his house sweaty on a cold day. It never occurs to us to wonder about the purpose of the illness.

The material person, the person of this world, sees in everything only the incident, not the purpose. But the spiritual person knows the purpose and therefore is not overly interested in the serving causes. It is as clear to him as the noonday sun that the purpose of all events is only to awaken us and teach us the proper path by which we sanctify His blessed Name — and that is the very purpose of our existence in the world.

It follows that in every matter — small or great — among the affairs of this world, a person’s task is to contemplate and always see the purposeful cause within it, not merely the serving cause. The purposeful cause is the most important of all causes: to know that everything in nature has a purpose.

***
The full essay develops these foundations at length: faith, trust in Hashem, the bond between man and the tree on Tu BiShvat, the obligation to see the Hand of Heaven in every event, sensitivity to another person’s dignity, love of one’s fellow, educating children and students through the lens of emunah, and continuing to serve Hashem even when success is not visible. The many accounts of great Torah leaders — Rabbi Eliyahu Lopian, Rabbi Mordechai of Chernobyl, the Chafetz Chaim, Rabbi Yaakov Edelstein, Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, Rabbi Elazar Menachem Shach, and others — all illuminate one central message: everything is from Hashem; man’s duty is to make proper hishtadlut, strengthen faith, guard another’s feelings, and rejoice in his avodat Hashem.

By Rabbi Michael Zecharyahu

Spiritual director at the Torat David Yeshivah Gedolah and chairman of the Legion of the King organization