Trust in God???

My last post focused on the trait of bitachon, which in Mussar parlance means trust in God. Here’s a question I did not address then: Why the heck should anyone trust God?

We just passed the third anniversary of the October 7^th massacre.

And on the subject of anniversaries, the Taliban celebrated 25 years since they first took power, still securely in control.

Universities should be known for academic excellence, not rape.

Who in a Nepali village could have foreseen the destructive flood of debris set off by a rock-and-ice avalanche that killed a reported 1,300 in Nepal alone.

This is no catalogue, just a random taste of the sorts of events that happen all the time that give validity to the question whether it’s just insane to put our trust in God.

And yet, as I have stressed many times, our generation with its disasters is not fundamentally different from previous generations, which featured maybe a plague in one place, an invasion somewhere else, a volcano, a bomb, a decree, an earthquake ….

And despite all that, we read in Psalm 84:13

יְהוָה צְבָאוֹת אַשְׁרֵי אָדָם בֹּטֵחַ בָּךְ׃

“Lord of Hosts, happy is the person who trusts in You.”

And this is far from a solitary instance. Psalms is full of verses that direct us to put our trust in God:

יוֹם אִירָא אֲנִי אֵלֶיךָ אֶבְטָח׃

“When I am afraid, I put my trust in You.” (56:4)

הַבֹּטְחִים בַּה׳ כְּהַר־צִיּוֹן לֹא־יִמּוֹט לְעוֹלָם יֵשֵׁב׃

“Those who trust in God are like Mount Zion, which cannot be moved, but abides forever.” (125:1)

… and more!

In the Mussar literature, bitachon made its debut as one of the main qualities Rabbi Bachya ibn Paquda profiled in the 11^th century when he explored Jewish teachings on the inner life in Chovot HaLevavot – Duties of the Heart.

Rabbi Yosef Yozel Hurwitz (1847-1919), the Alter of Novardok, who was not only a major figure in the Mussar movement but also the great-grandfather of my Mussar teacher, Rebbetzin Shoshana Perr, elevated bitachon to the level of being an essential trait that everyone needs to work on, that and humility.

So it’s important, not peripheral, not secondary, to cultivate trust in our hearts, and specifically trust in God. And yet it is so difficult for us, especially in this post-Holocaust world. How can we embrace and achieve what the tradition directs us to pursue?

Yet, in reality, the question ought to be asked the other way around: How can we not put our trust in the Source of all that is? Because if not there, where?

Not in yourself, that’s for sure. We know that we do not control the circumstances of our own lives, and less anything beyond ourselves. Did you create yourself? Did you endow yourself with your capabilities? Did you form the circumstances of your life? Are you to blame for the diagnosis? For being in the wrong place at the wrong time?

But not in other people, either, even the most “trustworthy” who endeavour to do what they say, nor the powerful, because even the most powerful person in the world can’t determine the course of history, let alone natural forces.

When I was studying a section of Rav Yerucham Levovitz’s Daat Chochma u’Mussar with my chevruta, Robert Barris, we were both stumped when we read and translated a section that read:

When the great and famous Breitbart became so weak that he was not able to grasp a pen in his hand, an author then expressed: “The same hands that broke iron rods trembled from a small and light pen”! People think that holding a pen is a simple and natural thing that requires no strength at all, and only the strengths of Breitbart were given by God, but in truth the power to hold a pen is a gift from the Holy Blessed One, like the power to break iron rods, and when God does not give strength, it is impossible to grasp even a pen.

Who was this “Breitbart” to whom he was referring? A little digging on the internet turned up Siegmund Breitbart (1893 – 1925), also known popularly as Zishe Breitbart, who was a Polish-born circus performer, vaudeville strongman and Jewish folklore hero. He was known as the “Strongest Man in the World” and Eisenkönig (”Iron-king”) during the 1920s.

So Rav Yerucham’s audience would immediately have understood his image, that even Breitbart, strong as he was, was operating on powers that were given to him, not created by him, and that could be taken away as easily as they were given.

So that’s point #1: No individual controls the way things go in their life, and no queen or president runs the world, yet at the macro level, we see that there is order, meaning and forward development in the world at large. Put your trust in the Creator.

The Mussar sources are clear in saying that putting your trust in the Source of all does not mean that things will go the way you want, nor will you necessarily get what you seek. It’s not all about you, after all. The commentary on Duties of the Heart known as the Pas Lechem by Rabbi Chaim Avraham HaCohen (1740-1815), for example, says as much: “Certainly it cannot be taken literally, that for one who trusts in God, no bad things will ever happen to him, since what our eyes see contradicts this.”

But if there is any meaning and order in the world, it must come from somewhere other than ourselves, and even though we don’t see or understand the big picture, we can and should incline our hearts to trust that generative Source.

This point argues that it makes sense to trust the Director of the play in which we are but bit players.

Point #2 stresses the benefit that comes to us from putting our trust in the One Above.

We learn something in that direction from the 16^th century Mussar text, Orchot Tzaddikim. When I am introducing Mussar to people for the first time, I often hand out the Table of Contents of this book because it contains chapters on humility and pride, generosity and miserliness, worry and anger and compassion and cruelty, etc., making the point that there is a long history of Jewish sources focusing on the inner life.

Surprisingly, Orchot Tzaddikim has no chapter on trust. We would not expect such a comprehensive study of inner experience to overlook such a fundamental trait as bitachon and, indeed, it does not. Where is the discussion of trust in Orchot Tzaddikim to be found? In the chapter on simcha / happiness!

That connection was already made in Duties of the Heart where, in the “Gate of Trust,” we read:

But one who trusts in God … whatever comes to him or her from God will be accepted with joy and gladness and his livelihood comes to him peacefully, quietly, and happily, as written ‘God causes me to lie down in green pastures, and leads me beside still waters’ (Psalms 23:2).

The effect of bitachon is not going to be found in the outer world so much as felt in the chambers of your own heart. Bitachon is a pathway to inner tranquility and happiness no matter what changing life circumstances you find yourself in at the moment. Hence, as I quoted above fromPsalm 84:

Ashrei adam boteach bach – Happy is the person who trusts in You

This point informs us that practicing and strengthening our bitachon should not be expected to erect an impregnable anti-missile defense system around you and your house. What it will do is uplift your heart, fill it with happiness, give you hope and optimism and put you out into the world as a positive force, as the Psalm says:

בְּטַח בַּה׳ וַעֲשֵׂה־טוֹב

“Trust in God and do good.” (37:3)

As I would interpret: Trust in God and that will give you the capacity and resources to do good.

Alan