Bitachon 256 - There is Hope

You're listening to the 256th edition of the B'tachon podcast. And we are returning to the possuk that we started at the end of last week. Possuk in Iyov, perek yud alef, possuk yud ches, "Uvatachta, you shall trust. Ki yesh tikvah, there is hope. V'chafarta, lavetach tishkav. And you will dig." We'll see what it means to dig. But you will dig and you will sleep soundly. You will sleep with confidence. Right? Last night, I didn't sleep so well. I was dreaming about um buzzing of phones because of sirens coming because in the middle of the night my wife told me that the Israeli planes were heading towards and over Syria. But a person who has b'tachon sleeps well at night. A person who's afraid has trouble sleeping at night. The anxieties keep us up. So what do we do? Says the Ralbag, "Uvatachta ki yesh tikvah. V'tzel amar, shelo yitefached sheyitov v'al kinyanei mahim k'mo she'asu asu mikedem. Do not be afraid that you will lose those acquisitions as you did before. V'tihyeh l'cha tikvah b'tachon sheyishameru. >> [snorts] >> Have b'tachon. Have faith. Have hope that they will be protected. V'ya'afach hamasul mimcha and you should have you should allow your fear to be removed from you ad shem tach b'vasadeh to the point that if you are digging in a field b'zulas geder v'kisui. Says the Ralbag, "The digging means you're in the field, you're doing some kind of work there, there's no fence, and there's no protection, there's no protection from the elements. And there's no protection from marauders and robbers, etc. Lavetach tishkav sham. You'll be able to rest there with confidence. V'ravatzta, you'll lean over. You know, sometimes I'm in a place like this and I wonder if someone's going to pass by or if there's somebody who's not a good person who might do something. Right? It's easy to be afraid when you feel unprotected. But that's not the case if a person, right? Because when a person is chaifer, when a person is digging, so you're involved, I would say like this, you're involved in your actions, you're involved in your goal of doing something in the field. And you feel a little vulnerable cuz you're focused on one thing and someone could come from somewhere else. Something some danger could come. But he says, "If you trust, if you have b'tachon and you believe that there is hope, and you believe that you live in a world where there's Hashem and Hashem is a good God and he wants the best for us, you don't have to be afraid. Yagi'a me'eit matzlachascha she'arav umachmanei chalulei panacha. He says, "When you have that attitude, when you have confidence, why do you have confidence? You have confidence because you believe Hashem is there, Hashem is with you, Hashem wants your good. So then there's going to be a success, you're going to be a mutzlach, you're going to have an aura of goodness that surrounds you and people will come and they'll respect you. V'lo amar she'omein l'matzlachus, but the wicked individuals who are, I would say, afraid because they're dependent on themselves and they know the truth about themselves, so they don't have success. Hinei v'yagon u'pachad kol yamam. So they have anguish and groaning and fear all of their all of their days ad she'einam tuchlinu me rov yagon until their eyes >> [sighs] >> are they come to an end, which means they don't have any hope. They have no hope because of their great sadness. Because of their great fear, they don't find any way or any place to escape. Lo yimtzu makom yiftachu vo. They won't find a place where they can feel safe and confident. Okay, they could if a person is fearful, they could be inside of their mamad and be fearful. Right? If a person is faithful, so they can be faithful whether they're in a mamad or outside of a mamad. I'm not saying a person shouldn't go and try to be safe. But the sense, the emotional safety that we're talking about, a person has to have emotional safety. That's what b'tachon means. I have trust, I have faith, I'm connected to Hakadosh Baruchu. Lo yimtzu makom yiftachu vo v'lo tiyeh tikvasam shiv'im taiv. A person who doesn't have b'tachon lives in a world where they sense and they feel that good things are not going to happen to me. They feel like I'm a I'm a magnet for bad stuff. V'heim kamshu v'yamim ra. They actually expect that bad things will come. Yiru mimenu ad shetibach nafsham me'idaiga. They're afraid of it to the point where their their soul is, I would say, exploding within them from the from their worry. And about b'tachon is the opposite. About b'tachon, that's what we're after, feels and senses and looks for and is optimistic and is positive and believes Hashem is with me, Hashem is going to be with me. I've seen it so many times in the past, I see it right now in this very moment. The sun is shining, the birds are singing, the bugs are biting. But I'm here and I'm happy and life is good. Right? That's and it's going to be good. Things are going to be good. M'tziltas David says, "Uvatachta, teisei betach ki yesh tikvah lasheves betach k'asher kein ta'asa. He says that you can sit in confidence, you can you can live in a feeling of everything's okay because why? Because there is hope. Right? When you have tikvah, when you have hope, and we've mentioned before a while ago, but that the word tikvah comes to the word kaveh, which means to hope, and it comes from the word kav, which means a line. There's a direct line into Hakadosh Baruchu, into Hashem, that all of us can access. And when you have that, you feel confident. V'chafarta, and there'll be a digging. What does digging mean? So the M'tziltas David has his own p'shat, "K'ilu chafarta svivcha chafirah amukah. It's as if you've created a moat around you. You've created a dig that surrounds you, a deep dig, a deep ditch. Lo yikrav eilecha. Nothing can come close to you, nothing can touch you. You feel protected. Kein tishkav lavetach b'li machrad. You feel protected. I can go to sleep at night. Doesn't matter if the planes are flying overhead, they're heading over Syria, whatever. I feel safe. I feel safe. Brings here from Rav Shimon Schwab. Efsher l'faresh v'chafarta milashon lachpor et ha'aretz. He says we could explain this possuk from the language of lachpor et ha'aretz. It says by the meraglim, when the spies went to check out the land of Israel to see what was required in order to be able to come in there and to overcome the land. So it says that they were lachpor et ha'aretz, which can mean to dig, but it can also mean to check it out, to unearth and discover. Shema peresh l'vakesh l'galos et hakonus hatzfunus b'eretz Yisrael k'sheyishlichu et Yisrael. And there it means that they needed to come into Israel and understand the challenges and the difficulties and the dangers that were involved in in trying to conquer the land of Israel. V'chein hacha, tzafon magi'a Iyov al chayei hakadoshim. And so too over here in the possuk of Iyov, so Iyov's friend is giving him advice and calming him down about his new life. Ki k'sheyachver ha'am ki yichabes bahem, because when he will try to unearth reality, try to discover what's going on, yimtza sham betach b'li machrad. He'll see that his life is is a life of confidence. There's nothing to be afraid of. V'seishkav lavetach, and in this way he'll sleep with confidence. Okay, so there's a discovering, there's a and and I would say that the meraglim, they came in with a very difficult attitude. Their attitude was it's not going to be good. And so they discovered that everything is bad. But if you come in with hope, if you come in with b'tachon, and you're really looking, you will find the good, you'll find the truth. Hashem is interested in in giving you good, in giving you benefit, taking care of you. Brings here from the Alshich, "V'lo yit'arbeiach b'ma shehigata ad she'arim oves v'chayecha hu yisbarech. He talks interestingly about t'chiyas hameisim. He talks about the dead coming back to life. This is an important principle, of course. In Yiddishkeit, in Judaism, we believe that we're not just here once. We believe in Google women reincarnation. We also believe that there's something called the Mason, the the revival of the dead. And it's important to know that because if all that I have is this world and all that I have is this life, so it can it can uh it can be pretty limiting. It can feel limiting. But if I know that first of all, there's other chances. Second of all, what I do does matter. What I do does matter and it affects what's going to be in the future. When there's going to be a Mason, there's going to be a a Yom Din Hagadol, a great judgment day, where we'll look at we'll look at all the things that we've done and and there will be uh there will be an accounting. There we will be accountable. Made some Sometimes a person says the Alshich, can feel like it's hard to believe. It feels too hard. Life is tough. Things are not going my way. God is not doing my will. Right? It's easy to to to make that mistake. It's very common. It's normal. But will that ruin me? Will I get lost because of that? Person can feel like, "Hey, things are not going my way. Maybe there's no such thing as the revival of the dead. Maybe there really is no accountability. Maybe I really can do whatever I want." We do find that generally speaking, a person when we are in a situation where things are really tough and we start to question Hashem. So, that's not something that Hashem will hold us accountable for, right? When a person is facing a difficult situation, it's natural for them to feel, "Where is Hashem?" And that's okay. But that being the case, a person can come to deny that Hashem exists. So, we can be afraid of that. You know, it's it's something to be afraid of. I don't want to get to such a situation. That when facing this doubt or this worry, so you can trust that there is goodness in the future. Right? A person If a person thinks that there's going to be a Mason, you know, there's going to be a Yom Hadin and I'm not going to make it. It's going to be bad for me. Right? So, that can cause a person to give up. But no, don't believe that, says the possuk. Don't believe that. Believe that things are going to be amazing in the future. There's a good God. Hashem is his name. And we believe that Hashem wants the ultimate good for each and every one of us. There's going to be a There's going to be a a great joy, a great happiness that's going to happen because there is hope. You will see in this very world the Mason, the revival of the dead, both physical and spiritual. Possuk says before that there's going to be a light. There's optimism. There's goodness in this world. How does a person fall down into sin? How does a person fall down into disconnect from Hakadosh Baruch Hu? We fall down because we feel hopeless. We feel like we're not going to make it. No, no, says the Novi. Don't believe that. It's going to get It's going to get brighter and it's going to get lighter. Things are going to be good. Over there, it's possuk in Iyov, which we're discussing here today. So, he was near to death. He was in danger of showing Hakadosh Baruch Hu to be curable. It was a miracle that he was his life was saved. Okay, so it's going to If Hashem saved you, if Hashem put you here and you're here right now, it's going to be good. It's going to be better. Don't make a mistake as far as your soul because you're going to see with your very eyes the Mason, the revival of the dead. It was a key key key key key. So, therefore, be confident that there is hope. And strengthen your abilities. You have the ability to do right. You have the ability to turn back to good. Here it is. Start again. It's a new day. The sun is shining. You can make this. You can make it. You can do this. And don't sin. And the word sin, of course, means don't go off the mark. Okay, that's the Alshich. He says, maybe the pashut shot, which is that the righteous individual, so he will sleep the eternal sleep in his grave. My flesh will will dwell confidently. It's talking about when a person passes away, so there's a confidence. Right? And when we think about death, we don't to think about it negatively. You know, the same Hakadosh Baruch Hu created us, created life, created all the wonderful, amazing things in life, all the sunshine. So, he also created death. So, that's got to be good, too, right? So, it's it's How do we have confidence that it's going to be good in the end? Even in that place. So, you're going to be in a place of the Garden of Eden. The Alshich says a similar thing to the Alshich that be confident. There's going to be a good place for a person after they pass from this world and they they enter the world of the neshamos. And there's also going to be a good situation for them when it comes to the revival of the dead. So, this could then they will merit to to come back. It's a shalom shalom. It's it's possible to believe that things are going to be good at all times. Right now, after I die, after I come back to life, things are going to be good. Hashem wants the best for me in every situation. Brings the Malbim. A person can trust and when a person incorporates into his personality the ability to trust, so he has this world. Things are good in this world, which is a passing world. The world that we exist within. You know, we're here. We pass through this world. But things are going to be good. Says the Malbim also, there's also hope for the eternal life. Right? Eternal enjoyments, eternal connection to Hakadosh Baruch Hu. That's what we're here for. I don't want to be afraid that after I die, it's not, you know, it's going to be a negative situation. No, I can be confident. It's going to be good. Here and there. He says, the the friend, Zophar, I think is his name, the friend of Iyov was saying to him, that if you get rid of your sin, if you distance yourself from wrongdoing, you will be saved with a tremendous amount of success. Darkness will turn to light. The possuk The possuk before says to come back here, Teya. The darkness will turn into morning. Morning as in the beginning of the day. You can put your faith in this. You can be confident about this. Yesh tikvah. There is hope. You don't even know It doesn't seem like it's possible that I'm going to be saved. It doesn't seem like it's possible that I'm going to get out of this one. But a person can still hope. Right? Hashem has endless ways of saving a person. Yesh tikvah. He says, "Certainly, there's and there is kivui. Right? Kivui is a hope. I hope it's going to be okay. I'm confident that it's going to Certainly, a person can feel more confidence, says the Binyan David, if I distance myself from sin, so it makes it more likely, first of all, that I can believe I'm going to be saved, which is an essential component of it. But also, according to this, it's more likely that Hashem will say, "Okay, this guy is trying to have a relationship with me. This This person is trying to be close to me. This person is trying to distance himself from those things that distance him from me. So, I'm going to take care of him." Okay? So, bottom line, yesh tikvah, there is hope. Thank you so much for listening. We'll see you again next time.