Faith, Not Fear

By Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz

Time has stopped. A giant hold button has been pressed and everything has paused. Everything that was so important a couple of weeks ago has receded from our collective memories as we concentrate on getting through the day safely.

Pesach, the chag hageulah, is around the corner, yet it feels so far away. Never in our lives did we feel so lost and lonely, pining for redemption. We sit by ourselves, learn by ourselves, and daven by ourselves, lost in thought all alone.

To us, the generations born after World War II, everything is new. Thankfully, we have never experienced anything close to what is going on now. We have never been tested as we are now; we have never felt the way we do now. Everything is surreal. We go to bed happy that we have not been stricken by the virus and daven that we be granted life, and we continue to be spared from the unseen enemy.

We now feel how people felt when they didn’t know which way to run and where to hide. Many locked themselves in their homes and hoped for the best. We are all under lockdown, separated from family and friends, waiting for the plague to end so that we can resume normal human interaction.

Our daily routines have been interrupted. No longer do we get up and go daven. We daven at home. We don’t leave the house unless it is very important. We do our best not to catch the disease.

During Israel’s war of independence, Rav Refoel Kook approached the Chazon Ish. “People are asking me,” he said, “about what is going on now and how they are to understand the dire straits in which they find themselves. What shall I tell them?”

The Chazon Ish responded, “Everyone can see that from Shomayim we are being led somewhere, but we cannot fathom where the rough time we are going through will lead us. We cannot project the ways of the Almighty.”

With our lives turned upside down, we are sure that Hashem is directing what is happening. It is beyond our human capability to understand what caused this to happen and where it is leading us. What we do know is that in an eis tzarah, we are meant to call out to Hashem for salvation and engage in teshuvah.

While panic overtakes the world, we must remember that those who have emunah and know that Hakadosh Boruch Hu causes everything to transpire maintain a sense of calm and serenity. Nothing is haphazard. Nothing happens without Hashem directing it to happen. We don’t fear the next day, for we know that Hashem intends this all for the good.

When the deluge of negativity and frightening news threatens to overwhelm, we have faith, not fear.

We wonder what the coronavirus plague is all about and why it is happening. We don’t know. We can’t know. There are many things that take place in the world that we must accept without understanding.

We get lost in the daily news and fail to see the forest for the trees. It is comforting to note that miracles happen every day. Sometimes we recognize them, but sometimes we don’t. Let’s be on the lookout for them and appreciate the good that we have. It helps us deal with the tough stuff to understand that we are not alone.

Seventy-five years ago, when murder and destruction spread across Europe, a small group of yeshivos were carried on eagle’s wings to faraway Shanghai, where they spent the awful years in relative peace. In hot Shanghai, they flourished in learning and middos, their suffering bringing forth new kochos, gifting our people with a generation of gedolim and roshei yeshiva.

When the war ended, the full brunt of their situation finally hit them. Free to travel, they realized that few among them had parents or families waiting to reunite with them. There was nowhere to go back to. Everyone had been killed. Everything had been destroyed.

As a steady stream of talmidim headed to Eretz Yisroel and America, several remained behind, waiting for visas. For the first time, they were overtaken by despair. A group of Polish talmidim, students in the exiled Yeshiva Chachmei Lublin, received a letter from the Imrei Emes of Ger.

Understanding the challenge of finding strength when they felt like mourning, he sent them a missive filled with chizuk and encouragement.

“The main thing,” he wrote, “is to know that everything comes from Hashem and no bad emanates from Him. Everything is for the good... As the seforim teach, ‘Vayehi erev vayehi voker yom echod,’ both the darkness and kindness are from one source and for one goal: to illuminate the world for us later on.

“We believe that just as the Tochachah, the prophecies foretelling difficult times, were fulfilled, so will the hopeful and comforting prophecies come to be. The hester ponim is a test, an illusion, and ultimately it will be very good.”

The Gerrer Rebbe quoted the Rambam’s Igeres Teiman, where he encouraged the beleaguered Jews of Yemen during a difficult time.

“Rabbeinu Maimon writes that a cord of Torah and mitzvos connects heaven and earth. To the degree that a person grasps it will he himself be strengthened...”

The rebbe signed the letter, “Ohavchem, the one who loves you, who shares in your pain, who looks forward to salvation and consolation.”

The eternal message, that g’nus leads to shevach, winter leads to spring, and darkness leads to light, is as old as creation. Vayehi erev vayehi voker yom echod.

The Sefas Emes explains that Chodesh Nissan is the “first” of the months, because it was in this month that Hashem unveiled the hanhogah that is revealed and visible in this world during Yetzias Mitzrayim.

Until then, it was a hanhogah of hester, but in the month of Nissan, Hashem burst forth openly into the lower worlds, revealing His presence and strength in Mitzrayim, b’yad chazakah uvizroa netuya.

Each year during Nissan, that energy once again fills the world, providing a chance to reveal Hashem in the lower spheres, filling this world with His presence. Pesach, the Yom Tov of emunah, gives us the opportunity, the chance to fill our hearts - and those of our children - with this awareness of freedom and protection.

As the month of Nissan begins, it reminds us that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is there, pulling the strings, setting up the world for something great that will lead to the ultimate redemption as occurred in Nissan in Mitzrayim.

The world isn’t going to end, and we won’t run out of food. Yom Tov will not be what we are used to, but we will still be able to observe all the mitzvos hachag, celebrating our redemption from Mitzrayim. We may have to celebrate all alone, by ourselves, and we will miss being is shul singing Hallel together with the congregation, but we will be able to daven, thanking Hashem for the chesed in a time of din. We will be able to ask for redemption from the tzorah that hangs over us and pray that it disappears as fast as it came.

We worry about whether our next pay check will come and how we will afford the mortgage, the rent, and the other expenses we have.

A man lost his job and went to the Vizhnitzer Rebbe, the Yeshuos Moshe, with sadness written all over his face.

“Rebbe, I was laid off from my job,” he said. “I have no source of income. Oy, what will be with me and my family? How will I be able to feed and support them?”

The rebbe responded, “You were laid off from your job, but Hashem was not laid off from His. He promises that He is ‘meichin mazon lechol briosav asher bara.’ He provides food for all. You are included in that promise. Do not fear and do not become despondent. Believe that Hashem will provide for you and you will be okay.”

Though times are rough, and nobody is enjoying the historic downturn we are experiencing, with faith that Hashem will not abandon us and good times will definitely return, we can maintain a calm and upbeat composure.

Rav Yisroel Eliyohu Weintraub noted that difficult times are always followed by good times. After the darkness that descended upon the world when the Asarah Harugei Malchus were killed, Rabi Shimon bar Yochai lit up the world with the revelation of Toras Hasod. Following the awful period of Tach VeTat, when many thousands of Jews were killed and pillaged, we were blessed with the Vilna Gaon, the Baal Shem Tov and the Ramchal. After the darkness and sadness that was brought by the Holocaust, he said, came the great light of the unprecedented burgeoning Torah communities.

The Sefer Hachassidim explains this phenomenon. He says that Hashem wants to do good with man, but the Soton interferes and says that man doesn’t deserve it. “Why,” the Soton questions, “are you being so kind to him?” Therefore, Hashem brings periods of great pain and nisyonos in order to silence the evil Soton.

For us to merit periods of light and goodness, we must first endure darkness and pain. Let us withstand the nisayon, maintain our faith, and strengthen ourselves in Torah and good deeds, so that we will quickly exit this testing period and experience the great light and growth that will certainly follow.

Look out the window of your isolation room and see how winter is turning to spring. Trees and plants are blooming. The bare branches will soon be covered in green, and what appeared to be dead will spring to colorful life.

We have become used to the rushed pace of life the modern world has thrust upon us. We are under constant pressures of all types. We adapted to living under the gun, running, rushing, pedaling in place to keep our heads above water. That has all changed. What should be an aura of calmness has descended over us. We no longer have social obligations. Some don’t have work. We don’t have our usual learning arrangements. We don’t have places that we must go to…or else. We sit home with our families.

We can use this period to discover - and reconnect to - our real selves. It is a time to see what is really important and what we can live without. As we are forced to spend time together, we can nurture loving relationships with our children and family. We can give time to our children without having to run off to fulfill one of our many obligations. Nobody is pressuring us. We have nowhere to go and very little to do besides for spending time with those around us.

A giant reset button has been pressed, bringing us back to when life was much simpler. Who knows? We might decide that we like it this way, and even when the good times return, we must just choose to live simpler, healthier lives, free of the tension and stress of the twenty-first century.

Our Nisayon

By Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz

People are confounded. They don’t know what they should be thinking now. As coronavirus spreads, the world panics hysterically. Thankfully, so far, only a minimal number of people have been afflicted. Every person’s health is important, and every life is precious, but from the international anxiety, you would think that many millions have contracted the disease and died.

The fear of the unknown has taken over the collective psyche of mankind. Until now, we have all lived with the misconception that our lives and society are so advanced that nothing could invade the comfort bubble in which we live. We thought that we would never be affected by throwbacks to the Middle Ages. We are educated and advanced enough that we can deal with all issues, we thought. Plagues cannot affect a generation armed with computers, electricity, vaccines and antibiotics. For whatever ails us, there is a pill. We are easily able to care for our needs.

Hashem has created a new invisible pathogen to teach us differently.

In the Kovno ghetto, Rav Mordechai Pogramansky met a group of Slabodka yeshiva bochurim. He began speaking with them and asked what they thought Hashem wanted from them. Having gone from the lofty sublimity of the prime Lithuanian yeshiva to being forced by Nazi madmen into cramped quarters, they were at a loss for an answer.

Rav Pogramansky said to them, “Look up. There stands a German with a gun. Why doesn’t he shoot us? He would love nothing more than to see a Jew lying on the floor, dying in a pool of blood, with other Jews shaking in fear nearby. He has the gun, he has the bullets, and he would love to use them. Why doesn’t he?

“The answer is that even in a time when the lights have gone out and everything is dark, even when we are in a time of the greatest hester ponim that could be, there is no such a thing as a Jew without Hashem watching over him. Every bullet has an address, and because we are not destined to die now, a Nazi can stand here with a loaded machine gun and not shoot us.

“At a time like this, Hashem wants us to reinforce our faith that even in the dark periods for Klal Yisroel, what was not preordained for us by Hashem will not happen.”

As believing Jews, we do not fear and do not succumb to fear. As the world convulses from an epidemic of fear, we remain calm and resolute. We follow the precautions set by medical experts and we obey the laws put in place by governments seeking to stem the spread of coronavirus, but we do not panic and do not become anxious and crazy. We maintain our balance as we daven that Hashem protect us.

We don’t permit chaos to distract us and overwhelm our thinking. We are guided by our faith, not by our emotions.

The Rosh writes in Orchos Chaim (#100), “Al tivahel maasecha.” Even in times of turmoil and panic, conduct yourself with calmness and equanimity. A believing person does not lose himself and become caught up with anxiety and despair, no matter what is going on around him.

If you listen to what unintelligent and uninformed people say, then you will quickly devolve into dread. If you pay attention to every unfounded rumor, then you will be overcome with angst about your future. If you become attached to your iPhone and check it every minute for updates and silliness, then you can lose your mind. In times like this, especially, the best thing you can do is to put away your phone and access to social media and replace it with a Sefer Tehillim.

In times when the middas hadin is rampant in the world, in a time when disease is spreading like a plague, don’t look at others and don’t do what the world is doing. Do what a Yid does. Look inside to your heart and soul and strengthen your observance of Torah and mitzvos. Daven, and when you do, think about what you are saying. Don’t rush through the tefillos, mumbling words incoherently. Rather, concentrate on the meaning of what you are saying as you ask Hashem to watch over you, heal you and bless you.

Most of all, we need to maintain our faith and belief that everything that transpires in the world is coordinated by Hashem. We think we understand some things, and oftentimes we are clueless as to why they happen, but we know that they do not occur by themselves.

The Chofetz Chaim would explain this with a moshol. Sometimes a person is sick, and to become well, he has to take a bitter pill that is very difficult to swallow. To enable the swallowing of the medicine, it is surrounded by a capsule. The easily consumed capsule is ingested and hopefully the medicine cures the person.

This, said the Chofetz Chaim, is the explanation of the posuk which states, “Vehaboteiach baHashem chesed yesovevenu.” The believer is surrounded by kindness. Bitachon is the capsule that envelops the bitter times of life. The Chofetz Chaim explained that a person who lives with bitachon doesn’t feel or taste the bitterness or pain of a rough time.

A husband once went to Rav Moshe Feinstein asking for a brocha for his wife who was before childbirth. “She is very afraid,” the man said. “She is experiencing pain and complications.”

Rav Moshe blessed him that everything should go well and that she should give birth to a healthy child.

The man wasn’t satisfied. He said that he thought that after telling Rav Moshe that his wife was suffering, he would send her a message of support and chizuk.

Rav Moshe said to the man, “Of what use is worrying? Strengthening herself in emunah and bitachon will accomplish a lot more than my messages of feeling her pain.”

Dovid Hamelech says (Tehillim 31:25), “Chizku veyameitz levavchem kol hameyachalim laHashem,” those who believe in Hashem should have no fear, for they know that He is the One who brought the disease and He is the One who will remove it.

People forget that Hakadosh Boruch Hu runs the world. We became so used to expecting that a press of a button gets us what we need. We take for granted that we leave our homes, get into a car and drive to the airport, where we show our passport and are able to get onto an airplane and fly to anywhere in the world. If chas veshalom we become ill, we take a pill without much thought and, after a few days, we are better.

We go to work every day without appreciating that we can. We go to shul three times a day without giving any thought to the gift we have to be able to freely congregate and daven. We put our children on the bus each morning and off they go to school. We go about our day without thinking of the fact that we are blessed with yeshivos and Bais Yaakovs staffed by excellent rabbeim, moros and teachers.

Hashem says, “I will show you who is Boss and let loose a virus nobody ever heard of or has a clue how to deal with.”

The tiny unseen organism has spread like crazy throughout the world, causing mayhem and panic in country after country. People are locked in their homes, unable to go to work, school, or play. Shuls are closed, schools are closed and businesses are closed. Employees are laid off and airlines are grounded. People are separated from each other, sitting at home and fretting.

Others see it as the way of the world. Someone in China ate a bat that was sick and suddenly the whole world went mad. But we, bnei Avrohom, Yitzchok, v’Yaakov, know that the root of the disease is not a random animal and its Chinese consumer. We know that at the root of the disease is Hakadosh Boruch Hu reminding us, His beloved children, that He is our Father.

The Chazon Ish once explained this to Rav Shmuel Wosner. A person took ill and after davening he was healed. The person thought that his tefillos were what removed the sickness from him, but it was not so. The proper way to look at it, said the Chazon Ish, is that this person “forgot” about Hashem, so He brought a sickness upon the man so that he would daven and bring Him back into his life. When the person davens and remembers that he needs Hashem, he no longer needs the infection, so he is healed.

Living with bitachon in a fearful time does not mean to close our minds to what is transpiring. It means knowing and appreciating the danger, but knowing that it is not the virus that is in charge, but Hashem.

During Israel’s independence war of 1948, the Brisker Rov decided that it was too dangerous to remain in Yerushalayim. He piled his family into a car and they set out to leave for a safer area. As they left the holy city, they were ambushed by an Arab group. As the driver negotiated with the armed band, the rov explained to his children the danger they were in, enumerating what could happen to them. They asked their father why he felt the need to make them more agitated than they already were about their situation.

The rov responded that bitachon doesn’t mean to negate the dangerous situation and say that everything will work out beseder. It means appreciating the severity of their condition and having faith that Hashem will save them from the danger.

We need not negate the danger of the virus, but rather respect the threat it poses to our health and deal with it calmly and with complete faith that we shall be protected.

This is the foundation of Shaar Habitachon in the classic sefer Chovos Halevavos.

It is brought in seforim from the Arizal that fear is what drives “dever,” a plague. Those who are able to overcome the fear by strengthening their faith in Hashem and engaging in tefillah and limud haTorah are spared.

Rav Chaim Kanievsky (Derech Sicha) states that emunah and bitachon have the power to overcome nature. He wrote a letter last week stating that improving in the areas of lashon hora and the way we deal with each other are especially meritorious in a time like this. A letter from Rav Akiva Eiger written during a deadly cholera epidemic in 1831 calls upon people to heed government mandates about not having more than 15 people together in shul and advises to recite “parshas haketores” at Shacharis and mincha.

Rav Yosef Shlomo Kahaneman, the Ponovezher Rov, was the consummate fundraiser of his time. He dreamed of rebuilding the yeshiva that the Nazis destroyed in his hometown of Ponovezh in Lithuania. He traveled the world raising funds to build and then maintain the yeshiva.

It was only natural that when Rav Chaim Leib Auerbach needed a speaker to motivate people to donate to stave off the closure of his yeshiva, Shaar Hashomayim in Yerushalayim, due to financial ruin that he turned to Rav Kahaneman.

The rov made a special trip to be at the yeshiva’s emergency dinner and delivered a rousing speech about emunah, bitachon and love of Torah. The directors of the yeshiva were very upset. “For this we brought you all the way here to speak?” they told him. “We are desperate for money. We were expecting a moving appeal from the master fundraiser.”

The Rov answered them, “I am not a good fundraiser. I do not know how to raise money. What I have is emunah that Hashem will help me maintain the yeshivos I established. The love of Torah that burns in my soul motivates me to travel from one end of the world to the other. These are my fundraising tools, so I shared them with your crowd.”

In all that we do and all that we accomplish, in good times and in times like today, the secret to survival and success is emunah and bitachon.

We need to keep our wits about us, acting intelligently and prudently. We need to follow the guidance of rabbonim and health authorities as they seek to interrupt transmission of this germ. We should not be cavalier about the dangers the virus represents. We should be mindful of the stress the situation creates on people whose children are home and those whose income is down.

We should remember that we are an am chochom venavon, an intelligent nation who values life. Our G-d is an “Av rachum vechanun,” kind and merciful, and we seek to follow His ways.

We are now experiencing a tremendous nisayon. At this time, when shuls are shut and we cannot daven with a minyan, when yeshivos are shuttered and the study of Torah is impacted, we need to do our best to fill the void that has been created. We each have to improve our davening and limud haTorah to compensate for the tremendous international vacuum.

We need to be better, do better, and create a kiddush Hashem in all we do during this trying period.

We pray that just as He brought this disease, He will remove it from our midst quickly and life will return to normal, leaving us chastened and reconnected to Him.