Twists, Turns, and Trust
By Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz
Life is full of
twists and turns. We think everything is set and that our lives will proceed
according to one plan, and then things switch. We lose our job, the kollel
is no longer satisfying, we receive an offer from an out-of-town community,
someone gets sick r”l, and so on.
There are so
many variables in life for which we cannot plan. How we deal with them
determines whether we will succeed. We can either throw up our hands in
desperation, filled with misery and gloom, or we can accept that everything
that happens to us is from Hashem and realize that it is up to us to accept the
change and make the best of it.
Those who have emunah
and bitachon are able to remain optimistic in times of challenge and
change, for they know that Hashem is looking out for them and that nothing
happens by chance.
This week’s parsha,
Lech Lecha, provides chizuk and direction for everyone. The posuk
states that Hashem spoke to Avrohom Avinu and told him to leave his ancestral
home and head to the land He would show him. The Sefas Emes (632) cites
the Zohar that Hashem’s directive of Lech Lecha is directed
toward everyone, but Avrohom was the only one who heard the call and followed
it.
There is a bas
kol that says to go out and proclaims to every Yid not to limit
themselves to the familiar and comfortable. Hashem placed every person in this
world for a purpose. Everyone has a task that they can perform and a mission
that they can complete. Often, that requires for a person to leave their
comfort zone and the place where they were born, grew up, and set up house.
We are all here
to accomplish things with our lives. Sometimes, doing that requires stepping
into the strange and foreboding. The urge to stay home and enjoy a simple,
comfortable life is always there, not far from the surface, but our charge as
children of Avrohom, Yitzchok, and Yaakov is to brave the challenges and effect
change as we work to make the world a better place. Often, doing so involves
grief, aggravation, rough days, lonely nights, and lots of hard work. Those who
hear the bas kol are able to persevere and go on to accomplish, while
those who don’t proceed with emunah and bitachon get deterred and
dejected.
Avrohom Avinu
hewed the path for us. When he heard the bas kol that nobody else heard
or paid attention to, he made it easier for us to hear and follow it. Ever
since his time, throughout our history, those who made a mark and difference
followed Avrohom’s example, often leaving behind creature comforts, friends, and
family to venture forth, knowing that if they worked lesheim Shomayim,
Hashem would be there with them.
Avrohom left his
home behind and followed Hashem’s voice to the Promised Land. His son,
Yitzchok, also left his home and followed the voice into a strange land where
the locals were not friendly to him. His son, Yaakov, left his parents’ home
and went to live with his uncle Lovon, suffering much degradation and
privation, but emerging married with children and many possessions. His son,
Yosef, was sent by Hashgocha to a foreign land, followed there by
Yaakov, the shevotim, and their families.
Moshe Rabbeinu
grew up in royal splendor and left it all behind, only to be forced to flee to
a foreign land. He returned to his people and became their savior. And so it
has been throughout the ages up until our day.
World War I was
a turning point for our people. Many were driven from their homes into exile,
where they had little food and no heat. They suffered from disease, pestilence,
starvation, and worse. They had no money and no income. When the war ended,
those who didn’t hear the bas kol did not return to their shtetlach.
They went to the big cities and severed their connections to Yiddishkeit.
They no longer had any frum social ties. They sent their children to
secular tarbut schools and became lost to our people. Others fled to
America, where they were promptly swallowed up by waves of assimilation.
Millions were lost forever.
They had left
their homes, but they weren’t following Hashem and the direction to which He
had directed them. They became overwhelmed by the situation they found
themselves in and lacked the spiritual strength necessary to persevere.
The people who
remained loyal to the bas kol followed it back to where they belonged,
to places where there were shuls and botei medroshim for them and
schools for their children. They struggled but survived as faithful Yidden.
Following the
Holocaust, survivors faced awful choices. They had lost everything and were
barely alive. Which way should they go? Should they give up on life? On
humanity? On hope for a future? Should they wallow in self-pity and lose
themselves to depression and despair?
Or should they
follow the bas kol, which called on them not to lose faith in Hashem,
but to follow Him to fresh terrain and rebuild their lives and communities?
Those who
followed the bas kol went on to get married, have families, establish shuls,
yeshivos, and communities, and help recreate that which was lost. It is
thanks to those courageous souls that most of us are here today and that Torah
communities and mosdos are flourishing here and around the world.
People in our
day are faced with the dilemma of whether to stay where they are and lead nice,
comfortable lives or to move to a place where people like them are needed to
provide leadership. Some remain where they are and are productive in their
comfort zones, but others break out of their boxes and spread their wings to
bring and support Yiddishkeit in places as far from their homes as
Choron was from Be’er Sheva.
Sometimes the
challenge is whether to secure a good job or to go into chinuch, where
the pay is not as good, but where the opportunity to make an impact on future
generations makes up in spiritual reward and satisfaction for what may be
lacking in financial compensation. Sometimes the challenge is whether to get
involved in communal needs and assist organizations that work for the public
benefit, such as bikur cholim and the like. It is never easy, and it
takes commitment and dedication.
Others leave
major kehillos and follow the bas kol to kollelim across
the country that provide oxygen and life to communities of fine people
committed to Torah lives. Others seek out rabbinic positions in shuls
struggling to hold out against the Open Orthodox onslaught. By doing so, they
keep good people good and rooted in the wellspring of Torah. They keep the
community alive and provide guidance and direction for young and old.
They follow the bas
kol that Avrohom followed, choosing the more difficult path, following
Hashem’s direction to seize a mission and then looking forward to a sense of
accomplishment, armed with the promise of earning blessings and greatness.
Nobody said it
would be easy, but blessed are those who hear the bas kol in every
generation, dedicating their lives to following it and where it leads them.
Rav Yeshayah
Cheshin descended from talmidim of the Vilna Gaon who followed his
directive almost 300 years ago to leave Lita and move to Eretz Yisroel. The
journey from Vilna to Yerushalayim was arduous, and when they arrived in the
barren, forsaken land, deprivation of all types greeted them. Life was very
tough.
Rav Yeshayah
lived during the time when Rav Yehoshua Leib Diskin was rov in
Yerushalayim and Rav Yeshayah served as a rebbi in the famed Yeshiva
Eitz Chaim. In his sefer Divrei Yeshayah, he wrote of the difficult trip
and transition his ancestors endured as they left Lita and went to Eretz
Yisroel.
“In order to
know and understand the enthusiasm and mesirus nefesh of the Talmidei
HaGra and how they placed themselves in danger for a year to travel in
small boats on treacherous waters, and what they endured in their initial
settlement at a time of plagues and diseases, as well as pogroms, it is first
necessary to study their spiritual foundation.
“It was a
product of the storm that their rebbi, the Gra, created to gather in the
exiles and to settle Eretz Yisroel, to which they were moser nefesh.
They went through fire and water to hasten the redemption in this way, as our rebbi,
the Gra, discusses in his seforim.
“Who is there
who can tell the sad tales of what the early settlers endured? Plagues and
pogroms, lack of water, poverty, and myriad diseases. Who is there who can tell
of their bravery and obstinacy to maintain the settlement that teetered daily
and threatened to fall apart due to the many tragedies and hardships? It is
only because of the strength of their emunah to follow their rebbi,
the Gra, and his blessings to them that they were able to remain there with an
unshakable tenacity that no person can describe.”
And then he
writes something quite fascinating, which I had never heard of, and I wonder if
you did. Listen to this: “In the earlier period following the initial
settlement, when there was a time of communal need, the residents of
Yerushalayim would daven and say, ‘Help us in the merit of the Talmidei
HaGra who came to settle in the Holy Land.’
“On Mondays and
Thursdays, they would add to Tachanun the following phrase: ‘With Your
goodness, please remove Your anger from Your people, from Your city, and from
Your land, in the merit of the Torah, in the merit of acts of chesed,
and in the merit of the students of the Gra who initiated the first [Jewish]
settlement in the Holy Land.’
“They would then
go to the kevorim of the leading students of the Gra, Rav Hillel and Rav
Mendel of Shklov, as well as Rav Saadia of Mohilov, and daven for
salvation.”
The Vilna Gaon
heard the bas kol of Lech Lecha and taught his students to hear
it and follow it. Thanks to them, Eretz Yisroel is now settled from north to
south and east to west with Jews, and although there are still many problems
and difficulties, we can hear the footsteps of Moshiach approaching.
The greatness
and zechus of people who follow the bas kol is so significant
that in times of greater difficulty, people would daven to be saved in
the merit of those intrepid baalei emunah and bitachon who gave
up all to follow the call.
In our day and
in our lives, when we face ups and downs, when things are tough and not going
the way we want, we should think of those heroes who went before us, who gave
up everything to answer Hashem’s steady call, which promises blessings to those
who maintain their faith in Him and dedicate their lives to improving and
bettering the world.
Whatever befalls
us, whatever betrayals we face, and when we are forced to change our course of
action and look at the world and our existence differently, we should never
despair. We should know that what happens is from Hashem, Who is guiding us to
a better situation, a place from where we can experience brocha and hatzlocha
and help prepare the world for Moshiach, just like those courageous
souls throughout the ages, from Avrohom Avinu until today.
“Lech lecha
el ha’aretz asher areka. Follow Me to where I will send you,” says Hashem,
“and there you will find blessing.”
We don’t merit
for Hashem to speak to us verbally, but He does so through various occurrences
that happen to us in life, which we must view through the lens of Torah. If we
know that we are here for a purpose and that everything that happens to us is
from Hashem, and if we dedicate our lives to Torah, avodah, mitzvos,
and maasim tovim, then we will be able to pick up the signals and follow
them to where they are leading us.
Our zaides
and bubbes always had Hashem in their lives and never lost sight of
their obligations in this world. There is no reason we should not be the same.
Let us follow their example, handed down to them and us from Avrohom Avinu, and
earn for ourselves a world of opportunity and brocha, which will lead us
all to the geulah sheleimah bekarov.