Today’s class is dedicated for the Refuah Shelemah of Ovadia Ben Adel by his family
Today we will discuss pasuk ב from chapter 31 in Tehilim:
בְּךָֽ־ה׳ חָ֭סִיתִי אַל־אֵב֣וֹשָׁה לְעוֹלָ֑ם בְּצִדְקָתְךָ֥ פַלְּטֵֽנִי
In You, Hashem, I have taken refuge, Let me not be shamed forever
In Your righteousness, free me
What exactly does this mean?
The Midrash on Tehilim tells us that the Jewish people are asking Hashem, “We want You to save us, because if You save us and redeem us, the redemption is forever.”
That is why the pasuk says,
ישראל נושע בה
The Jewish people are saved through Hashem,
תשועת עולמים
An everlasting salvation.
לא תבשו ולא תכלמו
They won’t be shamed or embarrassed.
When we are saved through Hashem, it is an everlasting redemption.
The Jewish people say to Hashem, “In the past, You redeemed us through Moshe, You redeemed us through Yehoshua, You redeemed us through the judges and the kings. But then we went back into exile! Isn’t that embarrassing? It is like we were never redeemed!”
But Hashem answers, “That is because those redemptions were led by human beings, who are temporary, and therefore, their redemptions are temporary.
In the final Geula, I will redeem you, and then it will last forever. And you won’t be embarrassed.
So David HaMelech was saying, When the Geula comes,
בְּךָֽ־ ה׳ חָ֭סִיתִי אַל־אֵב֣וֹשָׁה
“I am relying on You, Hashem, and I won’t be embarrassed, because it will be an everlasting redemption.”
We have to understand this Midrash.
What does it mean that in the past we were saved by Moshe and Yehoshua?! Of course we were saved by Hashem! Yetziat Mitzrayim
was through Hashem.
What’s going on here?
The Midrash further says about this pasuk, that we come into our shuls and Betei Midrash, and we say to Hashem, “Please save us!” And Hashem asks us if we have any Sadikim or Yireh Shamayim (those that fear Hashem) among us.
And we say, “Well, in the past we had Moshe and Yehoshua, we had Shmuel, and Shaul, David and Shlomo… we had Sadikim. Now, the generations are going down and down…”
So then Hashem says, “If that’s the case, rely on Me and I will save you. Because if you rely on Me, then you’re good.” And then the midrash quotes our pasuk, where David HaMelech says, בְּךָֽ־ה׳ חָ֭סִיתִי
We see a theme here that goes all the way back to the Jews in the desert, with the sin of the spies and the sin of Golden Calf (these sins fall at the start, and the end, of the Three Weeks). These sins were similar in the fact that in both episodes, the people thought that they couldn’t survive without Moshe. With the sin of the Egel ( Golden Calf), they felt that they needed an intermediary. They didn’t think that they could deal with Hashem directly.
With the sin of the spies, they were confident that they would last in the desert, with Moshe, but they worried about how they would survive when Moshe wasn’t there, when they entered Eretz Yisrael without him.
Even with their high, great levels, they still weren’t relying solely on Hashem.
That’s why the sefarim say that as the generations go on, and we have less and less to rely on, that becomes the very reason for our Geula/redemption. As the saying goes, we only have Hashem to rely on.
I once saw a beautiful mashal that discussed a king who had gone to battle many times. He had a great general who, time after time, would win the battles. But one day, the king decided that he was not going to send that general out to fight. The troops got very scared. How would they manage without their general?
Suddenly, though, they found the strength within themselves to fight, even without the general.
Sometimes, when you have great people around you, it is harder to bring out your own bitachon and strength.
That is why, as the generations go on, and we have no Moshe, no Yehoshua, and we have a limited amount of Gedolim
(not like in the old days), it forces us to bring out our own bitachon.
This concept is applied to the selichot that we say on Mondays and Thursdays,
אַנְשֵׁי אֱמוּנָה אָבָדוּ בָּאִים בְּכֹחַ מַעֲשֵֹיהֶם
The men of faith are gone. They came with those strength
גִּבּוֹרִים לַעֲמֹד בַּפֶּרֶץ דּוֹחִים אֶת הַגְּזֵרוֹת
They were strong at the breech, they would push off the decrees.
הָיוּ לָנוּ לְחוֹמָה וּלְמַחְסֶה בְּיוֹם זַעַם
They were a wall for us, a refuge in time of rage
They would whisper and stop Hashem’s anger
Before they called out, they were answered, they knew how to pray
You had mercy like a father, because of them.
מֵרֹב עֲוֹנֵינוּ אֲבַדְנוּם
We lost them due to our sins,
They went off to comfort, and we are left in despair.
And at the end, we say,
שַׁבְנוּ אֵלֶיךָ בְּבֹשֶׁת פָּנֵינוּ לְשַׁחֲרָךְ אֵל בְּעֵת צָרוֹתֵינוּ
We searched in all the corners, and we found no way to save ourselves,
Therefore we came back to You.
Sometimes, the Jewish people need to have nothing else to rely on but Hashem
That’s why Hashem tells us that the previous redemptions, when we had a Moshe, a Yehoshua, or a David were not redemptions that lasted. They brought embarrassment because they didn’t last. The final redemption, when there is no one else around, when we are not relying on anyone but Hashem, will be lasting.
בְּךָֽ־ה׳ חָ֭סִיתִי אַל־אֵב֣וֹשָׁה לְעוֹלָ֑ם בְּצִדְקָתְךָ֥ פַלְּטֵֽנִי
David HaMelech says, I rely only on You, I seek refuge only in You, and therefore I will never be embarrassed again.
In Your righteousness, save me
This doesn’t only apply to the Jewish people at large. Any time we talk about redemption, there is the general Redemption and the individual redemption.
All people have challenges. The more we realize that there is no one else to rely on, the better off we are, and the better chances we have to survive and pull ourselves out.
On a global level, when we see a leftist government in Israel, and we worry about what will be, the answer is,
There is no one to rely on but Hashem
B’ezrat Hashem, that will bring the final Geula.