We are continuing with the Hovot Halevavot’s Pyramid of Bitachon. There are ten levels of Bitachon in his pyramid.
First the baby relies on the nursing,
Next, he relies on his mother.
Then he relies on his father,
He then starts to rely on himself.
After that he relies on his friends.
Finally, at level 6, he realizes he has to rely on Hashem for the big things, or the things that are out his of control.
Level 7 of Bitachon is when a person starts developing his understanding more, and starts relying on Hashem for things that he has some level of control of, but still needs help.
At level 8, he says,
ואם תחזק הכרתו באלקים יותר ישיב בטחונו אליו בכל הסבות
If your Bitachon gets even stronger, you rely on Hashem for everything. Easy things, hard things, everything.
In Rabbenu Yonah’s commentary on Mishleh, where it says, בכל דרכיך דעהו
Know G-d in all your ways - פרק ג, פסוק ו
He explains: In anything you do, you should have Hashem on your mind, and hope to Him for success. He says we add the words בכל דרכיך - in all your ways, because there are people that rely on Hashem in general, but they don’t rely on Hashem for the small details. They don’t think they need Hashem to cross the street or get around the corner. They think it’s easy.
In his words:
ובמעשה קטן לא יזכרו את השם, מפני שהפועל קל בעיניהם,
When it comes to small things, they don’t think of Hashem. They think it’s easy. That it’s a slam dunk!
Only on big things do they think about Hashem.
There’s an interesting phenomenon that exists, that we can connect to this.
Surveys reveal that most car accidents occur within 5 minutes or less, of a driver’s home. Others say 1/3 of all car crashes occur within 5 minutes of where the driver lives. Regardless of the numbers,
there are two reasons for this given by insurance companies. The first reason is because most driving occurs closest to home, so therefore it’s more likely that more accidents will occur closest to home.
The second reason is that when a person is closer to home, he is more relaxed, because of the repetitive nature of the driving and therefore he drops his guard. These are two natural reasons why accidents happen close to home.
1-That’s where you drive most often
and 2- because you’re not as careful.
But now, according to Rabbenu Yonah, we have a third reason. It’s because when you’re driving close to home, you’re relying on yourself. You’re comfortable there, you think it’s easy and that you can handle it. You’ve done it for twenty years, so you’re not relying on Hashem, and therefore you don’t have that added protection. When you’re on a long trip, however, you get a little nervous. You turn on the Waze, you say Tefilat Haderech, you grip the steering wheel a little tighter, and you say, “Hashem help me.” That’s possibly why we have more protection when we aren’t on our regular routes.
Rabbenu Yonah continues with a very important point about working on our Bitachon for the small things. Yesterday we spoke about having Bitachon for the big things (like big trips, business deals), and for the things that we have no control over. But why is it important to have Bitachon when you cross the street, or when you scramble your eggs or make your coffee in the morning?
He says וזה ענין נכבד מאד
it’s very honorable, and praise worthy to do so, because...
וע"י ההרגל הזה תקבל הנפש המתאות אל הבטחון.
Through this conditioning and habit, your lowest level of soul will have Bitachon.
What does that mean?
We don’t want our Bitachon only in our brains or our hearts. We want it in our gut. The brain is intellectual and the heart is emotional, but there’s a level even deeper than that. It’s called instinct. In order to make something instinctive, we have to keep repeating it again and again and again. We call that automaticity. If someone throws a ball at you, you put your hands up. It’s an instinct. It’s automatic. It became so much a part of you, as a reflex, that you don’t have to make a decision to pick your hands up, and it’s not an emotional reaction either. It’s an automatic reflex.
That’s called the נפש המתאוה -the desiring soul.
It’s the soul that the animals have. Its natural instinct.
How do we make our Bitachon instinctive?
When we have a problem, many of us have to start thinking about it with our heads. Maybe emotionally we will have Bitachon after a while, but we want to have it as an automatic instinct.
That will only happen by conditioning ourselves, before we scrambled eggs, before we make our coffee, or before making a small little trip, to say BeEzrat Hashem, Hashem should help me.
That’s the level of Bitachon where you realize it’s not only for big things or things out of your control, but you also have Bitachon on the little things.
Have a great day.