As we alluded to earlier, Chovot HaLevavot tells us:
מפני שאם איננו בוטח באלוקים בוטח בזולתו
When we don’t rely on Hashem, we come to rely on others.
Human nature is to rely on someone. It’s not possible to live life without relying- So if we’re not relying on G-d we’re relying on someone else.
Rav Wolbe says that even when we cross the street, we are relying on someone- on the drivers to obey the rules of traffic and not go through the red light. We live life relying on people in most situations. But the Chovot HaLevavot tell us:
If you rely on someone else ומי שבוטח בזולת ה' מסיר האלהים השגחתו מעליו
Hashem removes his supervision from you
ומניח אותו ביד מי שבטח.
and places you in the hands of the one you relied on
So if you’re not relying on Hashem, you’re choosing to take yourself out of G-d’s hands, and into the hands of that person you’ve entrusting yourself to.
On the surface, this sounds ridiculous. There is no such thing as being out of G-d’s hands- everything is in G-d’s hands. We know that. And doesn’t Rambam say you can run away from Him and you’ll end up running right back to Him? Everything is G-d. So how do we explain this? Of course everything is in G-d’s hands, but G-d runs the world in two different ways: the natural approach and the the super-natural approach.
We can look to Modechai Rubashkin to illustrate: The natural approach says, for example, that Rubashkin was placed in jail for a white collar crime which should have reasonably been met with a 2 year sentence. Instead he received an unprecedented, decades-long sentence for his alleged crime. After years and years of appeals and tefillot and millions of dollars and more appeals and motions and letters, it seemed like it was over. He had lost. No more appeals, he was told, This is it. It didn’t faze Rubashkin. He walked back into his cell and said it didn’t matter- he wasn’t relying on his lawyers or on their statistics, or on their rules. He was relying on G-d. He had Bitachon. And then, within 24-48 hours, a guard came to release him. He was free. As we all know, President Donald Trump had pardoned him. The odds of that were close to zero. Certainly above the natural.
It’s our choice to decide:
We can follow the natural approach, and rely on the lawyer, but by not relying on Hashem, that’s a 90% chance of remaining in prison for 30 years and a 10% chance of a slightly reduced sentence. That’s the regular system- the track that follows the rules of nature. It’s also Hashem’s track but it goes along with the rules of nature.
Or we can say we’re not relying on that track, we’re relying on Hashem, and be privy to the supernatural.
A story is told that at the West Point Military Academy, a General once taught a class about warfare, and provided examples of various wars to study. A Jewish student reportedly asked why they never used Israeli wars as examples. Why only European, Japanese etc.. And the answer, as the story goes, was that because Israeli wars didn’t follow the typical, normal rules, they were unsuitable to use as lessons.
Another example: There was a video going around recently of an Israeli soccer player who, upon scoring a goal, picked up his shirt to reveal “Hashem Hu HaElokim!” written there! Can we learn soccer moves from that soccer player? No- he’s on a different track. He’s on Hashem’s track.
If you want to follow the lawyers’ track, you are limited to their statistics and their rules.
Chovot HaLevavot tells us there are 2 tracks. If you choose to go on the Bitachon track, you’re unlimited. When you’re on the Bitachon track, if the Dr. says doesn’t it look good (lo Alenu), or statistics say a,b, or c....or there’s bad news from the lawyer, we can look to Hashem to break the rules for us.
Of course we recognize that we have to live a natural life, and we don’t expect Hashem to split the sea for us, but pardoning Rubashkin was not splitting the sea. It was, however, clearly above and beyond the natural rules.
You decide: do you want to be in the lawyer’s hands, or do you want to be in Hashem’s hands?
That’s the power of Bitachon.