Mesilat Yesharim, the Ramchal’s classic mussar sefer, begins by telling us, in the first chapter, “The foundation of true piety and the root of perfect service of Hashem is formed by a person clarifying and verifying to himself what his obligation is in this world, and also toward what goal he should direct his outlook and ambition and everything he strives for, during all the days of his life.”
In very simple terms, this is called having an end goal. What is your end goal? What are you trying to get to? If you don’t know where you want to go, you’ll never get there. It’s like the mashal of man who is leaving the airport and gets in the taxi and says, “Get me there fast.”
The taxi driver asks where, but the man says, “I don’t know, just get me there fast.”
We need a destination in life. And our destination, as the Mesilat Yesharim continues, is to get to Olam Haba and connect to God.
Therefore, he says, “True perfection, which is the ultimate good, is nothing other than cleaving to Hashem. That is the only thing that is true perfection. That is what David HaMelech says in Tehilim, “And for me, closeness to God is my good.”
So now that we know that that is our end goal, we have to know how exactly to get there. How do we connect to Hashem? There are many different answers, but the Mesilat Yesharim says ( chapter 19), “Deveikut/Connecting to Hashem means that the heart of a person is so firmly attached to Hashem that he ceases to turn or pay attention to anything other than God.
That is what Shlomo HaMelech meant when he said, “You will always be consumed with her love.“ Hashem will be the only thing on our minds, and he connects it to learning Torah. People that learn Torah are constantly connected. He says the pinnacle of the trait of Deveykut/cleaving is for a person to cleave in this way, to Hashem, at all times and every moment. But at the very least, when a person prays and learns he should be doing that. So he understands Deveykut as connecting to Hashem.
But how do we do that? How do we have Hashem on our minds at all times? We look at our favorite Meshech Hochma that tells us (on the pasuk U’Bo Tidbak)that the way to get there is through Bitachon. That is the way to get to Deveykut.
Because a person who is constantly relying on Hashem is constantly connecting to Hashem.
So, based on this Ramchal, if our end goal is cleaving to Hashem, and the way to cleave to Hashem is through bitachon and relying on Hashem, this explains a famous Gemarah in Masechet Makot, which tells us that there are 613 Mitzvot. But as generations went on, different Neviim grouped them in different ways. They went from eleven fundamentals to nine fundamentals to seven fundamentals, finally they came to one fundamental. Habakkuk came and put the entire religion on one fundamental: Sadik B’Emunato Yihyeh/the righteous man lives with his Emunah.
Now we can understand what this means. The rabbis always wonder how they could take all the other Mitzvot and put them aside, but what Habakkuk was doing was saying that the goal of all Mitzvot, as we said from the Mesilat Yesharim, is to connect to God.
But how do you connect to God? Bitachon is the best way. As the generations went down, we couldn’t necessarily feel that connection from Shaatnez, or even from Sisit or Tefilin, But one way that everybody can feel a connection to God, in our times, or in Habakkuk’s times, for the end of times (the Bet HaLevi says that this is what Habakkuk was referring to) is through Bitachon.
That is the fundamental that causes Diveykut.
That is why there is a pasuk, that we have quoted in the past, “You that are cleaving to Hashem your God, you are all alive this day.“ If you connect to God, you are alive. Connecting to God as a way to become alive. Sadik B’Emunato Yihyeh. Bitachon gives you life. If you are connected to God you are alive, and if you have Bitachon, you are alive. It is one in the same. That if what brings life, and that is the goal of all mitzvot. The life of the Mitzvot is connecting to God. As we read in Parashat Acherei Mot, “ V’Chai Bahem/Live by them.“ Your life is supposed to be Mitzvot. Rashi and Onkelus say that V’Chai Bahem/Live by them means everlasting life and Olam Haba.
Mitzvot cause you to connect to God and last forever and ever. But the only way to get there, in our days, is to focus on bitachon. B’ezrat Hashem, that is what we are doing.