Welcome to Emotional Wellness Daily. We continue with the theme of taking responsibility for your actions.
The Gemara in Taanit 9B quotes Mishleh 19,3:
אִוֶּ֣לֶת אָ֭דָם תְּסַלֵּ֣ף דַּרְכּ֑וֹ וְעַל־יְ֝הֹוָ֗ה יִזְעַ֥ף לִבּֽוֹ
Man's foolishness causes his path to become warped, and he gets angry at God.
This basically means that a person can messes up and blames God. What a beautiful statement from Shalom Hamelech.
Rabbi Yochanan, the great Amorah thought that something like this must be sourced in the actual five books of the Torah, and he found it. The tribes, when they found their money was in their pouches, they trembled and said, “What did God do to us?” The average reader might think that was a good thing. They were looking into their deeds. What happened? Why did God do this? But Rabbi Yochanan sees it differently. Rav Wolbe, in Aleh Shor vol 2, page 607, says that a person sometimes acts foolishly, stumbles, and is not successful. Then he gets punished, blames God and gets angry at God. He blames Hashgacha Pratit, but he doesn't take any responsibility.
He says it’s something deep in the human psyche to hinge your lack of success, your stumbling, and your punishment on Hashgacha Pratit, as if God did, and think you don’t need to take responsibility. He adds that if a person is empty headed, and gets to the airport late, and misses the flight, they say, “Wonderful! Hashgacha Pratit!” That's true. Everything is Hashgacha Pratit. If I take out a gun and shoot you, it's also Hashgacha. But that doesn't mean that you're not responsible and not going to get punished.
He says it doesn't even enter into their minds that it was their laziness that caused them to miss the flight. They were lazy. They have to work on the Middah of laziness. But, no- forget about that. Let's totally take that out of the picture. Everything is Min Hashamayim, they say.
Yes, everything is Min Hashamayim- after the fact. You don't go into things thinking that everything is Min Hashamayim.
I myself once asked Rav Wolbe the following philosophical question, “Let’s say you are walking towards the bus, and in order for you to catch the bus, you have to run like a wild man. What is Hashgacha? Is Hashgacha that you should run like a wild man and get to the bus huffing and puffing, or is Hashgacha that you should walk slowly and miss the bus?
He said, “First, you use your sechel. Then, after you do everything right, that's Hashgacha.”
That’s the point here. If you are lazy and miss the bus, you the take blame. Of course, Hashem allowed it to happen, and if it wasn't supposed to happen, it wouldn't have happened. But that doesn't take away your responsibility.
Getting back to the Gemara, where Rav Yochanan tells the story of the Shevatim, they came home, opened their sacks, found their money and said, “What did God do?”
He quotes from the Midrash Lekach Tov that says that when a person buys a bag of wheat and they give you a closed bag, you should check it first and see if it’s what you ordered.
They didn't do that. They waited until they got home. If they had opened their pouches in Egypt and inspected them then, they would've found the money then.
Therefore, don't say, What did God do to us, if you didn't do something right. That's the connection between the story of the tribes and man messing up and blaming God. He continues and says, as Rav Wolbe quotes, “What a wondrous mussar that we learn from this. If a person makes a mistake, even a small one, and it causes you a lack of success, don't be a crooked believer.”
It’s Emunah gone south to hinge your stumbling on God's Hashgacha. Someone that understands this makes an internal accounting/Heshbon HaNefesh and looks for his own lackings instead of blaming God.
This is an important point. Growth comes from introspection and finding your contribution to the lack of success.
Rabbi Meyer Barnathan shared the following study- They studied brain surgeons to see which ones were the most successful. Brain surgeons are all smart to begin with. They had to have good averages and get accepted into schools. So, what separates the men from the boys? They found that it was the ones who made mistakes and took responsibility afterwards that were most successful. Instead of blaming the nurses, the hospital the residents, etc, they said, “Something went wrong under my care. What did I do wrong?” They took responsibility and refined their processes. Those were the surgeons that became the best. Take responsibility and don't blame.
And don't suddenly become a super Ma’amin and blame God for what went wrong. Take responsibility for your contribution.