Today we will
study a pasuk from perek כה of Tehilim, in continuation of our Pesukei Bitachon series.
(This
perek is also part of the daily prayers said by Sephardic men, so this will
give us something
special to focus on when we pray)
אֱֽלֹקי בְּךָ֣ בָ֭טַחְתִּי אַל־אֵב֑וֹשָׁה אַל־יַעַלְצ֖וּ אוֹיְבַ֣י לִֽי
My God,
I relied
on You. . Don’t embarrass me. My
enemies should not rejoice (in
my downfall)
We will quote a most beautiful Midrash related to this pasuk, although we have probably quoted it in another context:
There was a man who came a country one night without the proper
papers. The guards
at the border caught him, and in those days, the
punishment for entering
a country without the proper
paperwork was lashes (or worse).
But the man told the guards, “Don’t hit me! I’m from the king’s
family!”
They did not want to start up with somebody from the king’s family, so the next
morning,
they told the king that they found
one of his relatives walking around without papers, and they brought him to the
king.
When the king saw the man, whom he didn’t recognize, he asked him,
“Do you know me?” The
man confessed that he did not, in
fact, know
the king. The king then asked how
they were related. The man replied that they were not related, but pleaded to
the king, “Please, I relied on you. If I hadn’t said that we were family, they
would have hit me.
I was counting on your benevolence.”
To which the king replied to the guards, “Since he relied on
me,
leave him.”
On that, David HaMelech based this pasuk
אֱֽלֹקי בְּךָ֣ בָ֭טַחְתִּי אַל־אֵב֑וֹשָׁה
My God, I relied on you. Don’t
embarrass me.
This is a powerful story. You can be a total stranger, literally
unknown by the king, but if you are relying on him, that is, in itself, a
reason to be saved. One might wonder if this only applies to David HaMelech.
But we see the
answer to that, from the next pasuk, which says,
גַּ֣ם כׇּל־קֹ֭וֶיךָ לֹ֣א יֵבֹ֑שׁוּ יֵ֝בֹ֗שׁוּ הַבּוֹגְדִ֥ים רֵיקָֽם
All those that hope to You should not be embarrassed. Only the
rebels should be embarrassed.
So David HaMelech is saying, “Not
only me,
but anybody that hopes to
You will invoke this power of protection.”
This is a powerful source for the concept of having bitachon, even
though you weren’t promised anything.
This man had never spoken to the
king, but he relied on the king’s benevolence, and that, in itself, was a reason to
be protected. This is a very powerful prayer, and for those that are saying it
every day anyway, you can have this in mind.
Another thought on this pasuk is based on the words בְּךָ֣ בָ֭טַחְתִּי אַל־אֵב֑וֹשָׁה
I relied on You, don’t embarrass me
The commentaries
say that this means that if I rely on You Hashem, and You don’t come through, it will be
an embarrassment to me and You. It will be a Hillul Hashem if
people hear
that I am relying on You, and I am not taken care of.
This is another powerful tool to think about: When you rely on Hashem, it would bring
about it Hillul Hashem if Hashem didn’t take care of you.
There is another pasuk we say in tehilim that makes a similar
point:
(79,9) עׇזְרֵ֤נוּ אֱלֹ֘קי יִשְׁעֵ֗נוּ עַֽל־דְּבַ֥ר כְּבֽוֹד־שְׁמֶ֑ךָ
Help us, the God of our salvation, for the honor of Your name
We are asking Hashem, not for our sake, but
to give
honor to Your name.
This might be easy to say, but we have to really think it and believe it. It won’t be good
for Hashem
if
it happened that we relied and it didn’t come through.
Moshe Rabbenu was possibly the first one to invoke this concept,
when he said, “What will the goyim say?”
He was worried that it wouldn’t look good for Hashem if the Jews went out of Mitzrayim,
and then got slaughtered in the desert.
So our first lesson from this pasuk is that relying on Hashem has, in itself, the power to save us- like the man
that was caught by the guards, and told them that he was related to the king (Because he was relying on the king,
even though he had never met the him).
The second thing we should learn is to have in mind that if Hashem does not help us, it will cause a Hillul Hashem, and that is also a reason to be saved.
Have a wonderful day.
