As previously mentioned, the Hovot HaLevavot teaches that the Baal Bitachon has it good in this world, but the main thing is that he has it good in the next world. We aren’t used to looking at it that way.
We are accustomed to looking at Bitachon as a means to an end.
There’s a famous Arabic proverb that says a head without a headache is a head in the grave, meaning we all have headaches. So we take aspirin to get rid of the headache we think the aspirin is the means to an end. But that’s not really what’s going on regarding Bitachon.
To illustrate: A woman tries to save time and money by shopping early in the season for her children and grandchildren, but by the time the holidays roll around the clothes no longer fit some of the children. Now she has a big headache and has to pray that the stores will let her return or exchange all the clothing. She asks Hashem to help her with this big headache and sure enough, it all works out. Why did it happen? Why the headache? To give her an opportunity to exercise her Bitachon. That was the real goal. We call it the upside down theory. The aggravation with the store was the means to the end- to get her to the Bitachon.
The Bitachon is the goal. This is a rule in life and there’s actually a Pasuk in the Torah that teaches us this. It says, בעבור זה , for this reason
I took you out of Egypt. What reason? For the Matzah and Marror. We might be surprised by this. Aren’t the matzah and marror just symbols to remember the miracles of Mitzrayim? Isn’t the seder held to commemorate yetziat mitzrayim? The rabbis tell us answer is No. It’s the opposite. Hashem took us out of Egypt to get us to the Matzah and Maror. The Emunah we gained was the end goal.
It’s not that we use our Bitachon to get us out of the problem, it’s that the problems come in order to give us the Bitachon.
There’s a great mashal to help explain this. There’s a cardiologist dating a girl. He wants to marry her but realizes from the way she breathes that she has a heart murmur. It’s not a big deal, she just needs an aspirin a day to treat it. Rather than alarm her, he comes up with an elaborate plan.
He takes her on a tour of the Bayer Aspirin factory. She thinks it’s a little strange, but he is a cardiologist after all. After walking through the factory all day, she is handed a free two-pack of aspirin. She opens it up, and low and behold, written inside, instead of “Bayer Aspirin” are the words, “Will you marry me?” Mazal Tov!
The cardiologist then suggests to his future wife that she take one baby aspirin each day to remind her of how he proposed. How sweet. She does it to make her husband happy.
Many, many, years later, on her 80th birthday, he finally tells her whole scheme was set up just to get her to take the aspirin, to treat her heart murmur and not to commemorate their proposal. The whole event took place just to get her to take the aspirin. Upside down!
That’s the way it is with all of our problems.
Hashem put us through Mitzrayim to get us to call out, to get us to pray, to create the connection.
And Hashem causes the aggravation to get us to the Bitachon. The end goal is Bitachon; Bitachon is not the means to end.
This is Hiddush that the Hovot HaLevavot is telling us: Hashem gives us these opportunities to exercise our Bitachon so that we can earn the “צפון”, the hidden reward that is waiting for us.