Today’s class is dedicated to Eli Kairey, one of our avid listeners. We wish him much Hatzlacha and thank him for listening.
We are in chapter five of the the Elder of Novardok’s Sefer Madregat HaAdam, in which he tells a famous story about the Alshech.
The Alshech, as we have mentioned previously, was a great darshan/orator, who lived in the times of the Arizal.
He gave a class on Bitachon, where he discussed all the fundamentals that we have been working on for a long time. There was a simple man sitting in the crowd, who did very menial labor. He had a donkey and wagon and went out to the forest to dig up mud, which he would bring back to sell to people to use for construction. It was hard, back- breaking work.
Then, after he heard the Alshech’s speech about Bitachon, he wondered, What am I doing? If Hashem is taking care of me, and giving me everything, why do I need to work so hard?
He decided to sell his donkey and wagon and alleviate himself of all of those worries. He would sit in shul, learn, say tehilim, and Hashem would take care of him. He felt he had been working too hard; he hardly got paid, and his job came with many difficulties. He reasoned that if Hashem was sending the money to him anyway, why work so hard?
So that’s what he did, and he sat in the Bet Midrash and said tehilim. When his wife and children asked him what was going on, he apologized, and explained that he’d heard a speech from the great Alshech, who said that if you rely on Hashem, you get your parnasa. He told them he was not going to go out in the heat or cold anymore, if his parnassa was coming anyway. He was clear in his mind, and he wouldn’t listen to them, as much as they tried to talk to him.
Not long after, the Arab who had purchased his donkey and wagon went to the forest to dig up mud to sell.
As he was digging, he found a treasure! He loaded it onto the donkey and headed back toward town, celebrating his good luck. Just then, a large rock fell off a nearby mountain and hit him in the head. He fell off the donkey and died. The donkey, now without a leader, naturally took the path that was most familiar to him, which brought him back to his original owner, our man with the bitachon. When the donkey showed up at the house, full of mud and dirt, carrying bags of gold, they couldn’t believe it! The bitachon worked!
The story became the talk of the town. The simple wagon driver went on to build a beautiful house, became a Baal Sedaka and was wise as well. Amazing! What a beautiful story!
But the students of the Alshech wondered what was going on. How was this simple man greater than they were? They’d been hearing bitachon classes forever, and yet those kinds of stories never happened to them. Here, a man heard one class and boom! He hit the lottery?!?
The Alshech told them as follows:
When you take a tent peg and knock it into the ground, if the ground is soft, the peg won’t hold. But if the ground is solid, the peg will go straight in and hold. That’s why emunah is called Yated Ne’eman- a steadfast peg.
It’s only steadfast if the dirt is hard. What does this mean?
The Alshech explained that when this simple ditch digger heard what was said, the peg went straight in. He had no doubts, and no anguish. He took it as it was. There was nothing else. Bitachon was a reality for him.
On the other hand, he explained, the students were like soft dirt. Because they were greater, and knew more, they would go back and forth with all kinds of questions- Do I deserve it?.. Do I have to do my hishtadlut?... Is there a miracle?..Do I have to cover the miracle?..
All of this questioning and philosophy causes the peg to fall out, he explained, and that was why they didn’t see the same success.
That’s the rule. It’s sad to say (or happy, depending on how you look at it), that our grandmothers had more bitachon than we have. They didn’t have all of the doubts and analyses. Sometimes, too much knowledge is not good. That is not to say that you shouldn’t learn, but rather, it’s part of the danger; the more you learn, the more knowledge you’ll have, but you’ll always have that test.
Therefore, sometimes, the simpler, the better.
It’s called Emunah Peshuta- Simple Faith
That is what the ditch digger had, and that is sometimes what we need to have. We have to have simple faith. Sometimes, the younger you are, the better off you are.
It’s often is easier to have faith when you’re young and naïve.
It says that the keruvim/ cherubs in the Bet HaMikdash were indicative of how
the Jewish people were. They resembled children, because children are simple. They know their father will support them, and don’t ask questions about the mortgage or the electricity bill. Daddy brings home food, and that’s it. Everything is good. Simple child, simple faith.
Simple faith brings about unbelievable, miraculous endings.
B’ezrat Hashem, with all of our talking and all of our working, we will get to the level of simple faith.
As the saying goes, everything I needed to know, I learned in kindergarten.
We all know the fundamentals. A child in kindergarten takes it simple, but as we get older, it gets too complicated. Have a wonderful day.