Welcome to Emotional Wellness Daily. We've been talking about the concept of adversity. And again, we like to add in the Torah lens. The pasuk in Devarim chapter 13 talks about the false prophet, who gives a sign and a symbol. He says it's going to rain tomorrow or it's going to snow in the middle of the summer, and it does! He then tells you to do something that you're not supposed to do.
But the Torah says, ‘Don’t listen to him.’
But what do you mean? He just brought a sign? He did something supernatural.
The Torah says, God is testing you: Do you love Him with all your heart and all your soul? This is an important point. Rav Yaakov Emden says, in his sefer Migdal Oz that Hashem is telling us, in the Torah, how He acts. He is telling us that the way the system works is that God tests those that love Him, to see if they really love Him.
And therefore, life is going to have bumps in the road. Life will have adversity and life will have challenges. And it doesn't mean just once. God tests many times. Avraham Avinu was tested 10 times. David Hamelech was being chased his whole life. But, says Rav Yaakov Emden, look at Hashem's love for us. He tells us beforehand, “This is the way I do things,” so that way we’re not going to get down and broken from life's challenges and tests.
The Mesilat Yesharim, when he describes what man's purpose is in this world, says we are here in this world for three things:
Number one, to fulfill Mitzvot,
Number two, to serve God. And Number three, to withstand tests. That's one third of the reason we're here. The Shelah HaKadosh tells us, in Masechet Yoma, that when a certain Mitzvah or Averah comes a person's way and it's hard, he should be thinking to himself, “Maybe this is my test. Maybe God is now looking at me and seeing what I'm up to.”
In Hebrew, when you test someone, it's called a Nisayon. There's another word with the same root, ness. We say every day in our prayer.
“Blow a large shofar and lift up a Ness/pole.” Ness is a pole, like a flag pole. In Bamidbar 21,8, we see, similarly, that Moshe Rabbenu was told to make a serpent, when the snakes were biting the people. God said, “Make for yourself serpent and put it Al Ness/on a pole.” The Ramban says that a nisayon is really Ness. It's there for the person to be uplifted. Challenges are there to uplift us, and that's what makes us great. Yosef HaSadik became Yosef HaSadik, the righteous Yosef, because he passed the test with his boss's wife.
Rabbi Erlanger says, You might think that since he passed the test, a chariot should come down from heaven and bring him back to his father. He just passed the test. But what happened?
He went into jail! You don't necessarily see the thumbs up from God when you pass the test. You might even feel like you failed! When David Hamelech became the fourth leg of God's throne, it happened when he was being insulted by Shimi ben Gera. He had mud on his face and then became the fourth leg on God's throne.
So, life is about tests. It makes us great and we're never even going to know about it. But knowing that, in itself, gives us strength- to know that's the way God works. He’s not going to tell you when you're great. You have to realize how great you are.
Have a wonderful day.