Our final advantage of this /פתיחה introduction is:
-שמחתו בכל ענין שיעתיקהו אליו,
The Baal Bitachon is happy with any situation that comes his way.
ואם יהיה כנגד טבעו,
Even if it’s difficult or against his nature.
Some things get on our nerves. How does the Baal Bitachon handle them?
מפני בטחונו באלהים שלא יעשה לו אלא הטוב לו בכל ענין,
Because he trusts that Hashem will do only what’s good for him,
כאשר תעשה האם החומלת לבנה ברחיצתו וחיתול וקשירתו והתרתו על כרחו
Like a mother who has compassion for her child as she washes him, diapers him and dresses or undresses him against his will.
This was the mashal we started with. It’s the classic reframe that the Bet HaLevi described, when he wrote about how the angel told him to learn the lessons of Hovot HaLevavot and mentioned these great mashals.
The Hovot HaLevavot opens our eyes with this reframe.
Think about this the next time you see a parent changing or dressing their child, or forcing a baby to take medicine while the baby is crying and spitting it out. It may look like child abuse but it’s actually a loving parent caring for a child. That’s the way we have to reframe our lives, says the Hovot HaLevavot.
Easier said than done, of course.
When stuck in traffic or maybe stuck on a ten hour flight with a seat-mate who has terrible body odor (which happened to me recently) we might think: What’s going on? Why is this happening to me?
These are the situations that the Hovot HaLevavot is talking about, that are against our nature.
We have to know there must be a reason.
A baby cries at bath time, I’ve been told, because of the change in temperature. Too hot, too cold, soap in their eyes...they cry because they’re uncomfortable. The Hovot HaLevavot uses the mashal of bathing the baby because in life things happen to us against our nature. We want things to be comfortable. The Baal Bitachon understands this.
The source that the Hovot HaLevavot quotes from David Hamelech, the king of Bitachon, says: אם לא שויתי ודוממתי נפשי כגמו עלי אמו:
(תהלים קלא ב)
I have equanimity, whatever comes my way, whatever you serve me.
I’m good. And I’m silent. No opinion.
Why?
כגמול עלי נפשי
I’m like a nursing baby
What does גמול (gamul) mean?
It can be explained as either nursing or weaned.
The first explanation of what David Hamelech is saying is that we are like a nursing baby that doesn’t worry about where the next meal is coming from, even though the milk hasn’t yet been created. He’s on a meal-by-meal basis and is relying completely on his mother with no questions. That’s one approach.
The Bet HaLevi offers a deeper approach to explain this. He says that it means we are like the baby weaned from his mother.
The baby has been drinking milk from his mother his whole life. When she weans him, he has no opinion about what he should eat. He doesn’t know what’s good for him and has no idea what he needs. Protein? Carbs?
Mashed peas? Rice cereal? He has no say and no idea. He doesn’t know anything about it. He’s still in the high chair.
That’s what the Bet HaLevi says, and that’s the final advantage of Bitachon.
The Hovot HaLevavot saved it for last, perhaps because it’s the highest level of Bitachon. It’s like he’s saying: I have no requests at all. Whatever your serve me, I take, because You know better.
This might be too hard for us.
For us, this means that as things happen to us against our nature, or we don’t necessarily get our way, we should keep this reframe in mind. We could keep pictures in our wallets, of ourselves as babies sitting in high chairs eating mashed peas.
And we should say, Mom loved me and so does G-d.