We are discussing the third advantage of the Baal Bitachon over alchemist. The Hovot HaLevavot writes:
כי בעל הכימיה אינו מאמין על סודו זולתו, מיראתו על נפשו, והבוטח באלהים איננו ירא משום אדם בבטחונו
The alchemist doesn’t trust anyone with his secrets. He is afraid people will copy his secrets or that his life will be in danger, but the Baal Bitachon is not afraid of his competition.
This is a tremendous principle, of not being afraid of competition; the ultimate of which is being willing to help your competition.
The Chazon Ish writes
(ספר אמונה ובטחון לחזו"א - פרק ב)
לא יחת אם רעהו פותח חנות, ישתדל עוד לעזור לרעהו, לתקנו בעצה טובה, לעשות עבורו, ולשקוד על תקנתו, וכמה מן הקדושה מוסיף בעולם לראות איש עושה חסד עם המתעתד להתחרות עמו, ומוסיף תהלה ליראיו, אשריו ואשרי דורו
The one who has Bitachon is not afraid of competition and even more so, will help his competition.If someone opens a store right across the street, he’ll help him and give him advice and make sure he’s successful. How much holiness this man adds to the world that he’s doing this for his competition! Fortunate is this man and his generations
We have people like that in the Syrian community. We all know the legendary exemplar of this trait, Mr. Isaac Shalom a”h, a pillar and founder of the Syrian community who was renown for helping set up newly arrived immigrants in his business. He told them everything- who to contact, what to buy, what to pay. He gave advice, and lent money... all for potential competitors. He wasn’t scared, he wasn’t afraid. This is greatness.
There was a recent example of this greatness in Boro Park. A fire broke out in a building on Jan 12th, 2019. Multiple families were displaced, as was Yossi Heiman’s business, “Yossi’s Fish”, which had a storefront location on the first floor of this building. That night, as community assemblyman Simcha Eichenstein scrambled to temporarily house the affected families, Shea Langsam, owner of “Fish to Dish” and a local competitor of Yossi’s, immediately reached out to invite Yossi Heiman to run his business out of Langsam’s fish store!! This act of generosity of spirit so impressed the local politicians that Shea Langsam was awarded a special citation by the district assemblyman Simcha Eichenstein.
This is wonderful deed and makes the world holy.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, I recall a bitter and petty act publicized by a local paper following the attack on the World Trade Center on 9/11/01. A huge financial company, Cantor Fitzgerald, lost more employees than any other business in the Word Trade Center. Another company tried to capitalize on this tragic moment of weakness, and sent out a company memo, which was then published in the newspaper, saying, “Now’s our chance to take them down; they’re weak.”
This ill-spirit did them no good, as we later learned. One can read, in an article entitled Miracles on Wall Street that Cantor Fitzgerald was able to bounce back.
We see, though, that the person with Bitachon is not worried about his competition; on the contrary, he helps his competition.
This concept is prevalent all over, Baruch Hashem.
I recently attended a Shasathon event.
(A beautiful event where hundreds of men gather to learn the entire Shas in one day as a fundraiser and zechut to help couples suffering from infertility)
An acquaintance of mine observed two people learning together and conveyed his surprise. He explained that they were competitors and couldn’t believe they were sitting and learning together. I knew those men and wasn’t surprised. In our community, people can compete with one another but still be friends, pray together in shul etc. They can compete in the same business, with the same buyers, but there is no contradiction. They help each other.
That is greatness and it brings holiness to the world. We should all be proud, whatever community we’re from, to have such people in our midst.