One of the fundamentals that we’ve learned in the Hovot HaLevavot Shaar Bitachon is that a human being can not affect you in any way. Hashem is the only One who decides your destiny. That’s a fundamental principle of Bitachon, because if someone other than Hashem could do something, than how could we rely on Hashem?
The Bet HaLevi, in his explanation on Humash Bereshit (chapter 41, pasuk 3) brings this out in a beautiful way. Yosef interpreted Paroah’s dreams. Paroah’s dreams were described multiple times. First when Paroah had the dreams, then when he told them to Yosef, and then again when Yosef interpreted them. There nuances of change from one report to the next. The Bet Levi points out one of these nuances. When Paroah told his dream to Yosef, he described the seven bad cows as:
דלות which means poor-ורעות תואר מאד ורקות בשר- bad complexion, and thin flesh.
The word דלות /poor, doesn’t show up in the first description of Paroah’s dream, yet he says this to Yosef. Why? The Bet HaLevi says that Paroah was testing Yosef, to see if he was really truthful when he said בלעדי - that it wasn’t he that interpreted the dreams, but that it was Hashem. Paroah wanted to try and trick him, so he added a word. That’s why when Yosef repeated the dream, he left out the word דלות /poor. He knew it wasn’t in the dream. That’s when Paroah admitted that Yosef had רוח אלוקים- the spirit of G-d. Because he saw that Yosef really knew what was in the actual dream. As the Midrash says, the pasuk, Ben Porat Yosef, literally means someone with grace, but it can also be interpreted as Bet Haparat Yosef- Yosef is amongst the cows, which is to say that Paroah was asking, “Were you amongst the cows in my dream, that you’re able to describe the cows better than I can?”
Yosef realized that Paroah was trying to fool him. But he understood that this too was controlled by G-d. He understood that it would help him, and actually bring about the right interpretation. The right interpretation didn’t just come about; G-d didn’t just send it to him. Yosef had to “learn it up,” so to say, like a lamdan. All the other interpreters gave the wrong interpretations. Why did Yosef interpret that (even) the cows had to do with wheat? He was able to put the two together.
The Gemarah in Baba Metzia says -לא נקראו ישראל דלים אלא על עסקי תבואה
The term “״דל shows up in Shoftim ו, when the Jewish people were being attacked by the Pelishtim and were losing their source for wheat. It says וידל ישראל מאד-Bnei Yisrael was very poor,
The Gemarah says that the word דל- poverty, refers to their lack of wheat.
So, Yosef took that extra word דל /poor as a hint that since it was coming from Hashem (despite Paroah’s attempt to use it as a stumbling block), it was referring to wheat as he was able to properly interpret the dream. (The Bet HaLevi explains that Paroah used the Egyptian word for דל /poor, but Yosef understood its implications).
In conclusion, he says,
ומזה יבין כל אדם -From here, everyone should understand, כמה צריך לשום בטחונו בה' -How much we have to put our reliance in G-d
עד כי גם אם יראה שחבירו רוצה לעשות לו רעה -Even when his friend wants to do evil to him, -יבין כי גם זאת מה' הוא והוא רק לטובתו:-He will understand that this is also from Hashem, only for his ultimate good.
That’s the bitachon of Yosef. He actually used his bitachon to help him decipher the dream. He used his bitachon to realize that Hashem was sending him that extra word, דל /poor
We find a similar story, with the same concept that someone used their bitachon even when others tried to trick or fool him, and it didn’t harm him. It was actually for his benefit: The famous story of Nachum Ish Gam Zu is told in Masechet Taanit, 21A.
He was sent on a mission to bring the king a present, because he was מלומד רגיל בנסים. Miracles always happened for him, because he had the proper bitachon. He was sent with a chestful of precious stones. He stayed overnight at an inn, where the innkeeper stole the treasure and filled the chest with dirt instead. When Nachum got to the king, they opened the chest and saw the dirt. The king was insulted, but Nachum said Gam Zu LaTova. Eliyahu HaNavi appeared before the king, as a servant, and said that it can’t be that the Jews did this. It must be that dirt had special powers, like Avraham used at war. They tested the dirt and sure enough, it worked. They went into the king’s treasure house and filled the chest with treasure and sent him back. Nachum went back to the inn and told the innkeeper the story. He got all excited, that his dirt was magical. He knocked down his hotel to access the dirt and sent a wagonload to the king. But the King tried the dirt and of course, nothing magical happened. It wasn’t the dirt, it was Nachum’s bitachon. In the end, it was off with the head of innkeeper!
Nachum, like Yosef, used the power of bitachon to realize it’s only L’Tova- for the good. Even when someone tried to put a stumbling block in front of him, it only ended up being for his benefit.
Another text in the Gemara says that when Nachum got up that morning at the inn, he saw that the dirt was switched, and he said Gam Zu LeTova. He though that if that’s what Hashem did, it had to be good. His bitachon was so powerful that he felt he had done his hishtadlut by bringing the gift, and so he’d continue on his way.
Obviously, this is way beyond our level. But the point we are bringing out is clear: no one can do anything to you that isn’t supposed to happen. And even if they try to mess you up, if you have Bitachon, Hashem will turn it around for the good. This is important, in our times, when it looks like things are out of our control, and it looks like people are interfering with our plans. Use your bitachon, and it will turn it around, all for the good.