We continue with pesukei bitachon. Today’s pasuk is Tehilim 25,2.
אֱֽלֹהַ֗י בְּךָ֣ בָ֭טַחְתִּי אַל־אֵב֑וֹשָׁה אַל־יַעַלְצ֖וּ אוֹיְבַ֣י לִֽי
Elohai, I relied on You.
I will not be embarrassed.
My enemies will not celebrate over me.
Many people in the Sephardic community say this mizmor,
which goes in alphabetic order, when they say Nefilat Apayim.
This pasuk clearly connects bitachon and a lack of embarrassment. The Avudarham, who was a Rishon, has a commentary on the prayers and he finds the source of many of our prayers in pesukim. He cites this pasuk twice, for two different prayers.
One is for something we say every single morning in our prayers before Keriat Shema, and one we say three times a day in our Amida
The first is:
לֹא נֵבוֹשׁ וְלֹא נִכָּלֵם וְלֹא נִכָּשֵׁל לְעוֹלָם וָעֶד.
We should not be embarrassed, we should not be ashamed, we should not stumble, L’Olam VaEd
Why shouldn't we be embarrassed and shamed and stumble?
כִּי בְשֵׁם קָדְשְׁךָ הַגָּדוֹל הַגִּבּוֹר וְהַנּוֹרָא בָטָחְנוּ. נָגִילָה וְנִשְֹמְחָה בִישׁוּעָתֶךָ
Because in Your holy name, the great strong and awesome name, we rely and therefore we're going to rejoice and be happy in Your salvation.
Where did the authors of tefila get the concept that I will not be ashamed because I had reliance on You?
From David Hamelech, who said,
אֱֽלֹהַ֗י בְּךָ֣ בָ֭טַחְתִּי אַל־אֵב֑וֹשָׁה
God, I relied on You, I won’t be embarrassed
Similarly, we say in our Amida,
וּלְעוֹלָם לֹא נֵבוֹשׁ כִּי בְךָ בָּטָחְנוּ.
We will never be embarrassed because we relied on You.
The Avudarham again says the Anshei Knesset Gedolah, the authors of the Tefila, got the idea that we will never be embarrassed from what we are from our pasuk. In his words,
חבר בטחון עם בושה
There’s a connection between reliance on Hashem and not being embarrassed, because Hashem will come through.
The Tanna Dvei Eliyahu (chapter 18) says,
לפיכך אני אומר הבוטח בשמך באמת לא יבוש לעולם
Eliyahu HaNavi says, “Therefore I say, the one who truly relies on You
לא יבוש לעולם
will never be embarrassed.
And he quotes our pasuk
אלהי בך בטחתי
So how does that work? The Sefer HaIkarim (fourth unit, chapter 46) says that if you rely on something and it doesn't come through, or you rely on something that's not really there, you're embarrassed.
For example, imagine a kid tells his friends, ‘I'll pick you guys up tonight.’ Where are you going to get a car from?
‘My mom.’ So he’s relying on his mom. But then his mom says, “Oh I'm sorry, I need the car.”
Now he has to tell his friends and he's all embarrassed. He relied on his mom, and she didn't come through. So anytime you rely on something, or you hope for something, and it doesn't come through (the Sefer Ikarim gives the example of relying on a well to give you water), there's a certain embarrassment there. But when it comes to Hashem, that is not the case. Hashem is reliable and will never embarrass you. If you count on Him, He will come through.
As we’ve said in the past, the Chafetz Chaim, prolific author that he was, wrote many sefarim.
In a sefer he wrote for soldiers going to war called Mahane Yisrael (chapter 10), he quotes a Zohar on Parashat Va’erah that says that every day a person is supposed to strengthen his reliance on Hashem. And then it says,
ומאן דשוי ביה בטחוניה ותוקפיה כדקא יאות לא יכלין לאבאשא ליה כל בני עלמא
If you place your reliance and your strength properly, no one in the world can harm you, and that's what David Halemch said,
אלהי בך בטחתי אל אבושה
I rely on you. I won't be embarrassed.
אַל יַעַלְצוּ אֹיְבַי לִי.
My enemies will not be able to rejoice over me.
If you put your reliance in Hashem's name, then since God is forever, you will have your salvation and you will never have anything to be embarrassed of.
That's our pasuk for the day, and we can coin a new motto:
*A pasuk a day keeps the anxiety away*
Have a wonderful day.