On the topic of relying on Hashem and not on others, the Hovot HaLevavot quotes the following pasuk
ברוך הגבר אשר יבטח בה' והיה ה' מבטחו
(ירמיה י״ז,ז)
Blessed is the man that relies on Hashem, and G-d is his reliance.
This pasuk is seemingly redundant. If you’re relying on G-d, doesn’t that mean he’s your “reliance”? Well, there are various levels of relying on Hashem. One level, you can rely on G-d but also rely on others, such as for business and for other things.
Or you can to choose to rely solely on G-d and on nothing else- all things will happen through G-d.
We can look to Yaakov Goldenthall to illustrate. Mr. Yaakov Goldenthall started out his career as a musician in Monsey. To increase his livelihood he decided to open a cafe there. After all of the preparation, time effort and investment into the cafe, he was abruptly shut down. He took a big loss and tried to recoup some of his investment by selling off as much of the equipment as possible. Ultimately he was left with a $300 popcorn machine that sat collecting dust in his basement. Sometime later, when he and his wife were throwing a party for their daughter, he rented a cotton candy machine and brought up the popcorn machine as well. His wife, tired of seeing it in the house, said that after the party it would have to be placed on the curb.
At the party one of the guests requested sweet popcorn. Yaakov decided to experiment and mixed some of the cotton candy ingredients with his popcorn. The guests all loved it!
Sure enough, he got a phone call from the girls’ parents, asking if they could buy more of the sweet popcorn. Well, word spread and he started selling his popcorn. Slowly the popcorn company grew but there were plenty of bumps in the road.
Then, suddenly, this past November, came his big break -Oprah Winfrey listed the popcorn, called Popinsanity, on her list of Oprah’s favorites of the year. Suddenly business quadrupled! They started putting in 16 hour days. They began selling ten thousand pounds of popcorn per week- at $18 per bag! “Artisan Popcorn”, they called it. The media said it was propelled by the “power of O”, but Yaakov says it was the Power of H- the Power of Hashem.
People pay all kinds of money for advice on how to get to Oprah, but his lucky break came due to a chance encounter with an Oprah staffer at a trade show.
Could you have this planned out? “Hmmm, let’s take this kosher popcorn from Monsey, get some to Oprah to taste.. Get it on her list, it’ll be great! We’ll sell it for $18 a bag???” No. You couldn’t plan that out.
Yaakov Goldenthall points out that it’s all Hashgacha Pratit and proof that Hashem can make anything happen.
When we try to analyze the story it really is insanity. A business gone badly and a leftover popcorn machine became this large, successful business.
This is clearly a case of
ברוך הגבר אשר יבטח בה' והיה ה' מבטחו
This was G-d’s help- there’s no other way to explain it.
Rabbi Malka once that G-d has a special spray of חן “ Hen-spray” and when Hashem sprays it on a product, it flies off the shelves.
We must realize that we don’t have to settle for relying on the people or the things in the middle, the executives, the buyers etc. We can rely directly on Hashem for our blessings.
