We continue to discuss placing our full reliance on Hashem rather than on people. For further explanation, the Hovot HaLevavot quotes the following pasuk from (מ,ה) תהלים
אשרי הגבר אשר שם ה' מבטחו ולא פנה אל רהבים ושטי כזב
Fortunate is the man that puts G-d as his reliance and doesn’t turn to arrogant people and liars.
We have to rely on Hashem and not on people.
A Midrash says that this pasuk refers to Yosef HaTzaddik, who, on his level, didn’t fulfill this pasuk totally. Yosef put a little extra reliance on the שר - המשקים (Wine steward) He was supposed to do a little hishtadlut but he did a bit too much. Because he told the שר המשקים to remember him one too many times, he was forgotten. We are supposed to do our hishtadlut and put forth effort but we can’t rely on people. Yosef, on his level, pushed a little too hard with the sar hamashkim and so instead of being remembered he was forgotten.
When we stop to consider this, another lesson emerges. How and why are some things are remembered while others are forgotten? We might think this is random but it is actually totally in the hands of Hashem.
An article entitled, Why Do We Forget Things, published in Scientific American magazine, questions how our minds, which can store myriads of memories, sometimes fail us when we try to recall specific things.
The article points to a study by Edward K. Vogel, who notes that our brains can recognize items more easily than they can retrieve - for example: if you were sent to the store to buy a specific type and brand of peanut butter, if asked, you may not be able to recall the name “Skippy, low fat, natural, chunky peanut butter”, but if you were shown two jars, you’d be able to identify the correct one. The article reports that we have an untold amount of information stored in our brains, but we can’t always retrieve what we want- and the scientists don’t know why. It seems, they say, that this voluntary searching mechanism is prone to forgetfulness. You have the information but for some reason the “search tool” malfunctions. Why?
They don’t know.
Science has another common mystery we can explore: The weather.
An article entitled “Why Can’t Scientists Accurately Predict the Weather” related that in the 1960s an MIT meteorologist named Edward Lawrence coined the term “the butterfly effect” to explain why the meteorologists could never predict the weather with 100% certainty. He described that a butterfly flapping its wings in Asia could actually alter the weather in New York, due to all the factors they can’t predict.
Lawrence is also known as the father of the Chaos Theory: a set of scientific principles used to describe highly complex systems, such as weather, that can’t be predicted. Even with all the technology available, meteorologists can only predict the weather up to twelve hours in advance. They attribute this inability to predict to “Chaos”.
Our Rishonim say specifically about weather (or what is now called the chaos theory) that it is, in the mouths of scientists, code for G-d.
There are certain areas where Hashem outwardly shows his control- weather is one of those areas. We can try to predict it but it’s all in Hashem’s hands.
We should be aware that anytime we hear of scientists saying “We don’t know why” or “We can’t explain it” that’s code for G-d.
This is fairly obvious with the weather, but, if you think about, it applies to memory as well- why is a certain phrase suddenly forgotten mid-speech?
There’s a pasuk that the hazzans recite on the high holidays:
I can prepare but לה׳ מענה לשון
Hashem will decide what comes out of my mouth
That is our point. Do your hishtadlut, put forth the effort, call the buyer, talk to the guard, but- is he going to remember your name at the right time? That’s in the hands of G-d. That’s where Hashem comes in and that’s our שיטה on The Chaos Theory.