The Bet Halevi told us that we don't merit open miracles these days because if we had open miracles, there would be no longer be a test, and we're here in our lives to be tested in our bitachon. He says that's why our parnasa comes to us in the way it does- due to our sins. After the sin of Adam HaRishon, parnasa comes with a lot of hard work. It comes wrapped in the covering of labor.
It’s the opposite of medicine that is sugar coated, with medicine on the inside. This is bitter-coated on the outside, with the sugar on the inside. It's coated and covered with labor so that it's not recognizable that God is giving us our parnasa.
The Parnasa is coming from God, but that Godly given parnasa is work-coated. But the work is a coverup, so that we won't see God's greatness and there is room for us to be tested.
He quotes a mishna in Kiddushin which asks, how is it that the animals get their sustenance effortlessly but we have to work so hard? It’s because Adam sinned. But the work doesn't help at all. The work doesn't make a difference. It’s all from Hashem.
One of the Bet Halevi’s great-grandchildren, the one who actually had the Bet Halevi’s manuscript in his hands, told me that the Bet Helevi did not just write these as notes for himself. He planned on printing them, but for some reason they weren't printed.
How do I know? Because he writes, in his handwriting, “The reader should not think that you don't have to work.” The Bet Halevi felt it was important to say this, due to the elusiveness of bitachon. He was afraid that someone might read this and think, “That's it. I don't really have to work. If the work doesn't make a difference anyway, why am I going to work?”
That’s why he felt the need to add the footnote: “Don't make this mistake. God wants us to work.”
And he quotes a midrash that says that when Avraham was going through Aram Naharaim and Aram Nahor, he saw that the people there were lazy, they were eating and drinking. He said, “I don't want my children to have a portion in this land.” But when he reached Eretz Yisrael and found them working the fields, he said, “It may be that my portion will be in this land.” He wanted to have a portion in the land where the culture was a work culture.
And we see also that the great Yitzhak was busy planting the land.
But, he says, and this this is the important message, “Man has to understand that you have to work, and without working, you're not going to get it.” But the secret ingredient, the catalyst is the Birkat Hashem.
I use the term catalyst, because it’s just like chemically, you can put two chemicals together, but nothing will happen until you have the catalyst that causes the chemical reaction.
That's exactly what we're doing at work. We're setting everything up, we're putting all the chemicals in, and still nothing can happen.
The catalyst is Birkat Hashem. So why do we need everything? We need everything because we're not on the level that our Emuna and Bitachon will not be affected with open miracles. So therefore, it has to remain in a covered fashion, so we can always attribute it to ourselves. But we have to realize, “No, it wasn't me.”
That's the interesting part of the balance. When we talk about hishtadlut, we always use the term, “to cover the miracle.”
It has to be enough that you can attribute it to yourself, but at the same time, know that's really Hashem that's making it happen. And this is not just in parnasa, this is in all areas of hishtadlut and success.
Have a wonderful day.