The third benefit is the list of 10 advantages
of the Baal Bitachon over the Alchemist.
The first
of these advantages is that the alchemist needs raw materials or tools to work
with, but with Bitachon we are limitless. To illustrate, the Hovot HaLevavot
quotes a story from Eliahou HaNavi, during a time of famine when he was being
chased by Achav, and Hashem sent him his food via ravens, to feed him for a
prolonged period of time.
כאשר ידעת מדבר
אליהו עם העורבים, ועם האשה האלמנה ועוגת רצפים וצפחת המים. ודבר עובדיהו עם הנביאים,
שאמר (מלכים א יח יג):
Hovot
HaLevavot uses this example of Hashem performing a miracle with a prophet but
the lesson is for all of us. Hashem sent ravens to feed Eliyahu!
This is a message for every one of us: when we need something, Hashem can send
it to us in the strangest, most
unpredictable ways.
I
have witnessed this in my own life.
After
living in Israel for number of years my wife and I moved to America in 1995.
Around that time, my father befriended a man from shul who had been working in
the military, and had developed a new application for using technology to
discriminate birds from airplanes on radar.
The man wanted to apply this ingenious technology to the medical field, as
a diagnostic tool that could detect cells at very early stages. The man was looking for early investors in
his new company Neuromedical Systems, so my father invested $2,500 for each of
his children. Slowly the company grew,
until at its height the company had raised $170 million. Eventually they went public and at the IPO,
the $2500 my father had invested for each of us was worth about $250,000-$300,000.
At the time I was in living in Deal NJ and had been visiting an elderly woman
in the hospital. I became friendly with
her son, who was a stockbroker. When I
mentioned the company my father had invested in and mentioned how well it was
doing, the broker did some research and learned that the company now looked
very volatile and risky. He advised that we sell our shares immediately. He
said we should thank your lucky stars its value had rocketed, but cash out. My
father heeded the broker’s advice, against the recommendations of his friend,
and pulled all the money out. That turned out to be the money I used as a down
payment for my house. When I asked my
father a few years later in 1999, what became of the company, he said it went
bankrupt. The technology was brilliant
but the labs didn’t like the way they had to prepare the slides and so it ended
up being a failure, as it was unmarketable. When I look back, I wonder how I ever
would have been able to afford a house in Brooklyn if not for that money. Hashem worked it out that my father happened
to meet this man with a crazy idea which then became tremendously successful,
and I happened to meet a stockbroker
that advised us to sell at the perfect time. Because of those events, I
was able to afford a house in Brooklyn, which is something we couldn’t really
see happening.
This
is no different than the miracle that Hashem performed for Eliyahu HaNavi with
the ravens. If we keep our eyes open, we can see those miracles happening to us
today.
