Today we will study Tehilim perek ט, pasuk י
וִ֘יהִ֤י ה׳ מִשְׂגָּ֣ב לַדָּ֑ךְ מִ֝שְׂגָּ֗ב לְעִתּ֥וֹת בַּצָּרָֽה
G-d is a fortress for the poor, a fortress for times of difficulty.
Who is the “poor” that this pasuk refers to?
The Midrash on Tehilim says, in the name of Reb Yochanan,
“Wherever any term of poverty is used, it’s referring to the Jewish people, because they are considered impoverished from the time that the Bet HaMikdash was destroyed.”
So, מִשְׂגָּ֣ב לַדָּך
“a fortress for the poor,” refers to how Hashem deals with the Jewish people.
The Radak explains that Hashem is referred to as a, “fortress for the poor,” because a poor person is humble.
As we have said in the past, one of the lessons of David HaMelech is that G-d is there as a fortress for those that are broken hearted, and He will save them at all times.
The Sefer Noam Megadim applies another pasuk - a pasuk in Yermiyahu
(perek ל) to this one-
וְעֵת צָרָה הִיא לְיַעֲקֹב וּמִמֶּנָּה יִוָּשֵׁעַ
“It’s a time of difficulty, and G-d will us from it.”
There is famous explanation of this, which is that the difficult situation itself will be what saves us.
Which is to say that when a person is going through a difficult time, he becomes humble or impoverished, and once that he is humbled,
G-d considers it as if he has brought all the korbanot, and that is what will save him.
So this is what our pasuk means: that G-d is a fortress for the poor.
Once the person becomes humbled, that creates a fortress which saves him in the times of difficulty.
But the pasuk we quoted from Yirmiyahu refers to a, “time of difficulty,” where’s the Pasuk from tehilim refers to, “times of difficulty,” in plural. Why?
The Sefer Tehilat Hashem says something beautiful. It says in the Gemarah, Masechet Avodat Zara, that Hashem, in His love for the Jewish people, doesn’t punish us with one large punishment. Rather, He chips away at the punishments so it happens slowly. A mashal is given- imagine if a person had to pay his electric bill only once in his lifetime. He could never afford it! Even if it was once a year, he wouldn’t be able to afford it. So we get our electric bill once a month. Similarly, property taxes come quarterly. But there is an option to pay monthly, which is easier.
And so, Hashem gives us many difficulties. He spreads them out. He doesn’t give us one backbreaking difficulty that will crush us, He gives us smaller difficulties in order to humble us.
A mashal is given, of a king who declared that if his son did such and such he would drop a 2-ton boulder on him!
Then the child did such and such, and was deserving of having the 2- ton boulder dropped on him. The decree was already made, and the king did not know what to do. One of his advisers told him to take the boulder, break it into pebbles, and then, over the course of time, throw the pebbles at the son. In this way, the decree could be carried out without killing the king’s son.
That is what Hashem does for us.
This is an important pasuk that we are learning, with hidden wonders!
There will be times of sorrow. We all have challenges in life. We all have things to fix, and we have things to work on. But Hashem breaks it down and separates it into bite-size pieces. Each bite-size piece is there for the goal of humbling us, to turn us into a דך- a poor person.
We are in Galut now. The purpose of Galut is humility. That’s one of the secrets, and it shows up in many different ways. After Yom Kippur, we go out into our Succahs. The Midrash says we enter our succahs just in case we were decreed with Galut on Yom Kippur- If Has V’Shalom someone had to leave their house or their city, G-d would consider the mini Galut of the Succah in its place, because even a little Galut is like Galut.
The Pele Yoetz says that when your wife sends you out of the kitchen because it’s Pesach time, and she tells you that you can’t eat in there anymore, that you have to eat on the porch, that is also considered Galut. That is humbling. Yes, you are the homeowner, but now your wife says that you can’t eat in the kitchen. That is a little Galut. Or if you come home and the floor is wet, so you can’t walk into the kitchen, that too is Galut. That humbles you, you aren’t in charge. These are all what the pasuk refers to as עתות בצרה times of sorrow.
But they are little bits of sorrow, and the main goal of these little bit of sorrow is a little bit of humility; daily dose of humility. Just like an apple a day keeps the doctor away, a dose of humility keeps the challenges away. Because when you get to the humility, G-d becomes a משגב- a fortress, a protective force. In the words the Targum, A person gets strength, or power, when he emerges from the sorrow, with the lesson of the humility.
And it’s the time of distress of Jewish people which creates humility, which will bring salvation.
Have a wonderful day.