יצחק שמואל הלוי ברקוביץ Yitzchak Berkovits ראש רשת הכוללים לינת הצדק Sanhedria HaMurchevet 113/27 סנהדרי’ה המורחבת , Israel 97707 113/27 ירושלם ת“ו 02-5813847

בס״ד ירושלם ת״ו י״ט באלול תשע״ה

Rav Chaim Shmuelevitz zt”l would often repeat instructions he received from his rebbe Rav Yeruchum Levovitz, the mashgiach of Mir. “You will speak some day” said Rav Yeruchum, foretelling Rav Chaim’s lifelong career of harbatzas Torah u’Mussar. “You can speak divrei chachma about everything- everything but bitachon.” “When you speak of bitachon it should be d’varim pshutim only, without cheshbonos.”

It is commonly understood that true bitachon is trust, which is a matter of relationship rather than intellectual investigation. The more one deals with bitachon from a philosophical perspective, the less his heart is really there.

On the other hand, bitachon does not just happen. Without a rational framework one is clueless as to how to develop bitachon and just how to apply it to real life. Like the author observes, so many have a simplistic view of what bitachon is and very little actual bitachon when coping with the trials of daily living.

Rabbi Goldberger’s Six Steps provide just such a framework. This sefer is not a discussion on the topic of bitachon. It is a practical program for turning us all into ba’alei bitachon. It reflects years of work on the part of the author in developing and disseminating the process of learning to trust HaShem. It also offers a sobering perspective on understanding one’s real needs -needs that we can count on HaShem to provide.

This book is a must for so many who struggle with bitachon. I sincerely hope it will be well received among Jews on every level, and will bring bitachon and tranquility to the lives of many.

May the author be zoche to continue to be mezakeh the rabbim with practical works to become greater ovdei HaShem and grow in their emunah and bitachon.

בברכת כתיבה וחתימה טובה לכל בית ישראל,

Contents ] 7 יצחק שמואל הלוי ברקוביץ Rabbi Yitzchak Berkovits ראש רשת הכוללים לינת הצדק Sanhedria HaMurchevet 113/27 סנהדרי’ה המורחבת Jerusalem, Israel 97707 113/27 Contents ירושלם ת“ו 02-5813847

בס״ד ירושלם ת״ו י״ט באלול תשע״ה

Rav Chaim Shmuelevitz zt”l would often repeat instructions he received from his rebbe Rav Yeruchum Acknowledgments...... 9 Levovitz, the mashgiach of Mir. “You will speak some day” said Rav Yeruchum, foretelling Rav Chaim’s lifelong career of harbatzas Torah u’Mussar. “You can speak divrei chachma about everything- everything FOREWORD...... 13 but bitachon.” “When you speak of bitachon it should be d’varim pshutim only, without cheshbonos.” INTRODUCTION...... 15 It is commonly understood that true bitachon is trust, which is a matter of relationship rather than intellectual investigation. The more one deals with bitachon from a philosophical perspective, the less his heart is really there. CHAPTER ONE: A World Sustained by God...... 17 On the other hand, bitachon does not just happen. Without a rational framework one is clueless as CHAPTER TWO: Hashkatas Rucho v’Libo ...... 22 to how to develop bitachon and just how to apply it to real life. Like the author observes, so many have a simplistic view of what bitachon is and very little actual bitachon when coping with the trials of daily living. CHAPTER THREE:

Rabbi Goldberger’s Six Steps provide just such a framework. This sefer is not a discussion on the One of the Ten Commandments — But Which One?...... 28 topic of bitachon. It is a practical program for turning us all into ba’alei bitachon. It reflects years of work on the part of the author in developing and disseminating the process of learning to trust HaShem. It also offers CHAPTER FOUR: Bitachon: For Some or For Everyone?...... 32 a sobering perspective on understanding one’s real needs -needs that we can count on HaShem to provide. CHAPTER FIVE: The Six Steps...... 36 This book is a must for so many who struggle with bitachon. I sincerely hope it will be well received The First Step — among Jews on every level, and will bring bitachon and tranquility to the lives of many. Is It My Most Immediate Upcoming Need?...... 37 May the author be zoche to continue to be mezakeh the rabbim with practical works to become greater ovdei HaShem and grow in their emunah and bitachon. The Second Step — Is It Really a Need?...... 38

The Third Step — Do I Have Total Serenity That I Will Receive this Need?...... 41 The Fourth Step — What Is the Most Effort I Would Exert to Provide This Need on My Own?...... 43 בברכת כתיבה וחתימה טובה לכל בית ישראל, The Fifth Step — How Much Effort Am I Actually Required to Do for God to Provide This Need?...... 44 The Sixth Step — What Are the Details of the Effort to Which I Have Just Committed Myself?...... 45

Contents ] 7 CHAPTER SIX: Middah or ?...... 47 CHAPTER SEVEN: Actual Bitachon Stories...... 49 CHAPTER EIGHT: If Bitachon Works, Why Doesn’t Everybody Do It?..58

APPENDIX I: Beis Halevi on Parshas Mikketz...... 62 APPENDIX II: A Sample Bitachon Dialogue...... 64

About the Author...... 73 GLOSSARY...... 75 BIBLIOGRAPHY...... 79 DEDICATIONS...... 81

8 ] six Steps of Bitachon Acknowledgments ] 9 CHAPTER ONE A World Sustained by God

Return, soul, to your state of calm, for God has already provided all your needs. [Psalms 116:7]

ne of ’s most profound messages is that man has a heavenly Benefactor who provides him with sustenance. In O one form or another, we are told that God takes care of us and that He gives us everything we need. The message is beautiful — and true — yet, it doesn’t seem to match our day-to-day lives. From our earliest experiences with the world, we learn to believe we have to fight for our needs.W hether trying to hold our own among rival siblings, gain acceptance at school, or earn our livelihood in a competitive economy, we learn that meeting our needs

A World Sustained by God ] 17 is a function of staking out the battlefield, marshalling our resources, neutralizing our opponents, and continuously manipulating our environment in order to ensure not only our growth but our very survival. In many realms of human experience, especially in “making a living,” life seems very difficult. In fact, to many people life often seems like a difficult, stressful, and unending struggle. Does life need to be this way? How much different would life be if we were aware that all our needs were underwritten? What would our lives be like if we knew — really knew — that someone has so much confidence in us that he is willing to guarantee our basic living requirements in order that we would be free to develop our talents and natural energies to their maximum productivity? From the earliest description of God providing fig leaves for Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden to the daily morning blessing,

Baruch Ata Ad-noy Elo-einu Melech HaOlam She-asah Li Kol Tzorchi. Blessed are You, Hashem…who has taken care of all my needs. we discover constant references to a Creator who not only brought into existence the majesty of nature and the glory of human beings, but has undertaken to provide us all with everything we need for our comfortable and adequate maintenance, and continues to do so to this day. Psalm 104 describes how God “causes grass to sprout for the animals, and vegetation for the use of man.”1 It relates how “all look to Your hand with hope, to give their food in its time…You open Your hand that they may be sated with goodness.”2 In the ,

1 Tehillim 104:14. 2 Ibid. 104:27–28.

18 ] six Steps of Bitachon A World Sustained by God ] 19 Rav declares that every day, God sits and sustains the entire world, from aurochs’ horns to lice eggs.3 This observation is easily seen in the natural world, where a most remarkable chain of consumption provides each species with the food and other things it requires for its survival. From the microscopic plant and animal organisms, finding the perfect environment to provide them with nutrients, water, warmth, and oxygen, to the Nile Crocodile being provided with the Egyptian Plover, a special bird that flies into the reptile’s open mouth to pick out food remnants between its teeth and otherwise care for its dental needs, God has made nature a veritable theme park, displaying how the world is masterfully designed to provide sustenance and continuity to everything that has been created. That these results should be limited exclusively to the plant and animal realms is dramatically and amusingly dispelled in the following Talmudic Midrash:

In all my life I have never seen a lion working as a porter, a deer as a farmer, or a fox as a storekeeper, and yet they never go without sustenance. And they were only created to serve me [a person]! How much more so should I find all my needs provided for, as I have been created to serve the Almighty!4

And yet, despite everything we are taught about God’s beneficence, our lives remain consumed with worries, anxieties, efforts, and toil — all focused on the securing of our daily needs. In a world created and sustained by God, this ought not to be. Interestingly, there was one unique period in Jewish history when God clearly provided everything “all by Himself.” For the entire duration of the Israelites’ forty-year sojourn in the desert, all their

3 Avoda Zara 3b. 4 Kiddushin 82b.

A World Sustained by God ] 19 needs were taken care of. Food fell in the form of daily manna, water came out of a rock, and heavenly clouds provided climate control and shade. Traditional commentaries even tell of clothing that grew with the child and never wore out! Indeed, one of the reasons the Israelites were predisposed to accepting slander against the Promised Land5 was because they feared that entry into its borders would mean an end to the idyllic state to which they had grown accustomed, with God Himself providing all of their daily living requirements.6 These pessimists were both right and wrong. They were right to perceive that the shift from supernatural support to a life of daily work would constitute a serious change in their lifestyle, but they were wrong to assume that the change would mean an end to Divine Providence. Divine Providence would continue; only its form would change. Where Providence had once been direct and obvious, it would now be hidden. A new wrinkle would now require that our own efforts also be included. Heavenly support going forward would be dispensed only in a partnership between man’s efforts and God’s bestowal. It is this arrangement that continues to our present day. God still provides our needs, but only through a partnership with man. In our religious traditions, this working relationship is abundantly acknowledged in scholarship, verse, and prayer. This book, however, goes beyond mere religious acknowledgment. It goes to the heart of the partnership itself. Growing up in a religious home and absorbing all the basic premises of Jewish faith, I always wanted to understand how Divine Providence actually worked. It seemed to me that unless crediting God with our sustenance was nothing but a dutiful statement of religious loyalty, there had to be an actual process underway and, with it, some way of unmasking or at least partly exposing its inner workings. Doing so would

5 Bamidbar 13:14. 6 Sfas Emes, Shlach 5631, first ma’amar.

20 ] six Steps of Bitachon A World Sustained by God ] 21 allow one to tailor this “Divine effect” to one’s specific circumstances and personal objectives. It would allow anyone (myself included) to pursue the personal growth for which God had designed the system. In other words, by understanding how the system of God providing our needs works, it would be possible to reduce unnecessary efforts and stress in daily life and to focus on more “important” matters. Even as a young man, I recognized the power of this idea as one that could have us reverse course both individually and as a society. Instead of the anxiety-ridden, panic-inducing, morality-warping ways of modern civilizations desperately seeking survival, we would be able to adopt a meaningful, secure approach to life, fully able to achieve the heights of human potential in which our Benefactor has professed so much confidence. The ideas in this book represent the results of my exploration into Divine Providence in its practical forms and personal applicability. Relying on God is not a fantasy or merely an abstract idea. It is real and accessible. Still, a usable method of access is needed to invoke God’s Providence for specific needs, and until now, no step-by-step system has been presented, by which one could learn and apply the process to all conditions and circumstances. The Six Steps of Bitachon (pronounced bee-ta-khone, meaning “firm reliance” or “security”) is my reformulation of a method as old as Creation itself. I have cast this old method into a new mold that is both intuitive and logical. Basing myself on classical sources, and verifying it through consultation as well as trial and error, in this work I share the method for the purpose of empowering all of us to be able to access God’s Providence at all times (whether stressful or serene), across the spectrum of our daily lives. The Six Steps of Bitachon formula works, and equally important, anyone can master it with no more commitment than it would take to master any discipline. I invite you to read about it here in this book, learn the technique, and try out this life-changing experience. Your inner life — and therefore, your life — may well change, more than you can imagine.

A World Sustained by God ] 21 CHAPTER TWO Hashkatas Rucho v’Libo (Tranquility of Spirit)

here are certain needs we don’t spend much time worrying about but clearly have to be met. We need our next breath of air T but we don’t think too much about it, even though we would all acknowledge that some remotely possible occurrence could easily rob us of the ability to inhale our next breath. Barring conditions of infirmity and illness, that acknowledgment does not cause us to worry, even slightly. Clearly, certain things we simply assume are going to be given to us without our asking. In our minds, these basic needs are ours to take, and we take them. At one time, all of our needs were met in just that way. When Adam and Eve lived in the Garden of Eden, all their needs were provided without exception and without effort or worry on their part. Jewish tradition teaches us that prepared foods and finished goods could

22 ] six Steps of Bitachon Hashkatas Rucho v’Libo ] 23 actually be found growing right on the trees of the Garden!7 Adam and Eve had no worries or concerns about their sustenance. It was right there before their very eyes. But the ease by which they were tempted into sin despite “having it all” suggests that something was clearly missing. What was missing was choice.8 Nothing that they had was theirs as a result of having freely chosen it. This state of having everything but not playing a role in obtaining it is a soul-depleting condition known in Kabbalistic literature as nahama d’kissufa (bread of shame). This sense of existential embarrassment gnawed at the First Couple and left them vulnerable to the serpent’s advice to exercise free choice and choose disobedience. Ironically, if they would have chosen to resist the temptation of the forbidden fruit and reject the serpent’s suggestion, that itself would have constituted an exercise of free choice, supplying the last factor necessary for an eternity of bliss in the original Garden. Their decision to sin, however, was a choice to change nature as they had been living it, to select a different operating system with different rules. Evidently feeling too confined by God’s manifest omnipresence in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve’s choice made it clear that they craved a system in which they could feel their own sense of productivity. They wanted to contribute and to feel like they had to do some work themselves. It seemed like a noble desire, but it masked a dangerous urge to cast off their dependence on G-d and, with it, their very existence. In punishing them for their sin, God gave them a virtual version of what they asked for. He gave them a sense of independence. He shut them out of the Garden and sent them into a barren, challenging, and difficult world. Out there, where bread would no longer grow on trees; man would have to work; he

7 Bereishis Rabba 3:19. 8 See Ramban, Bereishis 2:9.

Hashkatas Rucho v’Libo ] 23 would have to plant and till, harvest, grind, and bake. There he would feel alone, self-reliant, and “independent.” But in truth, God never stopped providing; He just put on a mask. He continued to run the world by way of Divine Providence. But because he had chosen the route of human effort (Hebrew — hishtadlus), man now had to do a significant quantity of work in order to release God’s providence; and we continue to have to do the same today. But — and this is key — the work that we do is not a factor in God’s willingness to provide. What has changed is only that we have now incurred an obligation to work; in essence, though, God continues to provide our needs as He always did before, unrelated to the fact that we must now also play a role. A passage in the Beis HaLevi discusses the story of Joseph.9 The Talmudic sages tell us that Joseph was punished for turning to Pharaoh’s chief of staff in an attempt to win release from prison. Because he asked someone for help (rather than simply relying on God), Joseph remained in jail for two additional years. At first, this seems quite harsh and confusing. After all, Joseph was no longer Adam in the Garden of Eden — was he not right to put in some effort? Why was he punished for doing hishtadlus? The Beis HaLevi explains that Joseph already had absolute certainty that God was going to free him from prison. He had hashkatas rucho v’libo (complete tranquility of spirit) that he would soon be released, just as we have complete confidence about our next breath of air. We don’t worry about breathing and he didn’t worry about being released. So why was asking for help a sin? Explains the Beis HaLevi: For a person with such a level of serenity as Joseph, hishtadlus is unnecessary and even forbidden. Putting in effort to achieve your needs reveals your hidden belief that you will not get them without the effort.

9 See Appendix 1.

24 ] six Steps of Bitachon Hashkatas Rucho v’Libo ] 25 Imagine that your neighbor promised that he would bring back your dry cleaning when he went to pick up his own, and, though you knew he was reliable, you repeatedly called his cell phone to remind him. How much trust would he feel you had in him? After awhile, it would show such distrust that it would be insulting! Classic Jewish thought compares the level of hashkatas rucho v’libo to that of a nursing infant, who feels no insecurity or doubt about his next meal. The baby simply knows Mama will provide. Jewish lore is replete with stories describing people who have achieved this high level. There is a famous Chassidic story about the rebbe Reb Zushe, who believed with simple faith that God would meet all his physical needs. Reb Zushe would always follow the same routine upon returning from synagogue in the morning. He would sit down at his table and cry out, “Tatte (Father in Heaven)! Zushe is hungry.” Every day, on cue, the cook would then bring out his breakfast. Day after day, Reb Zushe would pray and the cook would bring the food. One day, she had enough. “Tatte” isn’t bringing the food, she muttered. I am! That morning, Reb Zushe said his prayer like usual. “Tatte! Zushe is hungry!” This time, however, the cook remained stubbornly in the kitchen. Within moments, there was a knock at the door. It was Reb Zushe’s neighbor, thanking the rebbe for clearing her snow early that morning. “In gratitude,” said the neighbor, “I prepared you some food for breakfast!” The cook, as the story goes, was profoundly amazed and duly chastened.

Blessed is the man who trusts in God, for God will be his security. [Jeremiah 17:7]

Hashkatas Rucho v’Libo ] 25 Rabbi Yosef Zundel of Salant sent a letter in 1857 from Jerusalem to Vienna, where his son was visiting a sick relative. He writes:

Shalom, my beloved son, I sent you recommendations, as you requested. However, do not place your faith in them, for they are only a vehicle so that your success needn’t result from an open miracle. As Shlomo HaMelech tells us, the essential factor is to “trust in Hashem with all your heart, and do not rely on your own understanding” (Mishlei 3:5). Similarly, do not make excessive efforts, so that you should not think that “my strength and the might of my hand were the source of my salvation” (cf. Devarim 8:17). As Scripture states: “Do not rely on nobles, nor on a human being, for he holds no salvation. Praiseworthy is the one whose help is in Yaakov’s God, whose hope is in Hashem, his God” (Tehillim 146:3, 5). I hope unto Hashem that He will provide you with more than sufficient funds to cover both your expenditures there and the cost of your return journey. The Almighty has many means and messengers at His disposal — whether through the principle of “Hashem provides a worthy person with the opportunity to perform a meritorious deed,” as we see with Rabbi Meir’s dictum in Bava Basra 10a*, or by numerous other means.10

* The Talmud (Bava Basra 10a) teaches: “Rabbi Meir used to say: The heretic may argue, ‘If your God loves the poor, why does He not support them?’ To this you can reply, ‘So that through them we may be saved from the punishment of Gehinnom.’” Rashi explains that in the merit of giving charity, one will be saved from Gehinnom. Rav Zundel’s intent is that perhaps his son’s merit will

10 Rabbi Zvi Miller, Ohr Yisrael: The Classic Writings of Rav Yisrael Salanter and His Disciple Rav Yitzchak Blazer (North Miami Beach: The Salant Foundation 2004).

26 ] six Steps of Bitachon Hashkatas Rucho v’Libo ] 27