de·pend·ence
de·pend·ence
[dih-pen-duh
ns]
ns]
noun
1.the state of relying on or needing someone or something for aid, support, or the like.
2.reliance; confidence; trust: Her complete reliability earned her our dependence.
4. the state of being conditional or contingent on something, as through a natural or logical sequence: the dependence of an effect upon a cause.
5. the state of being psychologically or physiologically dependent on a drug after a prolonged period of use.
We all have people in our lives who we depend on. We have things we depend on.
We depend on the car to run in the morning, the train to take me to school.
The coffee to give me a spruce in the morning.
We trust that things will go according to their nature.
But we can only allow ourselves to have so much bitachon in the physical world.
We just came out of Chanuka, A holiday that celebrates our victory over the Greek influence. A holiday when we separate ourselves from everything that is Rome, Paris, and Hollywood.
We put distance between an ideology that says "its up to you to make it happen!" Distance from a world that gives utmost credence to the connections that you have. After all its not what you know but who you know..right?
Yosef made this mistake. ( it can only be called a mistake on Yosef's level) He placed his faith on a person. He used his connections to get him out of jail. He had experienced such grand miracles until this point; Hashem's hand was clearly visible in his life. Yet he chose to rely on the human, on the composition of carbon molecules.
"Yisrael Betach Ba'shem ezram umaginam hu"
Yisrael trusts in Hashem, He is their help and their Shield.
" tov lachasot b'Hashem mi bitoach b'nidivim"
It is better to take refuge in Hashem that to put confidences in princes"
The amount of, for lack of better translation, trust (bitachon) one has directly correlates to the amount of involvement He has in your life.
In the times when people served idols, they were not just wasting their time. When you you believe in something, you give strength to it. You empower it.
When you trust in a relationship, you give it validity. When you rely on your car to get you to work in the morning, you are giving it power. When one trusts the doctor to save her, she places all the control in his hands.
However, when we daven, when we say hallel, when we talk to Hashem throughout the course of the day..we remind ourselves that it is really Him who runs the world. Davening is not about asking Hashem for parnassa, health, wisdom...etc etc.. Davening is to remind us, that He is the source for everything in the world. Everyday, once, twice, three times a day, we remind ourselves exactly who it is we want running our lives. We remind ourselves that the only one we should be dependent on is G-d, Who Was, Is and Always Will Be!
We have a choice to make every second of every day. With whom do we put our faith?
Do we choose a finite being, or even a collection of finite beings, ourselves included, to help us navigate through this seemingly chaotic world? Or do we look for a Being greater than ourselves? Do we look to the Infinite one who knows how this all will end? Who knows what makes every single cell and electron do precisely what it does at any given split second?
The choice is ours to make. Within that choice lies our fate.
Wow...this is such a great post and so timely.
ReplyDeleteWhen it comes to getting your kid into the right school, sometimes you can think that if you have pull and know the right people, your kid will get in. (What do they know about my son? He's just a little kid...and a wild one too!) It's so important to remember who really controls our lives and who we depend on for everything.
Thank you.
I needed to hear this message again. Seems I can never get enough of it. This post really knocked some much needed sense back into me. Thank you for sharing it.
ReplyDeletemy pleasure
ReplyDeleteglad you both enjoyed.
I concur, great message. I can look back on my life and see numerous incidents that I took badly at the time because of a lack of bitachon that things were going to work out. Now, in retrospect, I can see how these events had benefit and prepared me for future events and challenges.
ReplyDeleteI once heard from Rabbi Blau at YU that "things don't always happen the way you take it for granted that they will." Taking outcomes and achievements for granted is clearly displaying a lack of bitachon - and it is up to us to put our minds in the right place, just as you write so very well.
Thanks for the inspiration!
Thanks for commenting and for stopping in. I actually just listened to a shiur by Rabbi Label Lam, he was saying that his kids were getting a bit spoiled from all the fancy hotels he had been a guest speaker at and on the way to one of these said shabbatons the children were whining about not having top tier accommodations, so he told them..expect nothing, no toilets, only outhouses, forget about having your own room, were all sleeping on cots in the main room..etc etc so when they got there whatever they had was incredible! '
DeleteAlso on the day of his son's wedding someone told him " expect that 20 things will go wrong today" only 15 did,,,he was so grateful. we have to be careful we monitor how in control we think we are.