Don’t Trust in Your Princes

Photo Credit: Este Abramowitz. “Without a Worry.”

What’s given me chizuk over the years—over all my trials and tribulations—is Bitachon. Bitachon means security, feeling secure in HaShem’s arms, as if nothing can touch you and no worry can pass through your mind—like an infant in her mother’s arms. Her eyes close and she drifts off into a beautiful sleep, despite whatever chaos may be going on around her, without a care in the world.

A baby feels her mother’s heartbeat and that’s why nursing is so beneficial to her, since a breastfed baby is able to more intimately sense the calmness of the mother and replicate that steady heartbeat herself, bonding the two in a sort of an unbelievable feng shui—a pseudoscience that the Ancient Chinese cultivated in creating an energy of peace in their home, feng shui literally meaning “wind-water.” When Gd’s wind blows above the waters, this scene is one of the most peaceful—one can even say, a prototypical image of serenity.

I think we must all consider where we are falling short in our feeling secure in HaShem. Dovid HaMelech warns us quite explicitly, “אל תבטחו בנדיבים!” Stop trusting in your princes, ״בבן אדם שאין לו תשועה!״ in whomever you’ve placed so much faith in to save you—whether your golden prince is your therapist, your rabbi, or your best friend. They can all be wonderfully helpful people, but at the end of the day, in whom do you feel secure that they will save you—these human princes or HaShem?

When push comes to shove, there are so many ways of chizuk and resources around us to improve our lives, and sometimes we just keep going back for more, forgetting Who is the one who will always—and unwaveringly—be there for us, from the day we are born til the day we die.

It’s such a basic idea, no? And that’s why we call this our אמונה פשוטה, our simple faith. Throughout life, we get degrees and higher education and trainings; we learn sefer upon sefer, make siyum after siyum. Stripping away all this great fanciness—do we have the beginning foundation? Or must we go back to the basics and start learning once again?

After each PhD and fellowship, and l’havdil after every masechta and machshavah sefer—or really any tremendous physical accomplishment—do we admit to ourselves how we really are just infants, vulnerable to the world, yet secure in HaShem’s embrace?

In high school, I learned the most beautiful idea in class—again, a very basic idea: ה׳ מקדים רפואה לפני מכה, HaShem precedes healing before a plague. Before we are stricken with grief or suffering, we must know that we are only in Gd’s hands and that He cares about us. Not only does He have a medicine ready for our illness the moment we get sick, He prepared it in advance, before we ever knew we’d fall ill.

Some may ask—including myself when I was a teenager—what’s the beauty here? HaShem does such a chessed to us? He’s the one who slapped us with the machalah to begin with!

The answer isn’t necessarily a satisfying one: We don’t ask questions about everything in life. As a Rebbetzin once told me, as she was dissuading me to stop eating my kishkes over figuring something out in my life that I just could never get over, “Some things we just don’t know.” And that’s really okay. We live in an era where every belief or news reel is questioned and doubted, where every decision or ritual needs an explanation or a Why? Sometimes we don’t need an answer, and even if we do, we’ll honestly never get a clear one. And accepting that brings more relief than any answer could, to a painful episode we’ve experienced.

So when the Gemara writes of the beauty and care of HaShem’s healing, we must recognize only the love He has for us and as Rabbi Akiva once said, כל דעביד רחמנא לטב עביד, whatever He does is for the good, whether we instantly feel tortured or confused by an event, or even if we think saying that is just a cheesy way of justifying pain.

However, truth is truth! Whether we’re crying or screaming into our pillows at night, what’s been done will somehow enrich our lives in a way that couldn’t have come about without it. What’s happened might very well feel like the makkah but instead is a refuah in advance for something greater that we don’t know about yet.

Sometimes, we just don’t know.

And part of feeling secure in HaShem’s חק, as the Torah frequently personifies Gd in a way that we can relate to Him, in His place of comfort, is not needing to know why, if, when, and how. Just the knowledge that we can fall back on Him—when we have no one else—should be enough.

Dovid HaMelech, the same heroic man, who went through decades of suffering—betrayals from his family members, illness, death of those beloved to him—and wrote the words “Don’t trust in your princes,” is the same man who wrote of being in a tight spot, fearful that one will never get out: יונתי בחגוי הסלע, my dove who is stuck underneath the boulder, with nowhere to go and no one to save him—השמיעני את קולך, speak up, pray! כי קולך ערב ומראך נאוה, because you’re so beautiful and your voice is so sweet.

Sometimes we find ourselves in extremely difficult situations that we ourselves can’t even solve—and we’re smart people! Yet, it’s possible HaShem just wants us to stop looking around at eye level and start looking up at Him. He desires our precious prayers more than we know and wants us to recognize who’s really in control. The little pawns and kings and knights, or הכל יכול—our All-Able mighty Him?

Sometimes our greatest moments of suffering are our most heroic times of faith and growth. As Dovid HaMelech also writes in our Hallel prayers, אבן מאסו הבונים היתה לראש פינה—the stone that the builders rejected in constructing the greatest building of all times, our Beis HaMikdash, became its cornerstone—the final piece placed that forever holds the structure together.

Let’s feel some faith in this, that what breaks us down can actually build us up and what we can’t understand is not always what we need to know.

When the Second Temple was destroyed and foxes trailed out of the Holy of Holies on the Temple Mount, the rabbis tore their clothes and sobbed. Akiva stood on the side, his chin in the air, laughing away. In disbelief, they asked, why are you laughing?

And without missing a beat, he replied, eyebrows furrowed, why are you crying? If the prophecy of destruction came true, that means the prophecy of rebuilding will also. Akiva saw the good in the most mournful of situations and is therefore the most deserving holder of the banner כל דעביד רחמנא לטב עביד, believing HaShem is good and that life is too.

We have to stop taking things at face value. And sometimes we also need to stop crying and instead look for that bleak parting of the clouds, where goodness can come through and will.

We should focus on the reality of a coming salvation, and not on a sugar-coated view where we rely on others or our own strength and strategy to save ourselves.

Honestly, the world has it wrong. Thinking הכל יכול is the reality, not a sugar-coated way of going through life in denial. Thinking “Gd” is the only way out!

The dove trapped under the boulder is metaphor for when Klal Yisroel were at the shores of the Yam Suf, the waters slashing at their toes, as the Egyptians closed in on them from behind. השמיעני את קולך! Moshe cried out and the greatest prototype of Bitachon, נחשון בן עמינדב—the man whose essence is “my nation is my prince”—broke his middah of trusting in others and took a physical leap of faith into the turbulent waters. And because of him, zechus Avos broke free and the whole nation was saved, as the sea stood still into two pillars on either side of them.

Even after that miraculous moment of splitting, it took time for the people to walk through until the end (think of how large a simple body of water is, never mind a sea), as HaShem was saying, “See! At every moment, I’m holding you up.” Even in this neis, HaShem was continuously holding the waters back from collapsing on them.

Interestingly, on a separate note, the plural form of the words אל תבטחו בנדיבים is inconsistent with the singular remainder of the pasuk, בבן אדם שאין לו תשועה. But this contradiction is quite easy to solve: There are many forms of what we call salvation but at the end of the day, we must recognize that they all just fall under man. Not Gd. It doesn’t matter what profession is theirs and from what echelons of society they come, man is man—despite the gorgeous variety—and that’s that.

The Malbim comments on this pasuk, explaining that we shouldn’t trust man for two reasons: one, what seems like the key to our redemption is merely an illusion which he does not possess. And two, even if he did, who says he’d actually come to save you? Both statements are humbling and encourage us to run away from our human crutches and into the open arms of our Father.

May we see many stunning miracles this month, where what seems to not be going our way is actually heading our way. Where רבים ביד מעטים and גיבורים ביד חלשים are not a quandary and a reason to cry, but every reason we should turn our chins upwards and laugh.

As we calmly look towards the sea, and the water peacefully ripples with the rhythm of the wind—כמים לים מכסים—we stare at its expansiveness and are reminded of the Limitless One above. And that everything He does is for the good.

As we light our own candles on Chanukah, let’s listen back to the echoes of our devastated Rebbeim, who once sobbed on the ashen ground of the Most Beautiful Place on Earth, quickly wiping away their tears and crying out,

עקיבא, ניחמתנו

Wow! Akiva, you have comforted us!

In this minute, I urge you to begin wiping away your own tears and deep moments of suffering, and let Gd soon hear your sweet voice sing the words of Maoz Tzur. The rock that once buried you has indeed transformed into the Rock of your salvation, just like in the times of Mitzrayim, the Maccabim, and the second Beis HaMikdash.

Remember, HaShem has the best ointments and solutions to heal your greatest wounds. All you have to do is look away from others. And look up and laugh.