Part III. Reclaiming Prayer
Serving False Gods
Now, there’s a Shaar Habitachon in Chovos Halvovos which is famous for that subject – it’s the textbook for this great ideal – and he tells us there that it is absolutely necessary to work on acquiring the attitude of bitachon. Because if you don’t, in case a person never works on it, then he is an oved avodah zarah; that’s what the Chovos Halvovos says. By default he’s an idolater, because he thinks that without Hashem it goes on anyhow.
What is he worshiping? A false god called nature. Or the false god called himself. Or the false god called his college degree or his doctor or medication or the policeman. Whatever it is, it’s plain avodah zarah unless you work on acquiring the attitude that everything you have or need, or think you need, is only from Atah, You.
Now when will you work on that? You’ll never do it. If you learn Shaar Habitachon, very good; but how many people do that? Chovos Halvovos is not such an easy subject. And even if you do learn it, it’s not enough – you have to practice it.
Practice in Prayer
And where do we practice it most frequently? In davening. That’s what tefillah is after all; bitachon. You have to believe in Hashem that He is the only One that can help you, otherwise, why are you asking Him? What are you wasting time in the shul for? Go out and hustle! Go to the doctor! Go to the shadchan!
The answer is, He’s the Shadchan and He’s the Doctor and He’s the One Who will requite your hustling. Of course you should go to the doctor; you should call the shadchan, but at the same time you have to know that it’s only Hakadosh Baruch Hu. He’s the אֵ-ל עֶלְיוֹן; He’s the One pulling all the strings.
Now the truth is it’s an attitude that we’re very far away from but that’s what davening is for; it’s for daas and bitachon. Because even if you’re still down at the bottom – you’re not yet a person of bitachon; you can’t even say by heart the seven requirements that the Chovos Halvovos lists as the hakdamah to bitachon – but when you appeal to Hashem for help, that outward act makes you feel that Hashem is the One Who has to help you.
The mere fact that you are asking Hashem, and you’re trying to do it with the purpose of gaining that quality of bitachon, it changes you. By means of asking and thanking and asking more and thanking more, so you start climbing the ladder of bitachon. Little by little you’re getting that attitude that Hashem is the One, the only One, Who gives.
