Hashgochah Pratis in Sifrei Kodesh
Excerpts from the popular shiur by Harav Hatzaddik R’ Beirish Shneebalg shlit”a
Like One Man with One Heart
Much of the pain and suffering we undergo stem from our imaginations. These fantasies are like thick smoke: They blur our ability to see reality clearly, and they cause tension, anger, sadness, and helplessness.
For example, imagine a man who comes home exhausted following a long, tiring day at work. He opens the door and senses tension in the atmosphere: The children are fighting, and the general atmosphere in the house is one of sadness and irritability. And instead of seeing the reality as it is, he starts building towers in the air: “Maybe I did something wrong? Maybe I’m not a good enough father?” These thoughts cause him pain and panic.
But what would happen if he were to choose another way? If he were to decide, despite all the difficult feelings, to change the film in his head. If he would decide in his heart that there was no tension and start broadcasting peace and happiness, he’d discover the people around him reacting accordingly.
The same is true regarding matters between man and his fellow. A person who imagines that his friend is angry at him, and builds towers in the air about this, is liable to find himself cut off and alone, far from his friend and making the chasm deeper and more painful. However, if he exchanges his fantasies for a sober assessment of the reality, he may discover that his anger is passing and temporary, and perhaps it stems from a misunderstanding or from a personal difficulty of his friend’s. An open, candid conversation could bridge the gaps.
At Har Sinai, all of Am Yisrael stood together “as one man with one heart.” All of Am Yisrael needs to be one, with each one striving to complete the avodas Hashem of the others. This is a foundation for kabbalas haTorah.
Only a sober perspective will enable us to be “as one man with one heart,” without hatred, and for each man to love his fellow and to receive the holy Torah.
Asking for food each day
Anyone who has emunah needs to daven to Hashem for food each day. Why? Because when a person davens to Hashem for his food, he causes the “tree of food,” in which everything is found, to be blessed. And even if he already has food, he should ask Hashem for his food each day, because through his tefillah the blessing from Above will be found each day.
(Zohar Shemos p. 62)
“Those who await His chessed” are those who anticipate and wait each and every day and ask Hashem for their food. Rav Yisa Saba would not prepare his meal each day before asking Hashem for food. He would say, “We will not start the meal until we receive [the food] from the House of the King”; and after asking of Hashem, he would wait one hour and then say, “Now is the time that I’ve received my food from the King, so that now we can prepare the seudah.”
(Zohar Shemos p. 62)
“A man of faith” is a man who has emunah in Hashem, like Rabi Yisa Saba, who, even though he had enough food for that day, would not prepare the food until he davened for his food for that day. After he’d daven and ask for food from Hashem, he would prepare it, and he’d always say, “We will not prepare anything until we receive our food from the House of the King.”
(Zohar Bereishis p. 199)
