If a Jew were to have such a choice: either be held hostage, or sleep in the desert for one night, and your donkey and rooster will die, and your candle will go out and you’ll be alone in the darkness – for one night only – there is no question at all what he would choose.
This is exactly what the Maharal said regarding the well-known story in Maseches Brachos (60b) about Rabi Akiva.
Rabi Akiva set out on his way with a donkey, a rooster, and a candle. Toward evening he entered a city to find a place to spend the night, but no one wanted to give him a place to sleep, and Rabi Akiva slept in the wilderness that night. A lion came and devoured his donkey. A dog came and ate his rooster. The winds blew out his candle. Regarding each and every thing that happened, Rabi Akiva said: Everything that Hashem does is for the good. Whatever Hakadosh Baruch Hu does, He does for the good.
That night bandits came to the city and took all its inhabitants into captivity. Rabi Akiva said to his disciples: Now you see that everything Hashem does, He does for the good. Everything that seemed to be a hardship was in fact Hashem’s way of saving me from captivity.
The Maharal (Nesivos Olam, Nesiv Ahavas Hashem and Nesiv Bitachon) sheds light on this story:
Sometimes a great and most difficult challenge is decreed upon a person, but our merciful Father wants to make it lighter for him, and therefore He brings upon him a difficulty that is somewhat like the difficulty decreed upon him. If the person believes that this is all from Hashem and that Hashem is doing it for his good, then he saves himself from the far greater difficulty.
This is how the Maharal explains the story of Rabi Akiva: A person in captivity is not in control of his body or of his soul, and he is unable to think. How we daven for the captives who are in Gaza to be saved! It was decreed that Rabi Akiva be taken into captivity as well, and Hakadosh Baruch Hu wanted to save him, and therefore He brought upon him a similar difficulty, so that he would be saved from the captivity.
Hakadosh Baruch Hu killed the donkey – the donkey which is the symbol of materialism – in this way saving Rabi Akiva’s body.
The rooster that was killed redeemed Rabi Akiva’s soul, since the rooster has more of a soul than other animals, as we say, “Who gives the rooster understanding to discern between day and night.” Therefore, it is customary to slaughter a rooster before Yom Kippur, to redeem a person’s nefesh.
The candle was blown out, and this redeemed him from the anguish of being unable to think while in captivity, since the mind is the light of a person, as it says, “For a mitzvah is a candle, and Torah is light.” By Hashem’s taking the donkey, the rooster, and the candle, Rabi Akiva was saved from captivity.
This is a principle that applies to every type of difficulty: If a person believes that it is coming from Hakadosh Baruch Hu, and Hashem yisbarach is doing it all for his good, he saves himself from many more difficult things and turns this difficulty into a source of light and good.
In the words of the Maharal: “Therefore, a person should accustom himself to saying that everything the Merciful One does, He does for the good, and when he says, regarding that which seems to be bad, that he believes that Hashem yisbarach is doing it for the good, then Hashem will transform that bad into good.”
We have the opportunity to exchange great yissurim for smaller ones, to exchange great difficulty for temporary discomfort, if during the nisayon we are wise enough to believe and to think that “everything Hashem does is for the best.”
Gut Shabbat
Pinchas Shefer
