In the Kovno ghetto, Reb Mordechai Pegrimansky zt'l gave chizuk to a group of his friends who were very worried and frightened. Naturally, they were worried. Their lives and the lives of their families were at stake twenty-four hours a day.
Reb Mordechai said that he can prove to them that Hashem is protecting them, and therefore, they should rely on Him and be happy. He said, "Do you agree that the SS soldiers hate us and want to kill us?" They all agreed to that. There was nothing to debate. They knew that too well.
"Do you also agree that if they kill us, no one will punish them or even ask them why they did so?" His friends agreed once again. It was indeed so.
Reb Mordechai Pegrimansky said, "The SS soldiers saw us today. Why didn't they kill us? What could stop them from pulling the trigger? It must be that Hashem said 'No.' They can't do anything without Hashem."
The entire group of friends survived the war and said they always remembered Reb Mordechai's lesson. It gave them chizuk throughout those difficult times.
With a bitter heart, Reb Michoel Ber Weissmandl zt'l came to the Lubavitcher Rebbe, the Rayatz zt'l, and told him how he had prepared a plan that would save thousands of Yidden from the Holocaust, but cruel people stopped him and foiled his plans.
The Rayatz gave him a piercing look and asked, "And Who did all of this?" Reb Michoel Ber said that these words changed his entire outlook. He was angry at the people who stopped him and ruined his plans, and suddenly, he remembered that everything is in Hashem's hands.
In the midst of the Holocaust, some managed to escape Europe and reach Eretz Yisrael. At a Rabbinic gathering, one of the survivors discussed the atrocities taking place on European soil. With a bitter heart, he shouted, "The Germans are doing all of this, and He remains silent."
Reb Issar Zalman Meltzer zt'l immediately stood up and said, "The Germans are doing this?! He is doing! Everything is from Hashem, and for reasons only He knows. This is as it states (Eichah 3:37) 'ה ותהי אמר זה מי צוה לא, "Who said and it occurred if Hashem didn't command." Rashi explains that we can't say that the Churban happened by chance because the good and the bad are from Hashem.
There was a narrow river, called זרד נחל, between the desert and Eretz Yisrael, but the Yidden couldn’t cross it without Hashem's help. The Midrash (Bamidbar Rabba 19:24) states that this brook, זרד, was wide a זרת, an amah. "But they couldn't cross over it for thirty-eight years until Hashem said (2:13) קומו ועתה זרד נחל את לכם ועברו, "And now get up and go over the Zered Brook.' And it states (2:14) זרד נחל את עברנו אשר עד ברנע מקדש הלכנו אשר והימים שנה ושמונה שלושים, 'The days that we traveled from Kodesh Barneia until we crossed Zered Brook were thirty-eight years.'" This is because without Hashem's help, one cannot pass over a river as narrow as an amah. On the other hand, with Hashem's help, one can cross the sea.
