Hashgachah Pratis in the Sefarim Hakedoshim
All of Am Yisrael Are Close to Hashem
Rabi Tanchuma said: Once a ship of Gentiles set sail, and there was one young Jew on board. There was a storm in the ocean, and each of the passengers took his God in hand and called out to it, to no avail.
When they saw their cries did nothing, they said to the Jewish boy, “Get up and call out to your G-d, for we heard He answers you when you call out to Him, and He is strong.” The young boy immediately stood up and cried out with all his heart. Hashem accepted his tefillah, and the ocean quieted down.
When they reached dry land, each of the passengers disembarked in order to purchase his needs, but the young Jew did not leave the boat. They asked him, “Don’t you want to buy something?”
“What do you expect from a poor passenger like me?” he replied. “I have no money to buy anything.”
“You’re a poor passenger?” they asked. “We are the poor passengers, for we are here and our idols are in Bavel, and we are here and our idols are in Rome, and we are here and our idols are with us, but they do not help us at all; but you – wherever you go, your G-d is with you.” As it says, “For who is so great a nation that has a L-rd [Who is] close to them, like Hashem our L-rd whenever we call out to Him.”
Rabi Shimon ben Lakish says: A human being who has a relative – if this relative were rich, he would know him; if he were poor, he would dissociate from him. But Hashem is not like this. Rather, even if [the people of] Am Yisrael are in the lowest of states, He calls them “My brothers and friends.” How do we know this? Because it says, L’maan achai v’rei’ai – “For the sake of my brothers and friends.”
Rabi Avun and Rabi Acha and Rabi Shimon ben Lakish say: When a human being has a relative, if he is smart, he says “So-and-so is my relative”; but Hakadosh Baruch Hu calls all of Am Yisrael his relatives, as it says, “...to Bnei Yisrael, His relatives, His close ones.”
(Yerushalmi, Brachos 9:1)
