Insufficient Emunah
“Men of emunah” are no more. Rabi Yitzchak explains that this refers to people who believe in Hashem. As Rabi Eliezer Hagadol said: Anyone who has bread in his basket and asks, “What will I eat tomorrow?” is considered to have “insufficient emunah.” As he explains, what causes the tzaddikim embarrassment in the World to Come is this insufficient emunah that caused them to ask, “What will I eat tomorrow?” (Sotah 48b).
Believing Even When One Does Not Know What Will Be
It says (Tehillim 68:20), “Blessed is Hashem, each day,” and He sustains His creations every day; therefore, someone who has bread in his basket and says, ‘What will I eat tomorrow?’ is considered to be of insufficient emunah. This shows that he does not really believe that Hashem Yisbarach sustains His world, for if he would believe in Him, he would not have any doubts about what he would eat tomorrow. This detracts from the reward of tzaddikim in the World to Come, because a believer believes in something that he does not know as fact, something that is hidden and concealed. Therefore, when the time that is hidden and concealed to us – meaning, future days – will come, his table (meaning, his reward) will be complete, and it will be exactly the size of the emunah he had in Hashem regarding concealed things. But if someone is of insufficient emunah and does not believe in anything he has not seen and does not know about, then as a direct consequence, his portion will be smaller in the World to Come, which is a time that is hidden and concealed from us. (Chiddushei Aggados Maharal MiPrague)
Even If He Has His Needs, He Needs to Pray That They Not Be Taken from Him
It is said that the heilige Reb Yosef Dov of Belz zt”l explained that this gemara seems to mean that insufficient emunah means worrying about tomorrow instead of trusting that Hashem will send him parnassah for tomorrow as well. But we can also explain it as follows: A person needs to know in his heart that even at a time when it seems to him that he has everything he needs, there is no guarantee that this will continue, and he needs to pray that it should not be taken away from him. And this is why the Gemara teaches, “He who has bread in his basket and says, “What will we eat tomorrow?” – it sounds as though he is worrying only about tomorrow, since he feels that for today he is guaranteed to have his needs. This is referred to as insufficient emunah. (Kovetz Imrei Kodesh)
Leaving Nothing for Tomorrow
When the Brisker Rav zt”l was in Warsaw, he would eat everything he needed each day, leaving nothing over for the next day, since he trusted in Hashem that he would have food to eat on the following day, and in order not to transgress the words of Chazal, “Rabi Eliezer Hagadol says that anyone who has bread in his basket and says, ‘What will we eat tomorrow?’ is a person of insufficient emunah.” His son, the gaon Reb Yosef Dov, would eat nothing other than the hard part of the bread, which his father could not grind with his teeth, since he did not want to take away from what the Brisker Rav had to eat, and the Brisker Rav complained about him, saying that the reason there was not enough bread for him was because his son was not eating. If he ate, they would get hold of more bread. Nonetheless, Reb Yosef Dov did not eat, since he did not want to be a baal bitachon on the cheshbon of his father. (Uvdos V’hanhagos L’veis Brisk)
Parnassah in This World Is the Reward of Emunah
“The insufficient [emunah] they had was that they did not believe in Hakadosh Baruch Hu,” meaning: They would think their parnassah was dependent on the nature that Hashem embedded in this world. They did not believe that everything came to them through His personal hashgachah every single day, for His table is set for all, as it says, “You open Your Hand and provide all living things with their desires.” If their emunah were stronger, they would have parnassah in this world in the zechus of their emunah, as it says, “and the tzaddik shall live by his emunah.” This means that the reward of his emunah is life in this world, which does not detract at all from his reward in the World to Come. But since their emunah in this was not strong, they had parnassah in this world as the reward for their mitzvos, and therefore their table in the World to Come was incomplete. The good was subtracted from it because of the good they received in this world. (Ben Yehoyada)
