Of course, you have to be grateful to the Coast Guard man. You have to be grateful also to his superiors who sent him out. But you should always remember what it states: בֹהַ מֵעַל גָי גָבֹהַ כִש ֹׁ מֵ ר – there’s a High One above the high one. There's an Official over this official.
That's why we say טוֹב לְהֹדוֹת לַהַשֵׁם לְזַמֵּר לְשִׁמְךָ עֶלְיוֹן – it is good to give thanks to Hashem, to sing to Your Name, the One Who is most high (Tehillim 92:2). Why is Hakadosh Baruch Hu called ‘the Most High’? Because He is בֹהַ מֵעַל גָי גָבֹהַ ש ֹׁ מֵ ר – He is the One Who does everything. He’s the King pulling all the strings (Koheles 5:7).
And so when the helicopter finally lands at the Coast Guard Station at Floyd Bennett Field and you start thanking the Coast Guard man again so he points to a building and he says, “Look kid, thank my boss in the office over there. It was the lieutenant there who sent me out. I was just following orders.”
So you visit the lieutenant in the office to thank him but he says, “Mister, I'm only doing my job. I take orders from the Coast Guard headquarters.”
Does The President Know?
So imagine you’re a persistent fellow and you want to thank the one in charge. So you travel to the headquarters near Washington D.C. and finally you get into the office in the Pentagon. But they send you to the White House. “The President is my boss.” That’s what the Admiral of the Coast Guard tells you.
So you go to President Carter and he says, “Look my friend, I have nothing to do with this. I'm appointed by the Most High and He is the One Who saved you.”
Now, he probably won’t say that because he doesn’t listen to these lectures; among the many things he doesn’t know, add this to the list. But whether the President is wise enough to say it, that’s the truth. And that's what we're supposed to remember at all times; Hamerachem – He is the one who has pity on us; only Him.
Misplaced Trust
Whatever the means, natural or supernatural, they are all triggered by the will of the Most High. And the moment we forget that – let’s say you’re fifty years old already and you’ve been saying that word, hameracheim, in your davening every day but you never yet paid attention to it, so what’s going to happen?
All the subordinates begin to misbehave. The President will forget to give orders. Maybe the Pentagon will shirk its duties or the Coast Guard headquarters won't keep tabs on their branches, and the lieutenant will be asleep when the time comes. Or the sergeant who went out in the helicopter to find you will look in the wrong place. And you'll continue on your journey to Ireland.
Of course, sometimes Hakadosh Baruch Hu has His purposes. Even though you ignore Him, He'll bring you home and then you'll have to face the music in a different way, worse than going to Ireland. It will catch up with you because by hook or by crook sooner or later you have to learn this important lesson of Melech Keil Elyon – The King Who’s Above All. Hakadosh Baruch Hu wants to teach us because success or failure in this knowledge spells success or failure in one’s entire life.
Safety in Him
That’s why the safest man, the most secure person, is the one who doesn’t trust in anything but the Melech Elyon. Because when you transfer your bitachon from Hakadosh Baruch Hu to a person or to an object, sooner or later something is going to happen to teach you a lesson that you made a mistake. And it’s a fortunate thing when it happens.
It's like when a man trusts in his ten fingers. The Chovos Halevovos relates that a man once said, “As long as I have my ten fingers, I am assured of parnassah.”
So what happened the same day? His fingers were caught in the machine and he lost them.
And that's not a punishment. It’s a lesson for him – a sad lesson – to take back the trust from his fingers and restore it to Hakadosh Baruch Hu.
