A Yid from up North relates: I have a store that provides for me. Over the course of many years I’ve worked hard all day, from 8 o’clock in the morning until 8 o’clock in the evening. I had to keep the store open for so many hours because I needed parnassah. If I’d have closed earlier, a potential customer might have come to my store and seen that it was closed and gone to the competition, where he would discover that the other store was just as good as mine. Then he’d continue doing his shopping there, and thus I would lose him. I had to keep the store open twelve hours a day so as not to miss out on any customer.
That’s what I thought, and that’s what I did, and in the meantime I was growing old. A fifty-year-old man is no longer thirty, and since I choose not to reveal my true age, I am simply telling you that my strength is not what it once was.
My question was, what would be with the store? What would be? What would be??
People who read this newsletter cannot understand how I was walking around with all sorts of worries and questions, since, obviously, it is the Creator of the world, not the store, that provides for me. But this happened before I started working on my bitachon, and this was my line of thought.
Baruch Hashem, Hakadosh Baruch Hu enlightened me. I started learning Shaar Habitachon, and I discovered that I can certainly put aside my worries and do what I had to do without extra effort. I saw that the learning strengthened me and gave me new insights, but learning it once was not enough for me. I learned each section again and again; I learned through Shaar Habitachon five times!
From time to time I strengthened myself even more, until I came to the conclusion that I can keep the store open for only ten hours a day and close it calmly at 6 p.m.
Since I started doing so, my financial situation has only improved. I don’t know how to explain it, but the fact is that since I started closing the store at 6 p.m. I’ve been making more money!
