Dovid Hamelech addresses those who place their hopes in Hashem, those who strengthen themselves in bitachon and await a yeshuah, and he tells us (Tehillim 31:25), “Strengthen and give courage to your hearts!” In order to safeguard our hopes and make sure they don’t melt away at all times and in all situations, we need strength. We need courage to face what seems to be the visible reality, the logic of doctors with much experience, the succession of black numbers and statistics, and the minus in the bank.
Strengthen and give courage to your hearts, Dovid Hamelech tells us. The heart is the seat of emotions. This is where fear and confusion resound, where pain and loneliness reside, where sadness and despair are prone to settle. Strengthen yourselves and say no to all these negative emotions, gird yourself with strength, charge your heart with feelings of happiness and hope, bitachon and emunah. Have a ready response for situations where you feel completely alone; remind yourself that a Yid is never alone! As the navi Yirmeyahu said (17:7), “Hashem is the One in Whom he trusts.”
Of course, a person cannot strengthen himself completely at the moment when a nisyaon comes upon him. For this, he must prepare himself in advance by always learning about emunah and bitachon more. Then, in the moment of nisayon, he will be able to draw strength and anticipate Hashem’s salvation.
In the gemara in Maseches Berachos (10a), the well-known words are brought: “Even if a sharpened sword is pressed against a person’s neck, he should not hold back from praying for [Hashem’s] mercy.” An example of this is if a person is sentenced to be hanged on the gallows. He is taken up to the scaffold, and it seems that all hope is lost. But no; the rope is still not tied. There have been times when a person suddenly jumped out of the crowd and spoke in defense of the condemned man, mentioned some sort of merit in his favor, and the decree was annulled. It has happened that in a sudden state of confusion the hangman fled, and the condemned man was released.
Even after the rope is tied, there is still a chance it will tear, or the knot will come loose, and there is an international law that if a “mishap” of this sort occurs, the condemned man is declared innocent of all charges and is free to go.
It once happened that Russian soldiers burst into the home of Hagaon Rav Aharon Burstein, and they caught him red-handed sitting with several sefarim and learning Torah with great diligence. This should have meant certain death. Seeing that his end was near, he made his final request: “Allow me a few more moments to understand this difficult Rambam.”
The soldiers, who were probably shocked to see that a creature of this sort even existed, in defiance of all logic, agreed to wait for him to find an answer to his difficulty in the Rambam. While they were waiting, they suddenly received news that German soldiers were attacking Russia, and so they ran away. The Rav was saved; his life was spared.
Another incredible story demonstrates this same principle: Rav Yaffe Zaks, the father of the Chacham Zvi, went through the pogroms in the years of ta”ch v’ta”t. When the armies came to his city, a wicked man, may his memory be blotted out, stood before him, took out his sword, and prepared to kill him. Those who were watching from afar were certain that rasha had executed his plan. It looked like he actually approached him with the sword and carried out the terrible murder. But that was not what Hashem wanted. At the very moment when the sword lay on Rav Yaffe’s neck, incredibly, the wicked man had a change of heart. He decided to leave Rav Yaffe alive and placed his sword back in its sheath. Rav Yaffe’s life was saved. This story was publicized, especially because those who had witnessed the incident from afar testified that he had been killed, and on the basis of their testimony the rabbanim allowed his wife to remarry. With great rachamei Shamayim, Rav Yaffe arrived back in his city at the last possible moment, when his wife was about to marry someone else, to whom she had become engaged.
These stories should strengthen us in our own situations and in our own difficulties and fears. A Yid never reaches the end. One can always get up; there is always hope of renewal, always reason to yearn and to hope. The darkness is temporary, and the light is yet waiting.
Strengthen yourselves, my brothers, strengthen and fortify yourself. L’chaim, Yidden, l’chaim! We are now in the months of geulah – Adar and Nissan. Just as Hakadosh Baruch Hu made miracles for our forefathers and took them from slavery to redemption and from mourning to Yom Tov, may we too merit and sing a new song al geulaseinu v’al pedus nafsheinu, speedily in our days; amen.
