Published by Feldheim
Reviewed by Judith Weil
After the Nazis took over control of Austria, my late
grandparents, R' Mordechai Yehuda Kritzler and his wife,
Devora, decided to flee to England via Switzerland. The
Austrian authorities would not allow anyone to leave the
country unless the family's documents were all in
satisfactory order and they stepped up their requirements
from time to time in terms of the certificates they
required.
When my grandparents reached the border crossing between
Austria and Switzerland, the border guard said that one newly
required document was missing. My grandfather took out his
wallet, hoping against hope that he would find a copy of this
certificate. As he searched through its contents, a
photograph fell out.
"Who is that?" asked the guard, looking at the photo of one
of my grandparents' then teenage sons, my Uncle Efraim. "That
is my son," answered my grandfather. "He passed through this
border crossing just a few weeks ago."
"I recognize him," said the guard. "I was on duty when he
crossed through and I wouldn't have allowed him through
unless his papers were in order. You may go."
The above story does not appear in Trust Me! An Anthology
of Emunah and Bitachon, but had the author, Rabbi Eliezer
Parkoff, known of this incident, he may well have included
it. "Trust Me!" is that rarity, a very readable book on an
extremely elaborate issue, bitachon, a characteristic
or value that is not identical for any two people.
Bitachon is one of the most elusive qualities required
of us. We know what our duties are in most other directions,
in terms of Shabbos observance, Kashrus, and so on. But what
is required from us in terms of hishtadlus, making our
own effort? To what extent must we make our own exertions,
and to what extent must we rely on Hashem's help? We have all
heard of -- and probably all experienced -- situations like
the above which occur too often to allow us to explain them
away as coincidences. But to what degree may we anticipate
such `luck'? (And who knows whether the particular border
guard had indeed processed my uncle's papers, and that he was
not simply a decent human being who knew that it was better
to tell a lie than to condemn a middle-aged Jewish couple to
the care of Hitler and his henchmen? And if that was indeed
the situation, does this lessen the miracle?)
If we are not hungry right now, and have money to pay for
only one meal, and a hungry person asks us for money -- do we
give him that money and trust in Hashem that somehow, during
the next hour, something will happen? More to the point,
perhaps, under present-day circumstances, do we register our
child in the best possible school, when we know the fees are
beyond our present capabilites? And may we make promises that
we cannot see our way to keeping, in terms of
shidduchim? And if we do, indeed, see our way to
keeping these promises because we have a healthy bank
balance, or a good job, may we rely on not needing our funds
for medical or other urgent purposes, or on our continued
employment? Is the employer more to be relied on than
Hashem?
In Trust Me! Rabbi Parkoff brings stories and
anecdotes, some going back to the Torah and the Midrash, some
dating back several centuries, some modern and some even
contemporary, that illustrate the bitachon possessed
by leaders of our people. He writes that life is full of
trials: "They are an integral part of life." They are
"challenges that we must accept and overcome."
He says there is such a thing as false bitachon. "It
takes no effort to mouth expressions of bitachon when
nothing substantial is at stake. However, a person will
eventually face a test whereby he can determine if he really
has trust."
When a person has real bitachon -- "One won't hear him
boasting... that he has bitachon." Moreover, he says,
such a person doesn't fear a competitor who opens up a store
nearby, but will even go out of his way to help him.
A level of bitachon such as helping a competitor, is
one that perhaps we can ascribe to. Few of us can honestly
relate to the level of the Arizal who never kept any food for
the morrow. Few, if any, rabbonim would expect us to behave
this way.
But there are other circumstances in the book to which we can
perhaps relate better, and these concern situations that
occurred within living memory ("How do you feel when bombs
start falling?) or that many of us face on a regular basis
("How do you pay the rent when you have no money?").
As we all know, not everyone who tried to escape from the
Nazis survived to tell the tale the way my grandparents did.
Many were murdered. Millions of people have encountered
untold difficulties over the generations and the result was
often not as they would have wished. It takes bitachon
to accept that the apparent "not good" is, in fact, "good" --
that it is part of Hashem's plan, even if we don't understand
it.
Rabbi Parkoff discusses situations of this type in sections
like, "A Father's Struggle with faith Amidst Loss and Pain";
"Faith is Learned the Hard Way" and "To a Mother who Lost her
Baby."
This last title creates a particularly sad image, especially
for women. But not all is sad for us women. There is a
section that is very complimentary to us, or at least to our
ancestresses, who crossed the Red Sea on dry land. In "Nature
Takes Care of Those who Do Hashem's Will," the author argues
that a miracle, the so-called supernatural, is a greater
occurrence when experienced by a man than when experienced by
a woman.
The idea is complex but it is worth making the effort to
understand.
The world was created Be-Reishis -- for the sake of
Reishis, the Torah. And in the Torah, the real natural
order of things is that the worthy are awarded "naturally" --
without the need for special Divine interception.
The less worthy a person is, the greater the Divine
intervention is needed in order to help him. And the
corollary is that the greater the person, the more
"naturally" he is helped, and the less interference is
required. When a great person is saved, the miracle is less
than when a person of smaller stature is saved.
Relatively little Divine intervention was needed in the case
of the righteous women of the time, as compared to the case
of their fellow men.
Once this section is understood, Shiras Miriam, the
comparatively short song that Miriam and the other women sang
after they crossed the Sea, takes on a new meaning. We
suddenly understand why they sang only after the men finished
singing, and only after the angels sang.
And we suddenly receive a new view on bitachon, and
suddenly understand that we are living in a topsy- turvy
world, indeed, a world where "nature" is unnatural and where
the apparently miraculous is often the real natural order of
things!
Not all concepts discussed in the book are as involved. The
list of the section titles reads like a list of the questions
we ask ourselves again and again. The subjects covered
include: The Purpose of Creation; To Believe -- or Not to
Believe; Faith in One's Prayers; Princess Hagar; Why So Many
Trials?; Angry at G-d; The Broader Scheme of Things, and The
Concept of a Career.
The appendices deal with subjects of practical significance
that almost everyone comes across at some stage of their
lives. They are entitled: Bitachon, Budgeting and
Borrowing, and Torah and Medicine.
Another story that is making the rounds but does not appear
in this book -- presumably because the book was completed
long before the story was publicized -- has to do with the
Sbarro Pizzeria and the Twin Towers:
An Israeli was doing a favor for an American of his
acquaintance. This involved his being in the Sbarro pizzeria
at a certain time, and as it turned out, it was just then
that it was bombed. Thanks to the Israeli, the American was
elsewhere at the time. The Israeli was injured and the
American determined to do all he could for him. Thus, when
the victim was flown to the U.S. for medical treatment, his
friend closed his business so that he could help him while he
was in the hospital. He acted as translator and arranged for
him to have the best doctors and medical treatment. His
business was located in the Twin Towers and the dates when he
kept his office closed included September 11, 2001.
Again, as with the story about the Nazis, we do not know why
Hashem does what He does. We do not know why He arranged that
this man would survive while others did not. We do not know
why some people survived while six million did not. We only
know that it is hard to write off the story as a random
occurrence.
Emuna and bitachon are elusive concepts, at
least for most of us ordinary mortals, even if not for many
of the great people described in the book. It is tempting to
expect this book to provide us with answers to our
bitachon- related questions, but there are few, if
any, answers in this book. They would be out of place. When
it comes to emuna and bitachon, each of us has
to find his/her own answers, has to know his/her level, and
must then aim for the next level.
The book does not provide solutions. It does give us insights
that help us deal with our own problems in our own best way,
influenced by the approach of the people we want to
emulate.
