CHOCHMAS NASHIM: THE WINDS OF CHANGE ARE BLOWING IN
By: Suri Davis
I regularly walk in to Judaica Plus to scan new seforim that have been written and published. As many of you who have read my dvar torahs this year will know, I have quoted a lot from Shaar Habitachon since I found a new edition which was published a couple of years ago, white cover, blue lettering with commentary by the Lubavitcher Rebbe, who believed strongly in the message of this sefer.
Literally the moment I put down the sefer for the fourth time, I received a call that a child in my family was in critical condition, and I had to run to the hospital…but not before I stopped off at the Ohel, to use the merits of the Rebbe to let G-d know that I knew that G-d’s abilities and omnipotence was not in any way connected to the constraints of science and medicine, that He could do it all, and it could all be a false positive.
As I drove, I said to HKBH, I’ve struggled with the Shaar Habitachon’s message four times, it is so very difficult to absorb the mandates of true internal Bitachon/trust in G-d, I learned it, I was about to teach it, live and on Spotify, and as I sped to the hospital, I would have to live it.
The child died and was buried on the same day as my father had been buried two years prior. As per Kenafayim’s suggestion, I held the child and told him to be a maylitz yosher for our family and all klal Yisrael, and I sent him as a messenger to tell HKBH it’s time for Moshiach.
In his memory, and my father’s I started my Bitachon podcast, and then came October 7th…and I had to stop for six or seven months, I was choking on my Bitachon, I was processing the magnitude of what G-d did, as it says in Lamentations, “Mi zeh amar vatehi, Hashem lo tzivah/Who says something should happen and it does, when G-d has not consented to it, i.e., nothing in this world, not even a leaf blowing in the wind, can happen without G-d’s consent. It is so very painful, I repeat so very painful, to focus on the fact that Hamas and Hezbollah, like Hitler before them, and the Cossacks before them, and Romans and Greeks before them, were merely the messenger of HKBH, that G-d wanted it to happen, and He hid His face that day so it could happen. Ouch, so very painful.
So, I read Shar Habitachon two more times, and it still is such a huge mandate, but I am finishing the podcast please G-d this week, and with G-d’s help and no real intention of this occurring, it is 52 classes, for those who want to start or end their week with a focus on Trust in G-d and the 12-step approach to incorporating trust of G-d into your soul and veins. Most episodes are less then 5 minutes, especially on double time. These are audio. You can find them here: https://open.spotify.com/show/61bomZrHsKebwzWJHv9CS6?si=d936de41ad48438f
For my second season, please G-d, I will place somewhere online the live shiur on Shar Habitachon taught by Shaindy Hammer and me. I hope to do this after we complete the class.
AFTER 18 years of writing divrei torah, and while there is still so much more to write about, please feel free to find Parshah shiurim online at https://thefivetowns.com/lectures/lenordavis/ , which will be up on the newsletter under my byline, I want to focus on Shar Habitachon, and so bli neder and IYH, my weekly lectures will be on Shar Habitachon, with hopes that my readers will sponsor a book I am writing on Be Bitachon.
What does all this have to do with this week’s parshah and haftorah. Moshe continues his soliloquy on how if the Jews continue to sin, G-d will remove them from the land, while the Haftorah continues to comfort us after the destruction of the temple on the Ninth of Av.
While one might have considered 1948 to be Reishit Tzmichat Geulatenu/the beginning of the sprouting of the final and complete redemption, October 7th reminds us, that we will remain on the land only if we obey G-d’s laws. Towards the end of getting closer to G-d, Shar Habitachon teaches man not only that doing mitzvoth/commandments brings us naturally closer to G-d, but how to then trust in G-d, that all that we receive and experience are directly from G-d’s hands and heart [anthropomorphically speaking] and is good. Expounding on small bites of Bitachon each week, I hope, together, we learn how to incorporate real internal trust in G-d in our souls and lives.
With G-d’s help, we will complete the torah cycle divrei torah, and with the parshah of Bereishit/Genesis, we will learn together how to get closer to G-d and incorporate trust in G-d into our lives and life perspectives and outlooks.
As Moses, in these twin parshiyot, stands before the Jews, G-dlike in his love for them and fear for their future safety and security, he beseeches them to keep the laws of the Torah, yet he is not paralyzed in his stand, Vayelech Moshe vayidaber/And Moses went and spoke these words to Israel, a lesson to us that when we have something important to discuss, like G-d and getting closer to Him, we have to walk towards people and talk about the importance of staying true to G-d: When the Jews go up to Jerusalem to see G-d’s face for the festivals, “Gather the people together, men, and women, and children, and your stranger who is inside your gates, that they may hear, and that they may learn, and fear the Lrd your G-d, and take care to do all the words of the this Torah. And that their children, who have not known anything, may hear, and learn to fear the Lord your G-d, as long as you live in the land to which you go over the Jordan to possess.”
This year has been a challenge for us. It is almost easier for us to believe that imperfect, jealous, conniving man has hurt us, than to understand that G-d, our Father and King, has done something we find hurtful, and even more difficult to look into ourselves to see how we deserved it, and for us to change…and to absorb into our gut…….that it was good.
Join me as we start Shar Habitachon, a journey towards HKBH.
Have a Kesivah v’chasimah tovah. L’alter lchaim tovim.
Good Shabbos.
-Suri