The Rambam writes the purpose of the fast is to get us to remember the bad deeds that caused the destruction and then accept upon ourselves to fix them. The main cause of the churban was people hating each other. If our bitachon in Hashem would be stronger, there would be no room for hatred because we would believe b’emunah shelemah that everything, even what people do to us, is caused by Hashem for our best.
Chazal tell us, the first Tisha B’Av of calamity was when the people cried from the words of the meraglim, which was due to their lack of bitachon in Hashem. If they would have trusted in Hashem, they wouldn’t have been afraid of anybody. When we truly believe that there is only Hashem in this world and nothing else, we will be able to rectify all the sins that have prolonged this galut.
The Gemara tells us, Mashiach will come אם בקולו תשמעון – when we heed Hashem’s voice and nobody else’s. The Shomer Emunim writes, when a person’s bitachon is the way it is supposed to be, he will be able to overcome so many tests that the yetzer hara gets people to fall to. When a man is walking in the street in the summertime and wants to guard his eyes from seeing the wrong things, the evil inclination will tell him he needs to be on the lookout in case he sees somebody he needs to speak with or in case he sees a store that he needs to go to. And once the person’s guard is down, he will undoubtedly see things he is forbidden to look at. A person with bitachon in Hashem will say, “I will not lose by following Hashem’s will. If there is somebody I need to speak with, Hashem will send him to me.”
A person who is careful not to talk to others before he prays in the morning may have his evil inclination tell him, What if the person next to you now could help you? Maybe it is worth it to talk to him. Someone with bitachon would say, “If I accepted upon myself a stringency to honor Hashem, there is no way I will lose anything as a result.”
A concerned mother who is trying to get her daughter married may think, maybe I should compromise a little on my daughter’s standards of modesty so she will get married quicker. If her bitachon was where it was supposed to be, she would immediately say to herself, “The One who is in charge of marriage has a standard that He loves. It doesn’t make any sense for me to compromise on His standard if He is the One producing the shidduch.”
A woman who just started the Amida hears the doorbell ring and doesn’t know who it is, the yetzer hara will tell her, Rush through your prayers so that you can go see who it is. If her bitachon was strong, she would say, “I am talking to the One who is in control of the entire world. Does it matter which one of His puppets is at my door right now?”
If a person is learning Torah and the yetzer hara tells him if he leaves early to tend to his affairs, it’ll be so much better for him. Bitachon will say, “I am doing the will of Hashem now, I’ll only gain if I stay.”
Hashem will not necessarily make it obvious to a person that he gained by doing the right thing, but that is only to keep a person’s free will balanced. When our bitachon is strong, our middot will be the way they are supposed to be. We won’t be arrogant, we won’t get angry, we won’t be jealous, and we’ll be happy to do the job that Hashem sent us here to do. Let us resolve today to strengthen our bitachon in Hashem and, b’ezrat Hashem, that will be the zechut we need to bring the geula shelemah. Amen. תזכו בנחמת ציון.
Reprinted with permission.
