Saving Stress and Reaching Happiness

By Rabbi Moshe Krieger, Yeshivas Bircas HaTorah (www.bircas.org) 

Parshas Mikeitz relates how Yosef went from prisoner to Egyptian Viceroy, beginning with the words: “And it was, after two years, Pharaoh was dreaming, and behold, he was standing on the Nile” (Bereishis 41:1).

The Medrash states here that “Hashem put an end to Yosef’s time in prison, and when that time came, Pharaoh had a dream” (Bereishis Rabba 89:1).

What does the Medrash add that wasn’t already mentioned in the verse itself, asks the Beis Halevi. He answers that this Medrash in fact addresses a very basic error: The untrained eye views reality as the result of natural causes, each of which brings upon effects. The Medrash is teaching us that this is a big mistake. Everything that goes on in the world is a divine decree, and what look like “natural causes” are only the effects of Hashem’s decrees.

The average person may assume that Yosef left prison because Pharaoh had a dream, which in turn caused the Sar Hamashkim to mention Yosef as a dream interpreter. No, says the Midrash. The reason Pharaoh had that dream was because the time Hashem decreed for Yosef’s release had arrived. The dream was not the cause and Yosef’s release was not an effect, rather Hashem’s decree was the cause, and both the dream and Yosef’s release were effects.

How can we apply this attitude in our own lives? If an acquaintance becomes wealthy, for example, what will we think if we are told: “He purchased stock in a company whose value skyrocketed.” Should we think that he got rich because his stock went up in value? No!

Rather, Hashem decreed that he was to become rich. For that reason, his stock went up in value. This is how to apply the lesson of this Midrash.

The Chofetz Chaim would explain this with an analogy. At a train station, one of the workers had to sound a whistle three times before each train departed, to warn the passengers that they had to board the train. A person came to the train station for the first time in his life and observed this worker operating the whistle. After watching several trains depart he concluded that this worker surely ran the entire train station, because his whistle caused the trains to leave.

He approached the worker with great respect, praising him for his masterful overseeing of the train station.

“What are you talking about? I just work here!” the worker said.

“But you decide when to send off the trains!” the man insisted.

“Me? I don’t decide anything! I just sound the whistle according to the times the boss writes on the schedule.”

When stock values shift dramatically on Wall Street, making money for some and losing money for others, these are simply “workers” carrying out Hashem’s “schedule” for this world. The stock does not make rich or poor, Hashem’s will does. It is not skills and dedication that gain an employee a promotion, it is not the heart attack that kills, the germ that makes ill or the medicine that makes well. If we observe the world and conclude that it is the stock that makes one rich, etc., and that cause and effect determines reality, it is we who are mistaken. Wealth or poverty, sickness or health, and all the myriad elements of the world we live in are in fact Hashem’s decrees.

Nevertheless, Hashem put us into the natural world so that we should first make hishtadlus and only then Hashem helps us (see Rabbeinu Bechaya, beginning of Parshas Shlach). Rav Gamliel Rabinowitz adds that even if we see only a small amount of hishtadlus and think to ourselves: “What’s the point? This is only a stop-gap measure,” we must still do whatever we can, because Hashem does not help until we do so. Once we do that little bit of hishtadlus, we are expected to feel trust in Hashem’s help, and daven for this.

The story of Chanukah teaches this lesson. The Chashmonaim found pure olive oil to light the menorah in the Beis Hamikdash for only one day. They knew that it would be eight days before they could receive new, pure oil. Why should they light now for only one day? However, they saw the matter differently. We have to do what it is that we can do. With that, they lit with the existing oil, and were zoche to Hashem’s help.

If a person adopts this attitude toward life, he saves himself a lot of stress. Instead of seeing before him insurmountable problems and feeling helpless about ever solving them, he knows that things are ultimately not in his hands. All he must do is use whatever means he has to solve the problems, and after that, to trust that Hashem will help him.

The Chovos Halevavos, in the introduction to Shaar Habitachon, states that a person who lives with trust in Hashem has a special joy in life. In the words of Dovid Hamelech, he has peace of mind “like a nursing baby.” The baby feels instinctively that it can rely fully on its mother, and we too should live with the secure feeling that our Father in heaven is there to help us.

A father trying to marry off his adopted daughter recently told a story that reflects this idea:

“I am a Rosh Kollel. I am familiar with traveling abroad to raise money, and I thought that it would be even easier this time, raising money to help an orphan build a Jewish home. I was in for a surprise, though. On my last trip, my usual addresses gave very little, my return flight date was getting closer, and I was nowhere near my target sum. There was one particular philanthropist who I was sure would help generously, but I could not reach him. I kept thinking to myself, ‘I’m just a shaliach. Hashem will decide how my daughter will get married.’ With that, I flew back to Eretz Yisrael.

“Then I got a call from a friend here, a person who does a lot for the public. He asked me about my trip. I told him the truth and he asked if I went to the philanthropist I had been trying to reach. I told him that I wasn’t able to get in.

“About two hours later, that friend called back again. ‘Quick, what’s your bank account number! I’ll explain later,’ he said.

“It turned out that the philanthropist had called my friend about something completely different, and my friend asked him why he hadn’t helped me on my recent visit. He apologized, saying he hadn’t realized I was in the area, and agreed on the spot to transfer into my bank account enough money to cover all the wedding expenses and a sizable sum that we will be using to put a down payment on an apartment for the young couple!”

May we do hishtadlus and trust in Hashem!