Help Us See the Absolute Truth

                                                                      בס"ד

I received this from one of our dear readers:

I wanted to share with the Rav and the readers, that Hashem has sent me the message you have been giving though a few messengers just the last few weeks. Since reading this blog post so many questions arose about acceptance vs davening to change and doing hishtadlus (a maximum effort - working as diligently as possible towards achieving a goal) to bring a change from some kind of pain.

Today I read this message from Rabbi Ashear, who writes a daily lesson in emuna. I think it wraps up the lesson very nicely. I hope it will help the readers as it helped me.

Thank you Rav. I hope you are continuing to feel better and Hashem sees how you accept with great love, simcha and emuna all that He sends to you, and that you should need no more pain at all.

Rav Ashear:

RABBI ASHEAR TRANSCRIPT

Unnecessary Loss

A man told me the other day that he reads one Emunah lesson every day with his wife. A few days before that, they had read a quote from Rabbi Chaim Palagi that if a person experiences a loss and is able to strengthen himself like a lion to joyfully accept Hashem's decision, then he is guaranteed to get back what he lost. Perhaps the way it works is, as follows: The loss is necessary to achieve a certain amount of Kapara. However, accepting an affliction from Hashem with joy accomplishes much more, and in turn, makes the loss unnecessary.

The man continued and said, "Last night, my wife lost a very expensive Rolex watch that I gave her before we got married. We were out somewhere. She said that the watch was feeling tight, so she took it off, and she held it. She remembered having it the entire time, but when we got home, she realized it was gone. We tried to retrace our steps, but we couldn't find it. We want to accept what Hashem did was for the best, but my wife feels that it was perhaps negligence on her part. She was careless, and that is why this happened."

I told him that taking off the watch because it was hurting is not negligent. She tried to hold it tightly. Somehow, she took her mind off of it and it was gone. It was definitely from Hashem. When he heard this, he said, "If so, Baruch Hashem, גם זו לטובה - It's a Kapara." Over the next couple of days, he and his wife tried to strengthen themselves and wholeheartedly accept it with joy. He said it was hard, but they did the best they could.

Two days, later, they returned home one night and parked in the same place they had parked on the night the watch was lost. He noticed his wife was looking around for the watch. He told her, "We looked here many times already." She was so confident she would find the watch, because of the way she accepted the loss, she couldn't help but look again. They started walking and noticed a little note hanging from a street sign that said, "Wristwatch Found" with a phone number. They called the number with excitement and gave the signs that it was theirs. Sure enough, shortly afterwards, they were holding the watch once again. It was found on that street next to the curb by a religious Jewish man, about twelve hours after she dropped it. He said the finder was so happy to do the Mitzva of returning a lost object. It was a tremendous Kiddush Hashem that someone would return something so expensive.

The man then told me, "It's amazing. Right before this happened, I read the Emunah lesson about accepting a loss with joy and meriting to retrieve the loss. Hashem gave me the tools I needed in advance." Some people say, "I don't want to learn too much about Emunah, because I am afraid I will then be tested." That's not the way it works. The tests and challenges come either way. Fortunate is the person who is equipped with the knowledge to go through them properly.

I have many other stories that demonstrate how Hashem is always there to help us and sends us such inspiring messages. One in particular is:

A Jewish woman was riding on an elevated train in New York on her way to her bank. She had in a bag a large sum of money to deposit. She arrived at the bank and to her dismay found she had left the bag on the train. It seemed like a lost cause until that afternoon she got a call from an African American who told her that he found the bag of money with the deposit slip that had her name, address and phone number. He told her to come to his house, he would return it.

She was a little dubious considering it was a rough neighborhood, but if there was any chance of recovering her money, she would have to make the trip. She reluctantly went to his house and the fellow had a very odd request for her to retrieve the money. He told the woman: “My mother always told me it was a good idea to get a blessing from a Jew. Give me a blessing and the money is yours.”

The woman complied with some words of blessing and good health, and left the house.
That night the fellow got very sick. He was so nauseous that the next morning he was not able to go to work. He was dismayed and questioned: Is this what a blessing from a Jew does? All seemed negative until he noticed the true value of the blessing. This fellow worked at the top of one of the World Trade Center towers and the date was September 11, 2001.

What a message from Hashem. This fellow could have kept the money, and died the next day, as all the employees in the office where he worked. Instead, his mother’s advice about the value of a blessing from a Jew saved his life.

Hashem works in mysterious ways beyond human comprehension, but always for our good. We have the opportunity to be blessed by Hashem every second of every day, all we need to do is turn to Him and ask for it. He is waiting for us.