Imagine you’re at a play practice and the actors are doing their thing on the stage, and all of a sudden the main actor starts going off script. And the director says cut, cut, what’s happening here, what’s happening here? And the actor says, well, I’ll tell you, I know the script went this way, but I thought the story would go better this way, so I started adlibbing. The director would say to him what are you kidding me? You’re the actor, you’re not the playwright.
Understanding that there are two different roles, there’s an actor on the stage and there is someone who writes the play is one of the basics that we need to understand. I don’t write the script of my life, I follow the script that is written by Hashem. I am but an actor in the play. I have to play my part well, I will be judged at the end of my days for how well I played my part, but the script of my life is written by Hashem. How many years I’ll live, how much health I’ll enjoy; the situations of my life as they unfold are written by Hashem.
Many times we become unhappy with the script. Many times we have the attitude of well, I could write it better. If only Hashem would understand. But understanding that I don’t write the script, I’m but the actor in the play, is one of the basic cognitions that a person has to have if he’s trying to learn to trust Hashem.
