Part One of a three-part series on bitachon, this Shmuz focuses us on the first stage of bitachon: learning to trust HASHEM. Amazingly, the Chovos Halevovos explains to us that by nature we trust. In fact, without trust we couldn’t function. If we didn’t trust, then every time we left our homes, we would fear death by a car crash, an earthquake, or a tornado. Every time we entered into a business transaction, we would fear the economy failing or a major international catastrophe. To allow us to function as healthy human beings, HASHEM put into our nature a need to trust. However, that need to trust is typically misplaced. We trust in nature, the economy, the Air Force, the police and the emergency medical personnel. . . More than anything, we trust that the ways things have been until now will continue. And this sense of trust remains with us until the thing we so trusted in fails us, and then we see the futility of it.
A good follow-up to Shmuz #18: The Difference Between Emunah and Bitachon.
