Aleph, beis, gimmel. Emunah plus bitachon equals geulah. I remember hearing Rabbi Sholom Mordechai Rubashkin say this the day he was released from prison, and the message left a huge impression on me.
Of course, me being me, I have to dig deeper into the message, and really get into the psyche of it: emunah and bitachon, faith and unwavering trust, will bring about the ultimate redemption—the geulah. That’s insanely lofty, and it could make your head spin if you let yourself think too hard about it.
Let me start with a little back story: I have had health issues my entire life, and they’ve gotten tougher as I’ve gotten older. I became religious at the age of 17, and I never really looked back from there. Unfortunately, my health has only gotten worse, but I’ve been happier than I was back when I was a moderately healthy teen, living a secular life. Disclaimer: there may be a correlation, even if it doesn’t exactly equate to causation, but I would like to think that becoming frum helped make me the happy and content woman I am today. Anyhow, I digress.
Looking back at my life, I began to think about certain connections within it, and one of those connections was my health and faith. I should be mad at Hashem; I should be dropping everything and rebelling because I’ve been dealt an unfair hand, but I’m not. I have faith, trust, and knowledge that I’m not walking alone. Hashem is right there, guiding me, and putting people and things in my path to help me through. And that’s when the light bulb moment occurred for me:
Emunah and bitachon bring the geulah! By having faith and trusting Hashem, you are redeemed from your personal exile and despair. An unwavering belief in our Higher Power, our Creator, our Holy One, allows for a liberation of sorts, which in turn, allows for us to be able to live a peaceful and fulfilling life.
This idea blew me away. Sure, I knew how important trusting G-d was, but when I really understood this concept, I had a whole different outlook on my relationship with Him. In order to make it through hardship, to live in the times of Moshiach, to feel liberated from golus, I needed to let myself lean into Hashem and fully trust Him with everything.
I’m not saying it’s a cure all. I’m not saying that it makes every struggle turn into something beautiful. And I’m not saying it’s easy. But when we have the knowledge that everything is being taken care of by Someone greater than we can even comprehend, Someone who cares about us more than we’ll ever know, it does make a situation seem less daunting—and maybe, that’s what allows us to feel free. When things are out of your hands and beyond your control, you just have to let the dice fall where they may and work through the tasks ahead.
Ein od milvado, there is nothing but Hashem. When we live with this notion, we can be free and live within the geulah.
May we merit to not only be freed from our own imprisonments, but to see the ultimate redemption speedily.
