Sunday, September 18, 2016

What does bitachon really mean in Judaism?

You would think the answer would be obvious and self evident as bitachon is one of the fundamental tenets of the faith. However, this is actually a dispute between R' Yisroel Salanter and the Chazon Ish. R' Yisroel Salanter believed that a true believer would receive anything he asks for. If he wanted a gold watch and believed with all sincerity that Hashem would grant the request, then it would be granted. They tell the following story related to this. A poor man once came to R' Yisroel Salanter after one of his mussar speeches and said that he wants to change his life and sit and learn all day but he has no money. R' Yisroel answered that if he truly believes he should quit his job and buy a lottery ticket and he will win the lottery of 10,000 rubles. The man did as advised, but after a few days he had nothing to eat, R' Yisroel told him just hold out a few more days until the lottery. 2 days before the lottery the man returned to R' Yisroel and said I can't take it, my family has no food. R' Yisrael offerred to buy his lottery ticket for 5000 rubles. The man joyfully agreed. R' Yisroel answered, go back to your job, you don't have real bitachon. Someone with real bitachon would never sell a 10,000 ruble ticket for 5000.  We see from here that R' Yisroel held that if a person had 100% bitachon he would get whatever he asked for if he truly had bitachon.

The Chazon Ish on the other hand, dismisses this view of bitachon as incorrect. He held that Bitachon doesn’t mean you will get what you want, but rather it means to trust in Hashem that whatever He gives you - whether or not it is what you want - is for the best.

Again, we find a fundamental theological idea in dispute only 100 years ago. How can this be? How is it that we don't have a clear mesora of what bitachon is? This is not a machlokes in details, this is a machlokes in the fundamental concept of bitachon. In fact, how come we didn't see this machlokes in earlier sources? We see that even on basic fundamental ideas there is no clear mesora so kal vachomer there is no mesora on smaller issues.

2 comments:

  1. Good post. Here is what is going on. Per R' Yisroel Salanter if your desire did not come true, it was because you did not have faith enough. And if the desire came thru it means you did have faith enough. It is a non falsifiable position and should be rejected. It makes no prediction.

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  2. Good post. Here is what is going on. Per Chazon Ish whatever happens good/bad/indifferent it is as G-d wanted. Again it is a non falsifiable position and should be rejected. It makes no prediction.

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