Bitachon Part 5

We begin this segment with the powerful words of Rabbi Levi Yitzchak Berdichev ZTL which we closed with in our last segment:

The following is an excerpt from “The Fragrance of Life” (by Rabbi David Steinhaus):

Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berdichev ztl was known as the “advocate of am Yisrael”, constantly pleading to Hashem in their favor in his prayers. Despite this, he used to tell people who had difficulties in life:

We think that if the heavenly decisions were in our hand, we would make a pleasant and happy world and would arrange for everyone to receive everything they are lacking. The truth is that if we were in charge, we would run the world in exactly the same way as Hashem! If we would see where everything is leading, we would realize that Hashem is arranging everything in the BEST possible way. We would not forgo our problems for all the money in the world! (Yalkut Lekach Tov, Emunah Unechama, page 110)

We now present additional opportunities in our daily tefilos which we should grab to drive this message of bitachon deeper and deeper into our hearts.

Both in the first beracha of Shemoneh Esrei and in the last beracha of birchos hashachar we say the words “Gomel chasadim tovim”. Before we present the brief explanations from the “Rav Miller Siddur -Shemoneh Esrei” by Rabbi Shimon Maryles, it is appropriate to quote from the words of Rabbi Amichai Markowitz:

“Rav Miller’s deep and lengthy insight into every word made the task very formidable, having to choose the proper one word or phrase from so much material.

Rav Shimon worked tirelessly to remain true to Rav Miller’s intentions and even after the work was completed, he spent hours on the phone agonizing over one or two words, clarifying as best as possible how the Rav would have translated a certain word.”

With that in mind, we present the brief but powerful words presented for the words “Gomel” and for “Chasadim tovim” in the first beracha of Shemoneh Esrei:

Gomel - Who Bestows - with completeness, both in abundance and in quality

Chasadim tovim - Good Kindness - kindness that lead us to the ultimate good, namely closeness to Hashem in Olam Haba.

If we contemplate these 3 words of “Gomel Chasadim Tovim” well, we will feel the message of Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berdichev above. Repeating these 3 words mindfully with all our hearts and soul (the words used for the mitzvos of tefilah and loving Hashem) 4 times a day consistently, will with Hashem’s help, evoke deep emotional feelings of gratitude and bitachon in Hashem’s love and kindness that has been with us from the day we were born and that will continue forever.