Natan and the Emuna Lights

Natan was staring me down with furious eyes. I was trying to teach the group of rowdy teens but had no success. I couldn’t get them to focus. Natan had a goal to get under my skin. When I told him to get to work and put his phone away, he stood up and started toward me. I had pepper spray and was ready to protect myself. Welcome to my life as an English teacher in one of the toughest high schools in Israel.

About a few years ago after the second war in Gaza, Rabbi Brody mentioned a number of times in his weekly lesson about how Rabbi Nachman of blessed memory, teaches us to look into the hidden wisdom of every creation. I never really understood how to do that, it seemed like a huge level for a guy like me, but allow me to elaborate on this with an explanation. You see during that war many times Rav Brody had to go into the bomb shelter where his home is in Ashdod. There they would pass the time until the sirens would stop, signaling them to come back, the danger was gone for the time being. On one occurrence however, there were emergency back-up lights that turned on in the shelter since the power was cut out. The Rav then asked himself, ‘OK, what am I supposed to learn from these lights, what can the meaning be behind them?!’ The answer he gave was brilliant and it’s something that has stayed with me for already a few years and I’d like to share it with you.

The Rav explained that the emergency lights are symbolic of how we need to be with emuna, the simple uncomplicated belief that God does everything, that it’s for the best and there is a reason behind the situation. So for us, we can learn that any time we are suddenly challenged like your husband does something upsetting, your kids break something, or whatever the idea is to always activate our emuna and assess ourselves before resulting to negative emotions like anger.

Back to school, so you remember Natan whom I thought was going to fight me? Well, I didn’t see him for a good month after that. He got into some heavy drugs and nearly fell off the planet. But the other day he came back and was in class working like I had never seen before. He was focused, answering questions, asking for help, it was unbelievable. Toward the end of the class, we had a personal one-on-one discussion about his change. He told me that he had a really bad trip using some drugs and made a decision to change his life. He read Rav Arush’s book Garden of Emuna and is now getting stronger in Judaism.

What was so amazing is that Natan used this same principal when he was in a very stressful situation. He has a cleft lip and since he was born, kids have teased him. Now this kid is a tough dude, you don’t want to mess with him or for that matter anyone at this school, so you don’t want to get on his bad side ever.  Nevertheless the same week he got into The Garden of Emuna, a kid teased him while he was leaving campus. In reaction he wanted to rip this kids eyes out, but suddenly he had his emergency Emuna Lights turn on, he collected himself and as he told me he accepted it that it was only Hashem giving him a test of his patience and emuna. He let it go, and walked away. Unbelievable!

That same week I was doing personal prayer (hitbodedut) in the Jerusalem Forest. It was a gorgeous day with millions of flowers blooming. I looked up and was caught by surprise, a hawk was just hovering above the hill motionless. It was an amazing sight, it was there in the air not moving. I took it to heart and for the first time I made the connection of what I was supposed to learn.  You see, we can learn from the hawk that before we make our decisions we need to be still in contemplating our actions, and praying for help, or seeking advice and then we can proceed. If we don’t get still were liable to make the wrong move, as we all have when we ‘shot from the hip’ or said something without thinking. We need to take time to pray quietly and alone before making any big moves. 

Friends, if emuna can do this to our dear friend Natan, what can it do for you? Let’s get to work on ourselves. Let’s stop being so reactionary and start responding. Let’s start enjoying life and live our emuna.