The “I” Syndrome - Spiritual Weapons, Part 9

I successfully used these weapons throughout the grueling year of my divorce. And I had lots of success with them!  

However, there was one crucial piece that was missing, and I didn’t discover it until the very end. 

Although many battles along the way had been won, the civil divorce itself was still not done. I had been flexing my spiritual emuna muscles for eleven painful months, but this final (and most important) piece just didn’t seem to want to go. I felt completely and utterly spent, and yet, the situation continued and even worsened. I couldn’t understand what I was doing wrong – after all, these tools were so powerful. Why didn’t they seem to be working? 

I prayed and prayed to understand what I was doing wrong. And one day, I suddenly understood: I needed to realize that ultimately only G-d Himself could save me, and not me! 

The problem with all my amazing spiritual weapons was that I was doing them. Read that as in I in big caps.  I  was  praying,  I was giving charity, I was doing mitzvot – I, I, I. It was all about me. As if I was someone, as if I had power, as if  I could effect change. As if I could force G-d to do what I wanted, how and when I wanted it! I was still in hishtadlus mode – me doing my efforts in this world, albeit using spiritual means instead of physical means. 

I finally understood that in the end, the fact that spiritual means do anything is just the mercy of Hashem. Who says that He has to listen to our prayers? Who says they should mean anything? Who says that charity should save a person? It is only because Hashem in His mercy says so! The important words being: G-d and mercy. 

Truly, everything in this world happens solely by the mercy of the Creator. He doesn’t owe us anything, and we don’t deserve anything. Even the greatest tzaddik deserves nothing because truly, what can we give Hashem that we should deserve something in return? From where does even the greatest tzaddik justify his existence? Even our merit is a chesed, a free gift from G-d!!! And if this is true about a tzaddik, all the more so how it applies to an average person like me! 

I realized that just like I had no power to force the civil divorce to happen at any particular time in this world, I had no power to force Hashem to do it in the spiritual world.  

Now, I had to do the most difficult thing in the world – relinquish control. 

To put my head down and have the humility to realize that I have to do the right thing because it’s the right thing, but after that – G-d owes me nothing for it. Whatever is happening is from G-d Himself, and somehow it’s for my best, even if I don’t get it. And I don’t need to get it – I just know that Hashem loves me, and hold onto my emuna, my belief that this is certainly very, very good! I don’t understand, I only believe, that everything is for the very best. 

I didn’t think I could do it. I didn’t think I could manage without being in control. It was really, really hard. But with time I was able to bring myself to a point of humility, of stopping to try to force G-d to do my will, and accept His will instead. 

Not that I stopped using the tools I previously outlined – I most certainly continued to apply them. But I did so in a completely different manner. I threw up my hands and said “Hashem, I'm going to keep doing mine, but I know it doesn’t matter! You don’t need my hishtadlut! You do Yours however and whenever it is good in your mercy, whatever I am doing or not doing.” 

The reality is that Hashem needs absolutely nothing from us. He asks it of us because really, it is the best thing for us. Now, we can't do mitzvot because it’s the best for us, because that would be selfish – and selfishness is not a holy trait we want to cultivate. But that doesn’t mean that Hashem actually needs them per say – because Hashem needs nothing!  

So I started praying only that Hashem should have mercy. I recognized that if He did indeed answer my prayers and finish the divorce, it would not be because of any of the spiritual tools I used, but only because He decided that He would have mercy on me and finish it for me. I begged like a poor person for a free gift and wiped away that last little tiny residue left in my head that somehow I could make things happen the way I wanted. I completely and utterly let go. 

And Hashem answered me. The civil divorce was suddenly finished in a whirlwind, when everything looked the bleakest. I continue to use all the lessons I learned that difficult year to guide me now in my new, rebuilt life, and especially, the understanding that I can’t force G-d to do what I want through any means whatsoever – not even through prayer, charity, or anything else, physical or spiritual.