One-Stop Shopping
Trusting in Hashem can relieve us all of a great deal of stress on our lives. One-stop shopping is so much easier than running around town to twenty different stores...
“When you trust in God and you look to Him alone for all your needs, a vessel is formed with which you can receive His blessing. What you need will be sent to you and when you require it.” Rabbi Nachman of Breslov
“Trusting in Hashem is like one-stop shopping – you get all your needs at one address.” Rabbi Lazer Brody
Here’s what Merriam-Webster has to say:
Trust1 a: assured reliance on the character, ability, strength, or truth of someone or something b: one in which confidence is placedAloneexclusive of anyone or anything else
We are to look to Hashem exclusively for what we need. He is the only Source. This is a complicated and challenging concept to grasp. But, it seems to me, this is one of those phenomenal truths that when grasped gets us into a positive spiral. Given that there are so many negative spirals looking to suck us in, I am all for keeping us focused on the way up and out of the quicksand.
This is also so difficult to grasp, it seems to me, because trust and giving up on one’s own need to work so very hard for everything we want in our lives seems to go against so much of what we spend our lives doing. Your average human sees so many reasons to not trust much in this world, even on a daily basis. And so many of us are ageing prematurely, working our bodies into, God forbid, an early grave trying to accumulate and then hold on to for dear life all of the stuff we think we need.
The truth that Rabbi Nachman is explaining here is enormously humbling because this means that ultimately it is not my hard work that will get me what I want; at the end of the day it is only through Hashem’s judgment and Hashem’s beneficence that I will have anything. And as Rabbi Arush and Rabbi Brody have taught, embracing this truth can relieve us all of a great deal of stress on our lives. One-stop shopping is so much easier than running around town to twenty different stores.
When we rely on Hashem, we are telling Him that we understand who really signs our paychecks. It is not our boss. It is not our wife or husband who works really hard to fill the bank account. It is not our mother or father who are sending us cash to help us make it to the next month. It is Hashem. He makes it possible for all of the above people to do what they do. And He makes it possible for them to not do whatever it is we want them to do. Ultimately, He is the Conductor who makes it all come together in the perfect manner, even if at times it does not feel perfect to us, maybe not even close to perfect.
“One-stop shopping is so much easier than running around town to twenty different stores…” Even when we are feeling life is anything but perfect to us, we are to look to Hashem alone and we are to do so with confidence. That is what trust is. It involves certitude. With Hashem, the certitude is justified. Because when we decide to trust in Hashem and Hashem alone, with confidence, that is when He makes in us a place to receive His blessing. We must get over our fears, our egos that tell us that we are the source – or that another person or thing is the source – and give Hashem a chance. When we show that humility, Hashem will create the place for the blessing to reside.
Blessing
a thing conducive to happiness or welfare
As many people have pointed out, the fact that we should confidently look to Hashem for what we need, does not mean Hashem will give us whatever we want. Nor does it mean He will give us whatever we want at the exact moment we want it. As Rabbi Brody has reminded me on numerous occasions, we can not hold up a stop watch in Hashem’s face.
What we need – not necessarily what we want- will be sent to us, when we need it, if we meet the first part of the agreement. So maybe if I feel a lack I can ask myself, was I relying exclusively on Hashem to get what I feel I am lacking? And was I relying on Hashem alone, with confidence? And then I can go even further. Is there really a lack at all? If there is a lack, is this the right time for it to be remedied? Maybe there is a reason for the lack.
Require
necessary or essential
What I need will be sent to me as and when I require it. I can confidently live in the light of this truth. I can tell Hashem that I understand how the system works. When I am not getting what I thought I needed, when I thought I needed it. I can confidently return to Hashem and acknowledge that He is the only Source, and that I know He will give me what I need when it is necessary or essential in His eyes, therefore once again creating a vessel for His blessings. I can rest assured that what I require is being given to me at that moment. That is the positive spiral. Not only that: when I do my one-stop shopping with Hashem, everything I need is always in stock. And, I always get a parking space up front.
Definitions courtesy of Merriam Webster online dictionary.
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