Ki Tavo: Ben Nuri’s Bitachon

"…and blessed are you in the field."(Deuteronomy 28:3).
 
The biggest blessing a person can enjoy stems from trust in Hashem, when a person invests his utmost in Torah learning and Divine service while making an adequate living with minimal effort in the field. Trust and effort are inversely proportionate: the more a person trusts in Hashem, the less he needs to invest back-breaking effort in the field. Trust is therefore a prerequisite for receiving the blessing of adequate income with minimal effort and aggravation. So how does one attain trust in Hashem?
 
Rebbe Nachman of Breslev writes, "Bitachon, trust in Hashem, comes from the fear of Hashem" (Sefer HaMidot, bitachon, 3). This principle is firmly established in the Talmud.
 
The Yerushalmi Talmud (tractate Pe'ah, 35a) tells about the holy Tanna (Mishnaic sage) Rebbe Yochanan ben Nouri from the Land of Israel and says that he would glean grains of wheat once a year with the bent-over old men, and this was his source of income for an entire year.
 
The Gemara tells us that the bent-over old men were the last ones to glean, because all the younger needy people would scour the field after harvest before the bent-over old men had a chance to arrive. Therefore, all that was left for the bent-over old men was to "glean after the gleaners", in other words, to suffice with the scantiest leftovers.
 
What is the Yerushalmi Talmud conveying by telling us that Rebbe Yochanan ben Nouri, the holy scholar who devoted days and nights to Torah study, gleaned once a year with the bent-over old men? If I'm not mistaken, there are four magnificent praises here:
 
First, Rebbe Yochanan ben Nouri was a man of prodigious holiness and fear of Hashem. He preferred to glean last, with the bent-over old men, to prevent and interaction with women or any temptation to look at them, despite the fact that little grain would remain in the field.
 
Second, Rebbe Yochanan ben Nouri possessed a lofty level of trust in Hashem. he knew that his income didn't come from the amount of grain that he'd glean, but from Hashem. He therefore invested minimal effort in gathering income and maximal effort in serving Hashem.
 
Third, Rebbe Yochanan ben Nouri had a tremendous level of emuna, indicated by his measure of sufficing with minimal material needs. Since his material needs were minimal, his subsistence required less effort.
 
Fourth, Rebbe Yochanan ben Nouri had total dedication to Hashem and His Torah. He wasn't prepared to leave the House of Study for the purpose of making a living more than once a year.
 
The above four praises of Rebbe Yochanan ben Nouri all attest to his lofty level of fear of Hashem, which as Rebbe Nachman teaches, enabled him to trust Hashem so completely. We can now understand fully what our sages tell us (see Avot D'Rebbe Natan, Ch. 40), that whoever sees Rebbe Yochanan ben Nouri in a dream can expect to attain the fear of sin.
 
The lesson of Rebbe Yochanan ben Nouri is especially important in observing the Shemitta, or sabbatical year. If a farmer asks how he can possibly let his field lie fallow and make a living at the same time, the Torah promises him a bumper crop in the sixth, or pre-Shemitta year. Furthermore, Hashem gives an opportunity to every farmer in the Land of Israel to take a rest from an entire year of back-breaking work in the field and to taste the double sweetness of learning Torah all day long and eating out of Hashem's outstretched hand. Sure, this requires trust in Hashem, but many in the Land of Israel – as the Shemitta-encouragement committees can attest to – have succeeded. Not only that, but many have testified that once they began to observe the Shemitta, they saw a much greater blessing over the entire seven-year cycle. In other words, once they started leaving fields fallow in the seventh year while using the time to invest in Torah study, the made more in six years of crops than they formerly made working the entire seven years.