I have emunah, but my bitachon feels lost forever.

amother

Denim

Tue, Dec 15 2020, 8:43 pm

I didn't read the entire thread, but I just wanted to define bitachon as I was taught its definition. While emunah is the fervent faith that all comes from H', bitachon is the absolute knowledge (and yes, trust) that all will turn out for the good-- in a revealed manner. From my understanding of the topic at large, when we invest our mental efforts into aquiring such a belief, H' actually rewards us in turn, with the revealed good we had hoped for and expected!
Many people gain a lot from learning shaar habitachon from chovos halevavos.
I personally beleive in the power of song, and I gain a lot from singing the lyrics, "I beleive in H', I trust in H', there never is a moment when, when I am alone, when I'm on my own, I believe and I trust in HaShen...etc..."
I will also repeat to myself over and over again the posuk from tehillim perek 55, "hashlech al H' yehavecha, vehu yechalkalecha", throw your burden on H' and he will sustain...thinking to myself that You H' gave me this nisayon and I hereby place the entire burden on You, I trust in You-- please do Your part.

amother

Mustard

Tue, Dec 15 2020, 9:09 pm

Op I'm so so sorry for all the pain you've been through.
I don't know what difficult situations you've been in but I have experienced some difficult nisyanos myself and at times felt so anxious and broken.
But I do find it interesting that no one suggested this- while bitachon is so important, I always viewed each test thrown my way as a wake up call to try to work on myself spiritually. And I know this sounds unbelievable but many times (not always) after taking on different kabbalos I actually witnessed salvations. I felt like Hashem was trying to nudge me to inprove myself and I would try to pick an area that somehow seemed connected to the area where I was being tested.
For example I found that working on learning shmiras halashon laws and tznius particularly were so helpful. When I took on certain kabalos in tznius I feel like I really witnessed miracles. I always learned that we are supposed to look at the nisayon and try to see what Hashem is saying to us. This doesn't mean that one is always suffering because of ones deeds- sometimes we are a gilgul etc... but we are supposed to try to always look to improve and we can change the situation by changing our actions.

This is why I have an issue with all the talk about bitachon without any talk about self improvement- of course bitachon is super important but when we are being tested many times Hashem wants to push us to try to spiritually improve.

amother

Babypink

Wed, Dec 16 2020, 12:06 am

OP, I am so, so sorry for your pain.
I sent a response but I don't see it so I'm sending again.
I was in a similar situation; I remember emailing a Rabbi I really respect and asking him, show me the justice, show me Hashem's goodness. I don't remember what he wrote back. I remember telling myself, I know Hashem is good, because everything He does is good, everything He does is out of mercy. So read this post with the understanding that I am completely talking to myself. I have gone through extremely painful and traumatic circumstances. things that are too shocking to write. I have been a witness to horrible and evil actions, and horrible and cruel injustices done against the most innocent of the innocent.
How is everything good? how is that good?
the world is like a stitched picture- on one side it is beautiful and on the other side it is a tangled mess, there seems to be no rhyme nor reason but really, on the other side, there a beautiful picture.

I remember once being in tremendous emotional pain from what I was going through, and I overheard a women say, "In this world, there are no answers. In the next, there are no questions."
I felt like I was meant to overhear that.

I understand what you said about shiurim; hearing people preach about things when they haven't suffered or gone through agonizing life situations made me feel cynical. So what helped me was finding people who have gone through suffering, and I was able to accept and hear what they had to say. Even if the type of suffering didn't have to do with mine. There is someone in my life who constantly preaches, sometimes even to me; but I can accept it because I know this person has suffered tremendously in life. When she says, "Hashem loves me, Hashem takes such good care of me" I am awestruck. she is not just saying platitudes. This is someone who lost both parents at a young age, before she married. This is someone who was in a difficult marriage from day one, who had to work on her marriage tremendously. this is someone who never had biological children. this is someone who lost a beloved sibling. in addition to other very, very difficult and painful situations that I won't mention.

I wanted to also tell you something about Emunah. You have Emunah. do you realize your greatness? do you realize how great and holy you are? the fact that you are screaming to Hashem? you have no way of knowing how precious that may be to Him. yes, you are angry, but you are communicating! the fact that you haven't given up your Emunah, despite pain? you are a hero. the test of our generation is emunah. you are holding on by your fingernails, but you are holding on!!

Emunah means we don't hear it, we don't see it, we don't understand it. If we understood, we wouldn't need emunah!! emunah is- I do not understand how this is good, but somehow, somewhere, I am holding on, I am believing!!

I am a work in progress. I try to thank Hashem for the revealed good in my life. I try to accept. I found music helped me. I listened to songs I found inspiring, with the right messages, messages I wanted to hear and make part of myself again, like Avraham Fried's "my fellow jew", "Alei Katan".
Music is a very powerful tool, and helped me access my emotions (sometimes I just sat in my car and sobbed). I also asked Hashem to help me hold on.

hope this was helpful on some level.
we are holding on to a rope suspended over a raging river and the rope is being shaken but we can't let go.

amother

Ivory

Wed, Dec 16 2020, 1:08 am

amother [ OP ] wrote:

To me bitachon means trust in hashem. How can I have trust in hashem when for the last very long time, he has let me down so many times and not with little things like not letting me get a good parking spot. Big things. Life changing things. I feel like god has just not ever said yes to me and just all around forgotten about me and only given me big bad things that there is no way to trust him again for anything good or positive.

I hate to break it to you but God may very well never say yes to you or give you anything good for the rest of your life but he still loves you and cares for you. I think it’s a mistake to think that bitachon is about believing that Hashem will eventually give me the good life if I ask enough times.

My relatives were some of the first to suffer and die in the concentration camps. There were great tzaddikim who had bitachon yet they were cruelly murdered and maimed by the nazis. We all know good people who have suffered horribly in life and things never turned out ok in the end. What happened to bitachon?

Obviously it is naive to believe that things will turn out great in this world for everyone. That just doesn’t hold water. What we do believe is that Hashem is intimately familiar with us, our needs and our wants (he continually wills every molecule of our being and every neuron and thought process that we have into existence so he has better knowledge of our thoughts than we do) and he has a definite plan for us that may or may not be to our liking in this world. But he most certainly has not forgotten about us or ignored us. He simply decided that the best plan for us is the one viewed in the context of our eternity, not the one that will have us living the good life in this earth. We may not like that. We may want it good in this world. But we don’t get a say. But that is not Hashem forgetting us. He thought about us and decided that a good life in this world would not be in our best interest for eternity.

But suppose it WAS ordained that we should have an unpleasant trip through this world. We may not have a choice about our suffering but we sure do have a choice about how to relate to it. Shouldn’t we at least make the most of it by acknowledging that it is coming from Him and that every ounce of suffering counts for so much in the next world? We are going through it anyway. Why spend life being angry at Him instead of accruing untold merit by accepting that there is a plan?

A student of the Chofetz Chaim once complained to him that life was bad. The Chofetz Chaim corrected him. “Say life is bitter, not bad. Medicine is not bad, it’s bitter.”

Hatzlacha, and may you know no more pain and hardship going forward.