By the Grace of G-d
Dear Friend,
This week I learned a deeply inspiring Torah concept from L., a businessman who has been blessed with financial success.
(We were going together to inspect the progress on the landscaping and building of a ‘Tahara preparation and facilities house’ at our new cemetery grounds. L is one of the significant donors to this vital project).
L was sharing some stories with me about his business activities. I always find it fascinating to hear the ins and outs of people’s life-experiences.
Then he dropped this one-liner, which once I heard it, I couldn’t have imagined how I never knew it till now.
L said, ‘I believe that all my business success is a ‘ness’ a ‘miracle’.
He continued with something he learned from a Torah lecture on the internet: ‘the Hebrew word for ‘livelihood’ as in ‘income’ is פרנסה .
Embedded in that very word, is the word נס which means ‘miracle’.
My friend, I couldn’t wait to share this with you.
Do you remember the craze in the 90’s over ‘auto-stereograms’?
I remember gazing at the auto-stereogram of ‘Lady Liberty’ hanging at the lobby of the hotel (which was at the time the home of the Even Chen Synagogue) and getting very excited when the 3D image of the Statue of Liberty finally jumped out at me.
As one writer described it:
The world, it seems, is divided into two kinds of people: Those who can see the 3-D illusions in computer-generated cards, prints and calendars that are turning up in malls and bookstores. And those who can't. Every day, the first group grows a bit. Skeptical shoppers view the "auto-stereograms" on display racks or gallery walls. They gaze into them, try to relax and, if they've got the knack -- POP! The image blossoms out and in to produce disarmingly realistic depth.
I felt a similar rush of energy when in my mind’s eye I saw the two letter word ‘ness’ jump out of the five letter Hebrew word of ‘parnassa’.
It’s a great time to talk about miracles.
This Hebrew month of Kislev is universally known as a month of miracles.
Chanukah is during this month. Chanuka is about celebrating both the miracle of the military victory and the nature-defying oil that burned for eight days instead of one.
(Chanukah begins on Sunday night December 18th. JCafe is fully stocked with all your Chanuka needs. Menorahs, Dreidels, Latkes, Donuts (five kinds of toppings) and of course ‘Gelt’).
Two hundred years the Chassidic community added the 19th of Kislev to the calendar of miracles. The newly founded Chassidic movement promoting the inner wisdom of Torah to all, regardless of background, was here to stay. It required that the founder of Chabad, Rabbi Shneur Zalman have a miraculous liberation from Czarist prison.
These are noteworthy miracles. They come quite infrequently. When they do come, we ensure that they are commemorated and celebrated.
We recognize that the miracle days of yore, are not just relegated to being a historical bygone, rather they continue to pump miraculous energies into our contemporary lives when the annual cycle reaches the same calendar dates.
By marking and celebrating these dates we are able to ‘tap-in’ to the energies of the day. Miracles. Liberation and ‘unstuckness’. (See below for details regarding ‘men’s farbrengen’ on Tuesday evening at Bet Elisheva).
But what some of us don’t realize, is how ubiquitous ‘small’ ‘everyday’ miracles are.
We think that the splitting of the sea didn’t happen to me, so that means that I have never experienced a miracle.
Not true.
The word ‘ נס ’ is in the very word ‘ פרנסה ’ . Albeit a bit hidden. Waiting to be discovered though.
In the very process of providing a livelihood for yourself and your loved ones, there are embedded miracles
You haven’t seen them?
I beg to differ. You have encountered ‘small miracles’ but you may not have noticed them.
Let us start by talking about ‘income’ and ‘livelihood’.
Why is that topic so central?
Let’s face it.
Making a living is something that drives an overwhelming majority of a person’s decisions.
People spend many years in school and college aiming to have skills that will help them ‘make a living’.
People often choose in which location to live, based on where they can ‘make a living’.
A lot of the stress people experience in life, is centered around ‘making a living’.
This simple nugget of Torah wisdom, that ‘making a living’ has a hidden chip that drives it called ‘miracle’, is transformational.
In two diametrically opposed ways.
To the ones who micromanage life and overstress their financial situation there is a clear message.
Let go. G-d is in charge.
And there is a corresponding albeit opposite message to the apathetic fatalist who lies on the couch waiting to win the lottery.
Stop ‘kevetching’. Get up and do something. Anything. This will serve as a catalyst for drawing down Hashems blessing.
This G-dly truth, about miracle and livelihood and their symbiotic relationship, negates the extremes at either end of the spectrum.
On the one hand, it tells us that no matter how hard we try to micromanage and ‘stress’ about making a living, we are reliant on the ‘miracle’ of G-d to actualize our ‘making a living’.
On the other side of the spectrum, and just as important for the balance of life, this teaches us that if you want to access that ‘miracle’ that is inherent in ‘livelihood’ you have to engaged in ‘parnassah’ in actively trying to earn your living. Only then will you access the ‘ness’, the miracle hidden within the pursuit of ‘livelihood’ as the miracle doesn’t (usually) come without the ‘vehicle’ of the efforts to make a livelihood.
As the Torah sums it up:
‘ G-d will bless you, in all that you do’.
The proper way is both human efforts, coupled with G-d’s blessing.
One needs to ‘do’, to be proactive in helping themselves. G-d’s blessing will rest on that ‘doing’.
One of the things that gets me a bit irritated is when people boast about ‘how they did it’. For example, if they were successful financially it sometimes happens, that rather than seeing the blessings from G-d, they become self-consumed with arrogance.
Here is an example of what I mean when I talk about the miracle in the making of a livelihood.
Sergey Brin and Larry Page, the founders of Google, are both mega billionaires. How did they get there? The below quote (from a Google search) gives some little-known background.
The story goes that after Excite CEO George Bell rejected Page and Brin’s $1 million price for Google, the duo agreed to reduce down to $750,000. But Bell still rejected that.
Whoops. As of today, Google’s market cap stands at $167 billion.
How did they become billionaires?
By not selling.
They were eager to sell, even to the point of taking less than a million dollars.
Why didn’t they sell?
Because G-d made a miracle and put it into the mind of the potential buyer that the company was not even worth $750,000.
That ‘small miracle’ resulted in some major wealth for them.
My ‘livelihood’ is building Jewish life in Thailand.
The miracles that I see in this work never cease to amaze me.
They are often ‘small miracles’ which means that they are hidden within efforts. But there are frequent ‘big miracles’ as well. When things just happen in an obviously miraculous way.
How should we react to Hashems miracles for us.
What should success breed within you?
Arrogance or humility?
Should the parent who is blessed with a child who excels, become vain?
How about a professional who brings extraordinary achievements to his field of expertise. Should he become pompous.
Does someone who looks beautiful have the right to have their nose in the air.
How about a computer geek who is turned to as a savior when things go wrong on the computer. Is it correct for that genius to be haughty?
And the rich guy, the financially successful entrepreneur. Is becoming an arrogant person the proper outcome of wealth?
Yaakov, in this weeks Parsha comes home to Israel from twenty years of toil at his uncle Lavan’s house. He arrives back home as a rich man. Rich with children, eleven of the twelve tribes have been born. Rich with possessions.
Exceedingly rich, as a matter of fact.
The transformation in Yaakov’s financial status could not have been starker. He left home with ‘but a walking stick’. He came back fantabulously blessed with an amazing family and incredible wealth.
Yet, Yaakov says ‘I feel small’.
Rebbe Shneor Zalman understands this to mean that he felt humble.
Why does Yaakov feel humble after achieving so much success – children who excel in their piety and qualities, and wealth that is remarkable?
Yaakov recognized, explains the Rebbe, that his blessings all came from G-d.
Marrying well, being blessed with exceptional children, extraordinary wealth, all of this was an indication to Yaakov of Hashems Benevolence and Kindness to him.
Yaakov saw in all of this an expression of Hashems relationship with him. He felt how Hashem was holding him near, dear, and close.
When you recognize that you are close to Hashem, that the Great and Awesome Almighty is shining His beneficence on you, the reaction ought to be one of great thankfulness and deep humility.
It takes an oblivious person to remain an ingrate in the face of blessing.
It means that they do not recognize the ‘miracle’ within the ‘livelihood’.
Even more tragically, some people whom G-d blesses with success, rise to greatness and proceed to act G-dlessly arrogant. As in the acronym, EGO = Edging G-d Out.
My goal with this article is to make us more appreciative and humble. Thus, we will be more sensitive to the needs of those around us.
My friends, take a moment to think about your life. In particular think about the things you are proud of.
Everyone has something that they have achieved. And those achievements come as a result of tools and wherewithal provided by G-d. There is not a person in the world who doesn’t have gifts from G-d that they should acknowledge.
Is success in your life really your OWN doing? Or can you now discern the ‘miracles’ that G-d has delivered to you throughout your life that have enabled you to reach where you are.
And now take a second moment to reflect on how you should be feeling now that you are aware of G-d’s closeness to you.
Yes. Humility and gratitude should be the resultant emotion.
By being grateful to Hashem for His bountiful blessings, you are inspired to emulate him and share your beneficence with others.
Being humble means that you don’t think ‘I deserve everything for myself’, rather you say ‘doesn’t my friend deserve to also share in my blessings’.
Let us focus on G-d’s kindness to us.
Let us channel the humility and gratitude into a renewed commitment to Hashem and to follow in His ways of compassion and benevolence.
Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi Yosef Kantor