Let's continue this incredible journey about Bitachon and we're now moving forward to the next passage, which is a piece from Rabbeinu Bechayei (Devarim, Chapter 11) where Rabbeinu Bechayei writes that somebody who is afraid from another individual actually brings about the trouble and the stumbling block that he's fearing from, and he actually brings the distress onto himself, even though that distress and challenging situation would not have presented itself if not for fearing that item or individual.

We've touched on this concept numerous times before, where the Torah commentaries teach us that the opposite of Bitachon is actually fear. And the way Hashem made it work in the spiritual realms is that when we fear something, which again, is the opposite of Bitachon, it works like a magnet that, God forbid, we can actually attract that item to come about just because of our fear towards it.

Now again, as a premise to this topic, we have to remember what the Torah commentaries, such as the Steipler in Birkas Peretz, taught us, where we have to realize that we are human beings and natural anxiety and fear are oftentimes not something that we can control, and we don't have to now cause ourselves more anxiety and more fear because we naturally are feeling anxiety and fear towards something. We have to remember that Hashem is not going to hold us accountable for more than our natural limitations and human capacity. If we are doing our best to be on the Bitachon journey and we are feeling fear towards something, and there's nothing more I can do about it right now today -maybe in the future I can grow more in my Bitachon journey and I won't feel anxiety or fear from this situation. But right now, this is where I am, and I am feeling tremendous feelings of fear towards another individual or another circumstance.

If that is the case, we can now place our Pitachin in Hashem and say, “Hashem, I don't want to fear another individual nor any other circumstance, but Hashem, I am currently experiencing anxiety and fear and I don't want to, but there's nothing I can do. I am a human being. I'm asking you to help me. Help me that tomorrow I shouldn't feel anxiety and fear from this situation. But right now I am, so I'm asking Hashem, please protect me.” And if we do that, we are putting it in Hashem's hands and there's no question, as the Steipler and others teach, that we are not going to be held accountable in that situation and we are certainly not going to be in this category of bringing about bad situations onto ourselves by fearing them. But what we are learning here is that we do have to do everything we can to be on the Bitachon journey because Bitachon is the foundation and point of all of Torah, mitzvos and everything we are and do.

And because the opposite of Bitachon in many ways, as the Torah commentaries teach, is fear, we've got to do everything we can to be on our journey, to remove fear from our lives. But now let's continue this passage of Rabbeinu Bechayei where he states, “And somebody who is on the Bitachon journey and doing their best to place their Bitachon and reliance in Hashem, the opposite of fearing somebody else and another circumstance, they are rather choosing to rely on Hashem exclusively, what will the outcome of that be? Continues Rabbeinu Bechayei, He will be saved from that challenging situation, even though that situation was supposed to come about according to all the laws of nature and statistics and even spiritually so, it was supposed to come about, but because I am choosing to rely on Hashem exclusively and do my best to remove my fear from other individuals and other circumstances, Hashem will cause things to turn around in a way that distressing and challenging situations that were supposed to come about in my life will now not come about because of my Bitachon in Hashem.

And ends off Rabbeinu Bechayei, “And so too Shlomo HaMelech warns us about how important it is to work on our Bitachon, as it states in Mishlei, That the fear of a man places his stumbling block in front of him, whereas somebody who relies on Hashem will be saved. Bitachon is an axiom that Hashem created in the world, that if you rely on Hashem exclusively, in Rabbeinu Bechaye's words here, you will for sure be saved and receive your salvation. B’ezrat Hashem, let's continue to explore these incredible Torah sources about Bitachon and transform our lives.