"Atonement of Sins" - Hashem Wants to Bestow Goodness on His Creatures

Many people frequently use the phrase "Atonement of Sins", and sometimes seem to think that Hashem is constantly looking to punish people to atone for their deeds, without the desire to bestow good upon His creatures.

In my humble opinion, it is better to replace this phrase with "Everything is for the best" because many times it seems like a punishment from Hashem until we understand the immense kindness the Creator has bestowed upon us through the aforementioned "punishment," and I've written examples of this in the section "Everything is for the best."

The Gemara teaches that if a person is exacting with others (negative thinking), Hashem will treat him strictly, as testified by Job (Iyov 3:25) "What I feared has come upon me." This means if a person often thinks that Hashem is strict with him, and typically he is strict with others, eventually all his fears will befall him. But if a person always thinks positively, is optimistic, and thinks well of others (positive thinking), and as a result thinks well of Hashem, then Hashem will fulfill his thoughts and bestow upon him the goodness he thought.

Let us summarize the solution to this fear: Hashem, blessed be His name, loves us infinitely and wants good for us more than we want for ourselves. So, let us give Him the benefit of the doubt, and tomorrow morning, everyone will smile at us, the stiff back will heal by itself, and we'll receive a message from work that our salary has doubled (it sounds funny, but it's worth trying and seeing miracles), and let's strive to think positively about life. And thanks to our trust in the Creator of the Universe, He will fulfill all our heart’s desires for the good.

Another fear is fear of humans - Unfortunately, in our world, there are people who threaten and use force to get what they want, and some people harbor fear towards them, always feeling scared they might harm them, damage their finances, their body, or, Heaven forbid, their family members.

Sometimes this fear stems from unfounded concern and an active imagination, where if they saw someone frowning at them, the thought "maybe they want to harm me? maybe they intend to speak badly about me to my superiors?" instantly comes to mind, and similarly, an employee constantly worrying they might be fired from their job, and what will become of their livelihood.

And if they hear people speaking badly about them, fear immediately enters their heart, "perhaps they will try to harm me? or maybe the listeners will believe them and hate me? and what will so-and-so think of me?"

Thus, their whole lives are spent doing things just to please others, and not doing what isn’t to others' liking, even if instructed by the blessed Creator.

In the time we are now, a new fear has been added:

"Arabs..." - - -

The Arabs who rise every day to attack and kill Jews across Israel's borders, and there are those who can’t leave their homes due to mounting fear, and even those who go out are filled with anxiety - "what if it's an Arab who attacks me?"

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There is None Besides Him

King David (Psalms 56:12) testifies about himself: "In Hashem I trust; I am not afraid. What can man do to me?"

All the fears mentioned arise from the thought that people have the power to harm us, and these thoughts stem from a lack of understanding that no person can lift a hand or open their mouth without Hashem's will, and if the whole world wanted to harm someone, with all the weapons in the world, they couldn’t harm a single hair on his head without the Creator’s consent.

Similarly, if someone tries to steal from his friend, if it hasn’t been decreed on Rosh Hashanah, he won’t succeed. And if the Creator has decreed it, no effort in the world will prevent him from taking the money.

King David understood this, and thus he testified that he trusted the true Master - "the Creator," and hence he did not fear humans. Even though he was pursued all his life by enemies from within and outside, there was no fear in his heart.

Once they asked Rabbi from Brisk, of blessed memory: "How did you survive the horrific Holocaust? You were inside the ghettos, under the control of the cursed Nazis?" He replied, "Thanks to the well-known segulah (virtue) of Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin, of blessed memory, who promised that if a person believes in their heart that there is none besides Hashem, then there are no Arabs, no managers, no police, no criminals, no thieves, no diseases, no Nazis, nothing! There is only Hashem, filling the whole earth with His glory, then he is assured that nothing in the world will harm him. When I saw Nazis approaching, I immediately thought in my heart, 'there are no Nazis! There is only Yud-Key-Vav-Key!' (Hashem), and thus I would draw upon them the name of Hashem, and I would disappear from their sight, as if seen but unseen, until I managed to escape the inferno."

By the way, I say, that any Jew in any situation, be it in sickness, poverty, or in danger, should imagine Hashem's name, meaning Yud and Hey and Vav and Hey, and intend in his heart that what stands before him is nothing but the Creator himself creating him. The same intention applies to money, and I have no doubt in my heart that they will witness salvation.

Indeed, Rambam, of blessed memory, writes in his book "Guide for the Perplexed": "If you see a righteous person who has been struck by judgment (killed or harmed), know it is because he diverted his mind from the blessed Creator, and had he not diverted from Him, nothing in the world could harm him."

There are people suffering from anxieties because in their childhood their parents did not support them enough, or give them the feeling that they were protected.

A Jew told me that in his childhood when a friend hit him, he would go home and tell his father, and instead of his father going out and asking the child who hit, "why did you hit your friend?", his father would rebuke him: "You’re always fighting with children! You must have started to bother him, that’s why he hit you back!" Thus, the Jew grew up feeling unprotected, until it destabilized his soul and he suffers from constant anxieties.

"I am not an expert in psychology, but one thing is clear to me, there is a substitute for the protection of a father and mother, and it's called the Creator of the Universe, blessed be His name" - and so I told him - "Know this, my friend! I cannot bring you back to your childhood and protect you, but maybe I can introduce you to the protection of Hashem, which is better than any other protection. If you only learn the chapters of trust, you will understand that Hashem is your protector, Hashem is your shade upon your right hand."

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Hashem is Always with You

And to you, dear readers, I say -

King David says in Psalms (23:4) "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil because You are with me", and he also says (Psalms 91:11) "For He will command His angels concerning you, to guard you in all your ways. Hashem will guard your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore."

Hashem is with us and watches over us at every moment, and if we take this thought - that we have His protection - and make it part of our consciousness by repeating it, we will not fear any person in the world or anything else in the world.

The very act of trusting in Hashem is, in itself, a charm, meaning that even if a person is sentenced to be harmed by someone, if he trusts with all his heart in the kindness of Hashem, it is certain that no harm will come to him. Due to his sincere faith, he will be saved from all evil, and thus King David said "In Hashem I trust", and due to this trust, I will not fear, for what can man do to me.

The book 'Yagel Libi B'Yeshuatecha' can be found in select stores and at Hidabroot Shops