Everything Is According to the Plan: Finding Strength in God’s Guidance

Rabbi Leibel Hominer, a devout Chassidic Jew who endured the horrors of the Holocaust, losing his wife and children, and surviving five unimaginable years in various death camps, was often asked, “How are you?” or “How’s everything?” His reply was always the same: “Everything is according to the plan.”

This answer is both chilling and profoundly inspiring, and reflects a deeply rooted Jewish perspective: Everything is according to the plan — the Divine plan that the Creator prepared for us. A plan He knows inside and out and that He designed for our ultimate good. It’s the plan that wakes us up in the morning, guides the events of our day, and lays us to rest at night with the impressions of the day’s script.

Often, it’s a plan we didn’t foresee, didn’t expect, and sometimes cannot immediately recognize as good. Yet the Creator of the world, who formed humanity and sees from beginning to end, has tailored it perfectly for us.

This Jew had seen pain, torment, and suffering beyond imagination, but still walked with inner calm. For as our sages say, “All that the Merciful One does, He does for good” — even if we can’t see the goodness right away.

Indeed, life brings challenges, and those challenges can hurt, but faith restores our balance and corrects our perspective. God gives each person the “package” best suited for them and for their soul’s purpose.

A story illustrates this beautifully: A broken, weary man came to a rabbi, pouring out complaints about his troubles. The rabbi said:
“There are several others who have come to me with similar grievances. Tomorrow, all of you can come here together. Each of you bring your personal ‘bundle of troubles,’ and you’ll be allowed to exchange it with someone else’s bundle. Choose whichever one you prefer.”

The next day, they gathered. Each person opened their sack of troubles, laying out every detail, waiting for someone to take theirs and offer a different one in return. To everyone’s surprise, very soon each person quickly tied up their own sack again and hurried out — afraid someone might actually ask to swap!

Rabbi Bunim of Peshischa offered a commentary on the verse, “And they looked, and each man took his staff” (Numbers 17:24). Just as each tribal leader took back his own staff, so too, when people lay down their burdens, they inevitably take back their own — because in the end, it is the one best suited to them and to their life journey.

When life is hardest, that is often when God is closest to us.