Once there was a shoe repairman, in a time when people fixed shoes instead of just buying new ones, who was an expert in his craft. He was able to make every shoe look new and was always extremely meticulous with his work. Once a customer returned to complain that one of the shoes that he received was not his, it was mixed up with another pair. The repairman was very upset that this happened and said, “thirty years that I do this work I never made such a mistake and today it happened twice, you are the second person with the same complaint!”

The repairman didn't realize that it's really one story. You can't mix up only one pair of shoes!

We are still in the spirit of the holiday of Purim which was on this past Tuesday. The Purim story works the same way. There are multiple small events that seem like isolated events. Only after the whole story is finished can we start connecting the dots and see that it's all one big story orchestrated from Above.

We, creatures, operate in a similar manner when we view world events. When we live through an event, we look at it as an isolated event but really all events are part of a bigger story, the story of our lives and the story of world history.

Judaism teaches to make a very important distinction between what we call in Hebrew, Hish'tad'lus and Bi'ta'chon, which means, endeavor and effort vs. trust in G-d. Trust and effort can contradict each other. If one trusts in G-d that everything will be alright, one might relax their efforts and not do the basic necessary actions to achieve the given goal. Judaism teaches that they should not contradict each other. It says in Deuteronomy (15,18) “and the Lord, your God, will bless you in all that you shall do.”

A person is obligated to do his or her best in achieving a given goal but once the person tried and did their best, the person should then relinquish control and trust in G-d to bring the blessing into the action of the person.

Efforts are not either enough. All of us, who have lived on this planet a few years, know that many efforts that we do can work out in different ways; sometimes good and sometimes not. Sometimes what we do does not achieve any results but suddenly the desired goal is reached through something that we didn't even put the effort into.

Effort is not directly connected to results, but it is connected indirectly. When we do our best, G-d does the rest. Sometimes it will specifically come from a different angle so that we see that it's not the effort that controls the situation, but the Creator. By doing what we are supposed to do, the blessing has a vessel where to manifest itself.

With the Coronavirus around we are reminded that with all scientific breakthroughs that we, moderns, achieved, a good dose of humility is always necessary. We should pursue science and all human endeavors, just because that is our part in making the world better, but we shouldn't try to achieve a feeling of control. I hope to still return to the subject of humility in science. I'm convinced that both, science and philosophy, would have worked out much better in history if it used a healthy dose of humility.

For all of us this tells us that we need to take all normal necessary efforts to be shielded from the Coronavirus, but the trust in what works and what will be effective, we must lay in the Creator of the world who orchestrates the whole big story. Once we do what we must do, we don't need to panic or be worried. We can just sit at the sidelines and watch the story unfold. May we all, please G-d, be shielded from any misfortunes!

Questions? Email me: Moshe@jaketv.tv