Ask The Rabbi

Ask The Rabbi

category:  Chassidut

The Rav Name: Rabbi Yitzchak Arad

13. It is accepted today to relate to every surprising event in life as a revelation of Divine Providence. How do we know which unexpected events are really signs of communication from Heaven?
Not only unexpected events are Divinely supervised, but also predictable mundane events are orchestrated by Divine Providence. The Baal Shem Tov says that even a particular leaf that flies in the wind is directed from Above, and that is not an unexpected phenomenon – rather, it is a natural and predictable one.
The question is, is The Holy One Blessed-be-He signaling me? Is He hinting to me to which direction I should turn and which one not to turn to?
Truthfully it is not always possible to know, because obstacles and delays could be a test, and then my job is to overcome them, or on the other hand it could be a sign to refrain from doing a particular thing.
So the main thing is, to examine events through the eyes of the Torah. If the obstacles and delays are in the areas of keeping the Mitzvot and serving G d, this shows that they must be overcome, because keeping the Mitzvot is definitely something that G d wants from me.
The Baal Shem Tov says that from everything a person sees and hears he should learn something about serving G d. It didn’t happen by chance, it is coming to teach me something, to help me develop. Nothing is coincidence, but what is the significance of it? It signals us to understand that we have to look into the Torah. We cannot just make up interpretations.
So, if for example, all the ‘signs’ showed me something very specific, but my Rebbe or my logic tell me something else, what should I do?
The ‘signs’ don’t show me that that is what G d wants. If the Rabbi tells you – listen, this isn’t what’s good for you, then the ‘signs’ were a test for you, to be confronted with an enchanting possibility, but to choose to refrain from it because the Torah says not to do it.
It could be that the Rabbi will tell you to do a particular thing, and then you see ‘signs’, you can conclude that G d is helping you. It is written ‘In the way that a person wishes to go, there he is led’, and the signs you saw are evidence of the process evolving by Divine Providence.
Everything must be examined according to what the Torah wants from me, because certainly everything is directed by the Creator, but part of the principles of Divine Providence is that sometimes we are tested with the possibility of choosing the opposite of what G d wants us to do.
A simple example: If the evil inclination tempts us to do a forbidden act, and by Divine Providence we are presented with the possibility of committing it, certainly we cannot say that this is a sign that we must do the forbidden thing, rather it is a test we must overcome, that the Divine Providence brought about so that we would stand up to it.
In summary: The intent of Divine Providence is to bring G d into our personal lives in a revealed way. To know that He is directing, and sees and hears what happens. The more a person brings G d into his life, the more calm and correct his life will be, as he looks at it the right way.
One of the things that holds a person back from leading his life calmly and peacefully, more than anything else – is anxiety about the future, and concern about not being able to control the events that will happen to him. As soon as a person internalizes that everything is directed and supervised under complete control of the Creator, even in the smallest details of what happens to him, then even when he does not know the exact meaning of what is happening to him, the knowledge that it is all by Divine Providence will help him fulfill his mission in the world in a happy and peaceful manner.

Shalom and thank you for such a beautiful question! It is an excellent question. How does HaShem put a ‘piece of Himself’ in each of us and still have Himself?

This would be a problem if HaShem was only something physical, something like a pizza. If you divide a pizza into eight pieces and Joey gets two, Sarah and Moishy get only one each because they are much smaller, and the twins Berl and Menucha get two each because they really love to eat pizza, then the pizza is finished and you have to order another one for Mom and Dad and for Yanky when he comes home from Yeshiva. One tray of pizza is enough for only a few people.


When Mommy lights Shabbat candles, she may light a special large match, or small candle, and with that she lights many candles, one for ‘shamor’ – to keep the Shabbat holy, and one for ‘zachor’ to remember the Shabbat, and then one for Yanky, another for Berl, and for Menucha, for Joey, for Sarah and for Moishy. The candles are all lit and glowing. All of a sudden, there’s a knock on the door. Tante Malka has come for Shabbat and there’s still time to light, so now Tante Malka picks up a match and lights it from the candles that are already lit. Two more Shabbat guests arrive also in time to light, Sally and Eliana. The one flame that Mommy lit was enough to light those other candles, and you know what? You could keep taking candles and lighting them from the other candles. That first flame is still burning in a candle. It didn’t lose anything by lighting other candles. That is the nature of fire, that is the way HaShem made fire. You can light a flame,  then another flame from the first, and another flame from the second, and so on and so on! That first flame doesnt lose anything from itself!


This is a little bit like HaShem. HaShem breathed life into Adam – the first person. That means that HaShem made Adam’s body and then breathed a soul into it so that it would live. When you breathe out you are taking air from inside of yourself to the outside. So HaShem breathed a soul out of Himself into Adam and then he made Chava and breathed a soul into her. All the people in the world came from Adam and Chava, just like the candles that all came from the first one that was lit.

King Solomon wrote in Proverbs “נר השם נשמת אדם’. ‘A candle of G-d is the soul of man…’ Just like the candle that Mommy lights, from which you can keep lighting more and more candles and it doesn’t lose anything of itself, so G-d breathed a soul into us and it doesn’t take anything away from Him.


In the book of Tanya, (in Chapter 37 in the section for 18 Adar 2,) which is a very important book written by Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, it explains that there are six hundred thousand Jewish souls. All the souls of all the Jewish people in the world come from these six hundred thousand souls. There are millions of Jewish people and each one has a soul that is a spark of one of the six hundred thousand that received the Torah from HaShem at Mount Sinai, just like candles that are lit from other candles.


Why did HaShem create these souls? HaShem creates souls so that they should help make the world a very good and nice place to live. HaShem wants the world to be a place where people learn Torah and keep Mitzvot,  like Shabbat and keeping kosher, and giving Tzedaka and teaching Torah and helping people. This way the world will become better and better until everybody will be doing good things and nobody will be doing bad things.


There are six hundred and thirteen Mitzvot in the Torah. Each mitzvah that we do makes us close to HaShem. Unfortunately we can’t keep all the Mitzvot properly until we have the third Beit HaMikdash, the house of HaShem. When the Moshiach comes we can all visit the Beit haMikdash and do Mitzvot that we couldn’t do before. Our souls want to keep Mitzvot and make the world a better place so that Moshiach can come and we will have the Beit haMikdash in Yerushalayim and the world will be completely fixed up!


So what Mitzvah are you going to do today so that your soul will shine and make this world a better place?



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