Dr. Emuna: What You Believe In, You Get! Part 1

Rabbi Arush writes in The Garden of Emuna, “Hashem oversees a person according to the person’s emuna in Him (emphasis mine). If someone believes that G-d is the Healer, that He is the Provider who gives income, that He is the Matchmaker, and that everything comes from Him – then G-d oversees Him with complete Divine Guidance. But if, G-d forbid, a person thinks that everything is dependent on his own abilities and efforts, then Hashem removes His oversight from that person.”  

What this means in very simple words – is that what you believe in, you get! 

G-d created this world in such a way that He is hidden in this world, and a person has free choice to choose good, or the opposite, to believe in Hashem, or not, etc. etc.  

Hence, the famous exchange between the atheist and the Rabbi. The atheist tells the Rabbi, “I don’t believe in G-d.” To which the Rabbi replied, “So then live in a godless world!” 

This is really exactly the way it works, because Hashem chose to hide Himself in order to give us the free choice to choose to search for Him. Free choice is crucial because without it, there can be no reward and punishment – and the entire world was created in order for each of us to earn our merit in the Next World through our spiritual accomplishments, i.e., using our free choice properly (see Chapter 1 of Derech Hashem for more on this topic). Therefore, Hashem zealously defends free choice, and makes sure that we are always free to choose correctly and earn reward, or the opposite G-d forbid. Hence, He will not reveal Himself in a way which will remove your free choice, because Hashem will never do anything against the purpose for which He created the world in the first place. 

However, this formula also creates a guarantee: If you search, you will find Him, because in doing so, you already removed your free choice by choosing to search. Now that you made your free choice to believe in Hashem, so Hashem has no reason to continue to hide – and therefore, He doesn’t!!! 

This is why the greater the emuna in Hashem, the bigger the outright miracles the person can experiences. Hence why the greatest tzaddikim can make the lame walk, make the blind see, and much more – they have already removed Hashem’s mask so to speak, and their own emuna in Hashem is so strong, and they absolutely believe and know with such clarity that the laws of nature are only a construct in Hashem’s hands, that can be changed at His will – that Hashem can remove the mask, and indeed, Hashem performs outright miracles for them, and those they pray for. 

However, the opposite is also true. Whatever you believe in – Hashem gives it power over you! So if you believe in nature, or statistics, or chance, or whatever – then those things are given power over you. Those things will indeed rule you. If you choose to believe in the laws of nature as final and binding, then to overturn those rules of nature would mean that Hashem removes His mask and proves to you something that you don’t already believe in – which as I said, He will never do for good reason. 

So if someone G-d forbid doesn’t believe in G-d, or doesn’t believe that G-d personally oversees them – then G-d won’t oversee them, and they will indeed live in a cruel world where random events happen without a purpose, and where evil is real. 

But if you believe that G-d personally guides and oversees every tiny detail of Creation at every millisecond, and does everything for the very best – then Hashem will protect you and ensure that you indeed live and experience what you believe in. Because that’s what you chose to believe. 

Make it Real 

This is a crazy super important concept, one which you should review over and over until you internalize it. 

In order to make it easier, I am now going to give you some personal examples from my life, and a few more diamonds, of things that I chose to believe – and indeed, they came to pass. 

The point is to encourage YOU – believe in Hashem! G-d can do everything! If you limit your belief, then you also limit what Hashem will do for you, and reveal to you. But if you choose to strengthen your emuna, then it WILL happen, exactly as you believed! 

The only caveat is that this only works for spiritual things. Physically, you get what you need for your rectification in this world – I can’t promise that if you believe that Hashem will give you a million dollars, you’ll get it.  

There is a famous story of a Rabbi teaching this concept, who used the example that “If I believe that Hashem will give me a gold watch, I’ll have one.” A few minutes later, a man walked in, explaining that he had just been drafted to the Russian army and asked the Rabbi to watch over his gold watch in the meantime.  

So, maybe it will happen, but I certainly can’t promise such a thing. But based on the teachings of Rabbi Arush, for sure anything spiritual – if you’ll believe it, you’ll get it! 

In order to make it even more practical, in Part 2, I go into a lot of examples of this rule! 

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Rachel Avrahami grew up in Los Angeles, CA, USA in a far-off valley where she was one of only a handful of Jews in a public high school of thousands. She found Hashem in the urban jungle of university. Rachel was privileged to read one of the first copies of The Garden of Emuna in English, and the rest, as they say, is history. She made Aliyah and immediately began working at Breslev Israel.  
 
Rachel is now the Editor of Breslev Israel’s English website. She welcomes questions, comments, articles, and personal stories to her email: rachel.avrahami@breslev.co.il.