Hashem Won’t Drop You

I mentioned in my previous article Where’s Mashiach Already, that everyone is suffering right now. It seems that everyone I speak to is going through a particular distress – be it financial, personal, or health, Hashem should save us. 

I was speaking the other day with a good friend about a serious personal situation I myself am struggling with right now. She said to me, “You know, it’s sort of like you’re standing at the Red Sea. You’ve got no options, no solutions, and a bunch of people with virtual swords at your back.”  

I responded, “Yes, and my job right now is just to keep screaming to Hashem. But I don’t get to tell Him at what moment He splits the sea for me…” 

That comment from my friend led me to consider the very difficult tests and trials that it seems like everyone is facing right now, both on an individual level and also globally. I know I personally have been struggling with this feeling as if Hashem is dropping me. Hashem has done so many amazing things for me in my life. So many miracles and wonders that I’ve seen, personal miracles that have happened to me. And suddenly now it feels as if He has disappeared totally. I’m left feeling alone, lost, confused, forlorn. In the past, even in my most difficult trials I was never pushed right up to a wall. I was never pushed right up into the sea, so to speak. It never came literally at the last moment. 

This time, the salvation just has not come yet. Things get worse and worse, and that wall looms larger and larger. The “Egyptians at my back” creep up closer and closer, until I’m left feeling that now I’m already being pushed into the water almost to where I’m drowning. Who knows what will be with the next wave? 

As I was contemplating this feeling of, “Hashem, where are You? Are you dropping me?” Hashem gave me this beautiful thought as I was carrying my baby around the house.  

If the baby could speak and she said to me, “Mommy, please don’t drop me!” I would respond, “What on earth are you talking about? It’s not possible that I could drop you. Even if sometimes I seem to hold you stronger, and sometimes I need to get around a tight corner or my hands are full, and you feel that I’m not holding you quite as securely, there is no such thing that I am ever, EVER going to drop you. I’m here with you, I’m holding you, you are absolutely secure always. To the end of my strength, you will always be secure in my arms.” 

So, if this is how I feel as a human mother, then it could it be that God, the Creator, could possibly consider dropping me? Could such a thing even exist as a possibility? 

This made me realize that although it really does feel as if Hashem, God forbid, is not listening, is not helping, is not saving me, and it feels like the next wave really is going to be the wave that puts me under… It simply must be a test.  

Think to yourself (for oldies but goodies like me): “This is a test of the Emergency Broadcast System. This is only a test.” (It used to play on the TV on occasion when they tested the system). 

I remembered what Rabbi Arush said many years ago: We are all reincarnations of the generation of the desert. We are all here to fix the crying and complaining of the Jews in the desert. This is one of the many reasons that thanking Hashem all the time, doing the Law of Gratitude, reading books like Say Thank You and See Miracles and The Wonders of Gratitude, are so important, and why this knowledge was specifically revealed in our generation. 

Then it hit me: The Evil Inclination is trying to tell me that Hashem dropped me. That something is different this time versus all the other times that Hashem saved me. Now I made bigger mistakes, now I sinned more, etc. but I realized that exact opposite is true.  

All those other times that Hashem saved me, that I saw Hashem’s hand clearly in my life, were preparation for now, because now I know that Hashem can and will save me. The entire point of those tests was to prepare me for this big test, that this time it’s really going to look like it’s not going to work. This time, I’m not going to be saved just when I hit the beach, so to speak. I’m going to be pushed all the way into the water.  

My test now is to keep screaming: “You’re not dropping me! You’re still here! You did not take me out of my personal Egypt for nothing! You did not take me through all those other tests in my life, when You were there for me and I saw Your hand clearly, to drop me now! No, You are right here, and You are doing also this to me for my best, and even this is good. Hashem, I still believe in You. Hashem, You’re right. There’s no suffering without sin, and I want to do teshuva, and repent, and live exactly according to Your perfect will.” 

Rabbi Arush said during Corona that everything he taught until then was preparation for now, for when it’s going to look like Hashem isn’t here this time. As Rabbi Nachman said, few will hold on to their emuna. There is also the allegory that the world will be like a great rug, and Hashem will shake it, and those that will stay holding on will make it to greet Mashiach. 

The whole test is that we’re going to be doing the right things, but this time it won’t seem to work. And the point is to still hold on and not let go of our emuna. We must still say to Hashem: “You are here in this, and I’m throwing out my mind, and I’m throwing out my reason, and I choose to believe in You, no matter what!” 

I hope this thought gives you strength – just as it is helping me to hold tight – to hold on to your emuna, even if it feels that you’re holding on with your fingernails. You know this is the truth, so let that knowledge help you stay strong in your emuna to not complain, or think that, God forbid, Hashem dropped you, or that, God forbid, He led you out of Egypt into the desert to kill you now.  

It’s true that we’re in a spiritual desert right now, and we’re thirsty for salvations and hungry to see the Hand of God in our lives. The point is that this time we’re going to do it right! To simply thank Hashem, and request, and not let go of our emuna, and not question whether Hashem is with us or not. 

We should see Hashem’s Guiding Hand and Divine Providence, and we should all have miracles and wonders, healing, and salvations, and Hashem should give us all perfect and complete emuna, amen.  

*** 

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 the 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.