Plan Ahead

Translated from Rabbi Arush’s feature article in the weekly Chut shel Chessed newsletter. The articles focus on his main message: “Loving others as yourself” and emuna. 

A Segula That You Haven’t Tried Yet 

People sometimes come to me crying and saying: Rabbi, I’ve read the books, I’ve done everything, I pray endlessly, I go to the graves of tzaddikim, all the segulas (spiritual acts), tzedaka – and everything is still stuck; the door won’t open. What more can one do? 

And my answer is: “Know that Hashem loves you.” 

One can usually see that they were expecting something different from me. They were expecting me to give them some practical advice, such as to read such-and-such chapter three times a day, to study some book, do this, do that. And so, they are disappointed. 

But what they don’t understand is that the belief that Hashem loves you is the greatest segula, and the best advice, because that is the engine that activates and enlivens and illuminates all your prayers – as I have always said and written that tefilla (prayer) is accepted according to one’s emuna (faith)! And emuna means to believe that Hashem loves you and wants to give you only good.  

A person who prays and doesn’t completely believe that Hashem loves him – that is called prayer without emuna, and that is why his tefilla is not effective.  

A person who prays and thinks that he must “convince” Hashem to give him what he wants – that is called prayer without emuna, and that is why his tefilla is not effective. 

And so, there is no piece of advice more practical for any salvation than believing truly that Hashem loves you and wants to do only good and even better.  

How Should One Ask? 

The value of prayer is not determined by how many words you say, but by your emuna! 

And the emuna that influences tefilla definitively includes what you think about yourself and what you think about the Creator to whom you are speaking, your self-confidence and your confidence in the entity with whom you are pleading. Those are the things that influence the form of your request – strong and convincing vs. thin and weak. And of course, these things will influence the results and the fruits of the tefilla. 

Let us explain: You cannot pray if you don’t believe in a Creator Who loves and wants to give and shower good upon people, and, of course, if you don’t believe in yourself; if you don’t believe that Hashem loves you just as you are, and that you are beloved, worthy, important, dear in His eyes, and that the Creator wants to give and shower good upon you just as you are. 

He who thinks that Hashem does not love him or does not want to give him all the good in the world has no chance of praying with the necessary intensity; it’s prayer without emuna and it doesn’t have the desired effect. 

Do You Know or Don’t You Know? 

Therefore, we must understand that the fundamental statement that “Hashem yitbarach always loves me, and I will always have only good, and even better and better” is the foundation and the inner basis, and only with that thought can one pray strongly and powerfully, so it is the key to all yeshuas (salvations). 

And it is very, very simple and sharply delineated:  

Do you want a yeshua? If you do, then you need to pray! 

Do you want to pray? Then you must believe that Hashem always loves you and will do only good for you! 

And so, my advice for all those people who come to me and say they need a yeshua, I say: “Believe that Hashem loves you.” 

And more than one of them have replied: “I know that Hashem loves me.” 

He says he knows, but I know that he doesn’t know… In other words, he knows and doesn’t know. He knows in his mind that Hashem loves him, but it is still far from his heart. The more his heart will know it too, the more he will see things beginning to change. 

That’s why I tell them: “Sing the song of emuna: Hashem yitbarach always loves me and I will have only good… – and you will see a change for the better.” 

Advice on Prayer 

Therefore, let’s go straight to a simple, necessary practical piece of advice.

When you are about to pray, before you begin praying, remind yourself of the following things and put them deep, deep in your heart: 

“Ribbono shel Olam (Master of the World), You are my Father, and You love me as I am; Your name is associated with me just as I am. You shower me with abundance and favors endlessly, and You have pleasure from giving and showering only good on every Jew and on me, as I am.” 

Certainly, every lack in life depends on the person’s spiritual failings, and therefore remind yourself that when people say that the Creator of the World does only good, it means that he can also give you complete emuna and direct you towards doing complete teshuva, and help you do teshuva on the sin that is the cause of this lack in your life, and also give you what is lacking. That is the greatest love of Hashem to us.  

We have brought this idea in the past, but it is important to once again mention the words of the holy Rav, Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berdichev, who writes: 

“When a person believes with complete belief that the Holy One, Blessed Be He is our Father and that He gets pleasure when He showers good on Yisrael, His people, when He is capable of showering good on all the worlds – then the person is lacking nothing, and when he asks the Holy One, Blessed Be He to have mercy on His people – then surely the Holy One, Blessed Be He will fulfill his wishes.”¹ 

In these words of the Rav, he says explicitly that prayer works in accordance with the belief that Hashem loves me and wants to do only good for me! And that whoever believes in that, with all his heart, with complete faith – the Holy One, Blessed Be He will surely do his will! 

You said… 

And that is what we learn from Yaakov’s prayer at the beginning of this week’s parasha. 

Yaakov Avinu is in great danger. Esav is coming with four hundred men to kill him, and Yaakov asks Hashem to save him. But before he asks, “Please save me from my brother, from Esav,” he prefaces it with: “The G-d of my father, Avraham, and the G-d of my father Yitzchak, Hashem who says to me ‘Return to your land where you were born and I will deal well with you,’ You said that you want to do good things to me and that they will be even better and better. That is Your will, and that is why I am pleading with you: ‘Please rescue me.’” 

The night right after that, Yaakov meets Esav’s guardian angel and defeats him, and then Esav’s angel blesses Yaakov and informs him that his name is going to change from Yaakov to Yisrael. 

The Kli Yakar says that Esav’s angel is the Samech Mem, whose name hints to blindness, as he mesame (blinds) the eyes, so that they cannot see Hashem and that is what he wanted to do to Yaakov. Yisrael, on the other hand, comes from Ashureinu – seeing Hashem. And Esav’s angel admitted to Yaakov: Not only did I not succeed in blinding you, but you always see Hashem.² 

Always Loved and Wanted 

According to the Kli Yakar, one can say that the goal of the yetzer hara (evil inclination) is to blind us, so that we will not see the good, the love, and the endless mercies of Hashem; and our great war is over our ability to always see Hashem, to always see how His name is associated with us and He loves us and wants to do good things to us always and in every situation! 

The name Yisrael hints to Hashem’s endless mercy, as Rabbeinu says, that ‘Yisrael’ is an acronym of “Kel Shakai will grant you mercy.”³  Rabbi Natan explains in Likutei Halachot that even when a person feels far from Hashem and unworthy due to his deeds that are not good – due to Hashem yitbarach’s constant and endless mercy, Hashem is close to him and always loves him.  

And therefore we will repeat our advice regarding tefilla: Before you begin praying, remind yourself again and again that you know that “Hashem yitbarach always loves me and I will always have only good, and I will have even better and better, because Hashem yitbarach wants to do more and more good things to me” – until you feel your love for Hashem lighting up your heart, and then you will pray intensely, your prayer coming from the correct feeling that Hashem loves you, and then you will certainly experience a yeshua. 

Editor’s Notes:

¹ Kedushat Levi, Vayikra, Drush L’Pesach, Aleph 

² Kli Yakar to Bereishit 32:25 

³ “א-ל ש-די ייתן לכם רחמים”