Pure Hashkafa

Living Emunah By Rabbi David Ashear

Part of the process of growing in emunah is to train ourselves to think with pure hashkafa . Our nature is to see things the way they appear to be, but we must be able to see beyond what meets the eye. When a person is sick and goes to the doctor, usually he gets better, and if he doesn't go and neglects his sickness, he usually gets worse. It is only natural to think that the doctor or the medication is what cured. The person may have learned that it is really Hashem who cures, and he says three times a day in the Amidah that Hashem is the רופא חולי עמו ישראל , but it's still very hard to fully believe that when what he sees seems otherwise. The Chazon Ish wrote in a letter, people think that the advancement of medicine has prolonged life because if someone gets a certain sickness in today's day and age, after the cure has been discovered, he will live, whereas if he got that sickness in a previous generation, he would have died from it. People think that if there wouldn't be such a thing as car accidents, many more individuals would be alive today. People think that because Hatzalah arrived on the scene when they did, the person who they helped lived, but if they wouldn't have gotten there on time, the outcome would have been different. Says the Chazon Ish, these thoughts are a denial of Hashem's providence in the world. Nobody who was ever decreed to live, died, and no one who was decreed to die, lived. The way it works is, if a person is destined to die, then Hashem gives him a sickness that does not have a cure, or a heart attack in a place where Hatzalah is far away, or puts him in a car accident with no chance of survival. If someone is meant to live, however, he may get a sickness that has a cure, or a heart attack when Hatzalah is right near him, or be in a car accident and only sustain injuries. It is never the circumstances that cause anything, it is only Hashem. The Chazon Ish writes further, not only did the advancement of medicine not add life, in fact, it has only brought about more illnesses, because in the past, when medication was not available, only a limited amount of people would be given a certain illness, because it was through that illness that they would leave the world. But now that the sickness is curable, many more people will get it, because it is used as a form of yisurin , rather than a way to take a person from the world. People think that medication, or the advancement of it, has taken away pain. That's also not true, because the amount of pain that a person has to endure is determined on Rosh Hashanah, and there are infinite ways for pain to come upon a person. Hashem decides what pain comes, and how the pain comes, based on what's best for the person. Moreover, with all of our advancements, mental illness has increased exponentially. In the past, there was not so much of a fear of sickness, and there were many cities that didn't even have a local doctor. Today, there's a doctor on every corner, and everyone's afraid of the next sickness they might get. The Chazon Ish continues, people's misunderstanding of the world has also led to them not fulfilling certain religious responsibilities, namely having additional children. As the pasuk says, ולערב אל תנח ידיך . People do not want to go through the struggle of raising more children, as they would rather take it easy. If we believe that it's the children that cause the difficulties, that would be a good point. But once again, it is Hashem who decides how many struggles a person needs to have for his own good, and those struggles could come in many different ways, including parnasa , relationships, health, and the list goes on. In the zechut of struggling in a mitzvah, like raising children in the ways of Hashem, that will only remove other potential forms of struggle, and the person will be rewarded for this struggle as well. This is the pure hashkafa of emunah that the Chazon Ish has ingrained into himself and shared with us. Of course, we appreciate all of Hatzalah's efforts, and we appreciate medication and everything else that Hashem provides for us, but we must know, אין עוד מלבדו - He is the Hatzalah, He is the medication, only He decides who lives. The more we understand that, the purer our emunah will be.