Rabbi Roodyn

12^th Elul.

When the going gets tough…

יב) אַל תִּתְּנֵנִי בְּנֶפֶשׁ צָרָי כִּי קָמוּ בִי עֵדֵי שֶׁקֶר וִיפֵחַ חָמָ

Do not deliver me to the wishes of my tormentors, for false witnesses who breathe violence have arisen against me.

יג) לוּלֵא הֶאֱמַנְתִּי לִרְאוֹת בְּטוּב ה’ בְּאֶרֶץ חַיִּים

Had I not trusted that I would see the goodness of Hashem in the land of life.

The essence of these two verses is as follows:

Do not deliver me into the hands of my tormentors because I have trusted in Hashem. Were it not for the emunah that I had in Hashem during the most challenging periods of my life, I would have been totally lost.

David Hamelech suffered greatly at the hands of those who wished to malign him, especially during the period when King Saul sought to kill him. During this challenging period, it was his trust in Hashem that enabled him to continue to fight for his life.

The Gemara in Brachos says that ארץ החיים refers to olam haba. Based on this, the Malbim explains allegorically that the עדי שקר, the false witnesses referred to here are the doubts of faith that David experienced during this troubled period of his life. He, like so many others, was bothered by the fundamental question of צדיק ורע לו, why the righteous seem to suffer whereas the wicked appear to prosper. This question, which is the motif of the book of Iyov is an attack on the belief that an all powerful, all knowing, benevolent G-d runs the world.

David himself was deeply bothered by these questions and says that he could only answer them through his belief in the world to come. In this world of truth all will become clear and all accounts will be settled. The suffering that the tzaddikim go through in this world serves to increase their portion for all of eternity. It was his emunah, loyalty to the truth that even during the darkest periods of his life, that he would ultimately merit to see the ‘טוב ה, goodness of Hashem in the world to come, that carried him through.

In life, it is all too easy to get knocked off course by our challenges, we often feel that we deserve a smooth ride, yet we very rarely get one. David is teaching us that the only way to get through them, לולא האמנתי, is to keep our eye on the bigger picture, to realise that this world is transient and the world to come is the ultimate world of truth. It really is the ארץ החיים, the dimension where actually start to experience existence in its fullest sense, ‘לראות בטוב ה, where we can actually see the goodness of Hashem.

Please daven for a refua shleima for

Sheva Bas Sara rivkah

Chana Bracha Bas Rus

Zev Yaakov Moshe Ben Chaya

Avraham Ben Rachel