In this week’s perasha, it says, ה׳ אֱלֹקיךָ ה֚וּא הַהֹלֵ֣ךְ עִמָּ֔ךְ לֹ֥א יַרְפְּךָ֖ וְלֹ֥א יַעַזְבֶֽךָּ God is going with you. He will not weaken His hold. And He won't forsake you. Rav Wolbe explains, based on Rashi, that it doesn't say that God is always holding your hand. It says, God doesn't loosen His hand or forsake you. You could run out of His hold, but God's doesn't let go of you. It's like the parent that's walking with the child. the child might run out of the mother’s grip, but the mother is not going to let go on her own. What exactly are we talking about with this grip, and this being forsaken? (I thank Rabbi Ebstein for some of these Maamrei Mekomot) It says God goes with you. What does it mean? He goes with you means that God's way of acting depends on how much you are relying on Him. Like the famous pasuk that God is like your shadow … If you put a finger to the shadow, you get a finger back, if you put your whole body to the shadow, you get your whole body back. Our job is to keep ourselves in God's grip. God is holding on. We can't leave Him. The Rambam writes in Moreh Nevuchim (vol 3, chap 51) that God's level of Hashgacha/supervision depends on how connected you are. In very powerful words, he says, “ It seems to me that if any evil that came to the prophets or extremely pious people- How could a bad thing happen to them? That evil only happened the at the time that he did not have God on his mind. Literally, if he forgot God. Depending on the level of of disconnection, that's what's going happen. And the proof of this Rambam is clearly stated in the Gemara, which says that David Hamelech knew he would die on a Shabbat, and therefore he spent all Shabbat learning. As long as he was learning, the angel of death couldn't come near him. But you can’t outsmart God. So what did the angel of death do? He made a tree break, and David Hamelech stopped learning for a second and got disconnected- and that's when he died. Rav Yerucham Levovitz says connection doesn't only mean thinking about Hashem literally, as in Ein Od Milevado/ There is nothing else but God. David Hamelech wasn't saying En Od Milevado all day on Shabbat. He was sitting down with the Gemara, learning. And that's probably the main way to connect to God. When a person is totally engrossed in learning, he’s connected to God, because Torah is the will of God. But regardless of how you connect yourself to God, the point is that when a person is connected, things won't happen to him. He's under a special Hashgacha. The obvious question you might ask is, What do you mean? I thought God is watching everything- always. So what is this higher level of Hashgacha? Rav Yehezkel Levenstein, in his Sefer Or Yehezkel ( Emuna,Page 123) explains that there are two kinds of “supervision.” One is the general supervision: God knows exactly what's going on. If you stubbed your toe, you were supposed to stub your toe. Then there's a higher level, which he calls a level of Shmira /protection, which means maybe you were supposed to stub your toe, but if you are connected to God (for example, a lady walking with her Tehilim, or a man walking and saying his Mishnayot by heart or whatever way the person is connecting to Hashem), even though you are supposed to stub his toe, there's a special protection and you won't stub your toe then, because of the special protection that comes when a person is connected to Hashem. This is the wondrous, well known concept of En Od Milevado/ There is nothing else but God. When a person has that on his mind, bad things can't happen to him. There are many stories to prove this point. Rav Matisyahu Salomon says this is especially important during Aseret Yeme Teshuva, and Yom Kippur, because we're being judged. On Yom Kippur we don't eat, we don't drink, we don't do anything but pray and stay connected to God. And as long as we're connected to God, no evil decree can come upon us. We have a special Shmira, special protection . That’s the message that we have in the Perasha- God is with you. He's with you, depending on how much you’re with Him. He’s not letting go. Our job is not to pull away. Have a wonderful day and a Shabbat Shalom.