Introduction to the Bet Halevi on Humility As we prepare to start a new sub-series, we will give a little background on our Daily Bitachon class. It started a few years ago as a small class on the Bet Halevi. From those classes, B’Ezrat Hashem and with the help of Artscroll and many others, we eventually came out with a book called The Bet Halevi on Bitachon, which, with Hashem’s help, was very successful and helped a lot of people. Then, on another one of these platforms, we went through the Bet Halevi’s essay on Ahavat Yisrael , which revelry brought about another book from Artscroll, The Bet Halevi on Ahavat Yisrael. ( It’s a nice book, available on Artscroll.com) Another book that evolved from our daily Bitachon lessons is a book called The Daily Dose of Bitachon, based on the Hovot Halevavot classes that we gave here. Why am I saying this? Well, one reason is, I'd like to sell some books, but that's not really the main point. There's two points. Point number one is that Rav Wolbe says in the beginning of one of his sefarim that it was written B’Siyata D’Shmaya, with the help of God. We all know that. Everything is with the help of God. But he adds another two words, which are important-“ B’zechut HaRabim in the merit of the masses .” What does that mean? That means that when anybody gives a class, the class is coming out because there are listeners. Those listeners cause the giver of the class to be the conduit of the information that the listeners need to hear. Therefore, those books all came out through the merit of the people that are reading this. We're now going to start on a new venture, under the umbrella of Daily Bitachon. The Bet Halevi wrote three essays. These essays, as we've mentioned the past, miraculously survived Communist Russia, crossed through many borders and many difficulties until they ended up sitting in a suitcase in America, for quite a few decades, until 1985, when they were printed in the Hebrew version. There were three essays. The more popular one is the one on Bitachon, the second was the Ahavat Yisrael, and the third essay was on humility and arrogance. The Bet Halevi, this great sage, chose to write these three essays, which, in my opinion, are interrelated. The first one talks about Bitachon,which is a cause for for Ahavat Yisrae l. The Bet Halevi himself writes that one who totally relies on Hashem realizes that Hashem is in control and therefore, when people do things that might slight him, disturb him or upset him, he realizes it’s inot the person's doings, but rather, it’s traced back to God. And if anything, the man himself is responsible, because due to his deeds, these things came about. The third essay, which is on humility , is also strongly related to Bitachon. The Rambam, in his letter to his son, talks about the detriments of arrogance, and speaks to the fact that only Hashem has the right to show pride, and (if you may), arrogance, as it says, “ Hashem Malach, Ge’ut Lavesh/God is king, He cloaks Himself in pride and arrogance ,” because God is the only One who can be proud and arrogant, because He's the only one that does anything. The mashal that I like to use is to imagine a child learning how to play baseball for the first time with his father. As the child clutches the bat, the father wraps his hands around his son's little hands. When the pitcher pitches the simple pitch, the father swings the bat, over his son's hands, and hits a home run. The son is jumping for joy that he hit a home run, but the son didn't hit a home run. The son has no right to take any credit. It’s the father that hit the home run. That's what's going on down here. We're not hitting any home runs. Hashem Malach. And therefore, arrogance is an indicator you don't have Bitachon. And now for another hiddush: The Chatam Sofer writes, in last week's Parashat Emor, that there are different avenues to get to something. It can start from either the front end or the back end. He explains that the Hovot Halevavot writes that one of the reasons that we don't have appreciation for all the wonderful things that God gives us, ‘ Tov Hashem LaKol/God is good to everybody ,’ is due to the fact that we're always wanting more. We want the next trip, we want the next car, we want the next house, we want the next whatever . And therefore, we don't appreciate we have now. We're always looking onto the next. That constant desire for more interferes with our appreciation. But the hiddush of the Chatam Sofer is that it works the other way around as well. If you strengthen your Hakarat HaTov , if you strengthen your gratitude, that will cause you to want less, because you'll be happy with what you have. You'll appreciate what you have ; you'll focus on what you have. So it works both ways. The desire for more weakens your gratitude, but strengthening your gratitude weakens your desire for more. It comes from both ends. This is also the case regarding the humility/ arrogance correlation. Arrogance causes a lack of bitachon, because you take credit, and humility causes bitachon because you realize it wasn't you. And it works the other way around as well. The more Bitachon you have, the more humble you'll be, the less arrogant you'll be. So you can get to humility or arrogance through Bitachon or the lack of it, and you can get to Bitachon (or the lack of it) through humility (or arrogance). They're interrelated and correlated. With that being said, we are going to be discussing humility and arrogance in our next sub-series. We'll call it Daily Bitachon, A Work on humility, based on the Bet Halevi’s essay on humility, and B’Ezrat Hashem, we will all reap the benefits of being humble. Have a wonderful day.