Twelve Paths to Worry-Free Life
Sukkot Meditations For The Ultimate Tranquility
Sukkot is a season for total tranquility, total bliss, and total reliance on the One Above.
That's what we're saying when we leave our comfortable homes to sit in a makeshift hut that could be blown away with a single puff of a strong wind.
It's also good to keep in mind when you take so many days off from work to celebrate all these Jewish holidays smushed tightly together that your boss/clients/associates are asking, “So just how many holidays do you Jews have each month?”
So while your chillin’ in your Sukkah, ponder these twelve teachings on trust in G‑d. Then relax and be happy. You’re snug in His hands.
If you like these, there's more where they came from. Visit The Daily Dose of Wisdom on our site.
1. Stay Calm and Change Everything
When things don’t work out, relax. Even if it’s all your fault and you deserve everything you’re getting, trust in G‑d that it is all for the good, and stay calm.
When He sees how much you trust in Him,
He will make it be all for the good.
Is that fair?
Yes. Because trust in G‑d transforms you into an entirely different person, no longer the person who deserved the past.
Trust in G‑d enables you to receive all good things.
Likutei Sichot v. 36, Shemot 1.
2. Trust, Not Faith
People ask, “How can I have confidence that everything will work out for the best? Perhaps I don’t deserve the best. Perhaps I’ve already messed up so bad, G‑d has given up on me.”
These people are confusing trust with faith.
Faith is something you may or may not have. But trust is something you do. Hard.
Trust is when, in times of trouble, you cleave so unshakably to the heavens, you pull them down to earth.
Trust is a mighty, heroic bond. Trust changes who you are—and what you deserve.
And it is available to anybody, at any moment, no matter who they were the moment before.
3. Two Paths
There are two paths:
One: Everything is for the good. Perhaps not immediately, but eventually good will come out from it.
The other: Everything is truly good—because there is nothing else but He who is Good. It’s just a matter of holding firm a little longer, unperturbed by the phantoms of our limited vision, unimpressed by the paper tiger that calls itself a world, and eventually, we will be granted a heart to understand and eyes to see.
Indeed, it's that very faith of yours that will make this become obvious good in our world as well.
4. Liberate Your Blessings
How to unmask a blessing in disguise:
Stare it in the face and say, “I know you are not just a lousy day or bad luck. I know you are a good friend—even if for the life of me I cannot determine how. I know there is only one Source of All Things, and nothing can convince me that evil descends from Above. Evil descends from the constraints of my perception. You are no more than a blessing in disguise.”
This blessing, if truly a great one, will not surrender its cover easily. You will need a composure that demonstrates you meant every word you said. You will need to hold your ground like a mountain against the sea. You will need to surprise yourself with your own resolve.
And then you can turn over a world. A world that once distorted every blessing that squeezed through its gates will now open those gates wide. And the blessings that have already entered will sigh a breath of relief as one by one they discard their scary costumes.
5. Just Do Something
You have to do something. What you choose is not the issue. Neither are all the neat little tricks and conniving.
All that really matters is that you do your job honestly and as best you can using the talents and skills with which your Creator blessed you.
As He blessed you with those talents, so He will bless you in whatever you do.
6. Between Hope and Trust
There is hope, and there is trust in G‑d—and they are two distinct attitudes.
Hope is when there is something to latch on to, some glimmer of a chance. The drowning man, they say, will clutch at any straw to save his life.
Trust in G‑d is even when there is nothing in which to hope. The decree is sealed. The sword is drawn over the neck. By all laws of nature, there is no way out.
But the One who runs the show doesn’t need any props.
7. Hiding Behind His Hand
There are times He seems to be peeking through the latticework of our world, filling the day with light.
But then there are times He hides His face behind a thick wall.
We are confused. We cry out to Him, loudly, for He must be far away.
He is not far away.
The wall is His hand, and His hand is also Him.
It is Him holding us from afar, so that we may grow and accomplish on our own.
8. Brick Walls and Ladders
If you had made yourself, you wouldn’t stand a chance against this world.
But you didn’t.
The One who made you—He knew every challenge you would meet, your faults and weaknesses. He was the one who put them there.
And for each brick wall you would hit, He provided you a ladder. For every chasm of your soul, a bridge to walk over. For each mountain you would have to climb, a reservoir of strength to surprise even your own self.
When a challenge arises, you need only imagine what it must take to overcome—and you can be confident that strength is within you.
9. Realistic Optimism
“I lift my eyes to the mountains, from whence will come my help?” (Psalms 121:1)
People believe that only fools are optimists. But the opposite is true.
Precisely because we understand how desperate the situation really is, how helpless we are, and how impossible the challenge, that itself tells us how great a G‑d we have—a G‑d who can lift us high beyond the natural order and transform the most ominous darkness to brilliant good.
The greater a realist you are, the greater your joy.
20 Cheshvan 5741.
10. Birth of a Parent
Snuggled in her father’s arms, she is snug and secure, because there is a father.
Looking into the small eyes gazing up from within his arms, feeling the tight grasp of a tiny hand on his finger, the father awakens to something he may never have known before: He is a father.
As a child’s trust creates a bond and transforms a man, rendering him a father, so our trust in the One Above renders Him our G‑d.
11. Separation Anxiety
Within every love, there is fear: The fear of separation from that which you love.
A child fears separation from her parents, a lover from his beloved, the body fears separation from the soul, and the soul from its Source Above.
So what do you love? Look at your worries and you will know. If you seethe in worry over your debts and financial future, then it is the material world you love—because you believe in the material world and you see it as the source of all good.
If you sit and fret over the comments of others and the glances they throw at you, then it is social acceptance that you love, that you have made into your god.
Cleave to the Source of Life and your heart will have no room for fear of this world.
12. Trust Dividends
Stop worrying about business. Trust in G‑d.
The more you trust, the more He provides.
More from Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
