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Principle 7: Giving the fight over to Hashem

Friday, 04 November 2011
Part 2/2 (to see other parts of the article, click on the pages at the bottom)

When we learn to “Let Go and Let G-d,” Hashem does all the fighting for us and we don’t have to “overcome” anything on our own. Our job is just to maintain a healthy spiritual condition and learn to live with Hashem’s help. Of course, we also need to take the steps we can, to ensure that we do not continue feeding our addiction. When we let Hashem do it for us, we have Hashem’s strength and not our own, as the Pasuk says “Kovei Hashem yachalifu koachthose who hope to Hashem exchange strengths”. We literally exchange our strength with that of Hashem’s.

Learning how to truly give over the fight to Hashem may require joining a 12-Step Group since we often need to learn this first through humans, before it can feel real enough to do with Hashem - who is abstract. For starters though, we can try to internalize this in our daily struggles through short “foxhole” type prayers every time we are tested, such as: “Father, HELP ME!!” or “Hashem, only YOU can do it for me,” or “I depend completely on You Father!”, etc… The Steipler writes regarding these tests, that some people need to daven 50 times a day to be protected.

The Gemara says that Chavakuk Hanavi summed up all of the Torah in one statement, "Tzadik Be'emunoso Yich'yeThe Tzadik will live in his faith." Rashi explains that in earlier generations, people had the strength to concentrate on all 613 mitzvos; however, in the later generations we simply cannot. So Chavakuk Hanavi gave us the key: Concentrate on Emunah (Faith) and Hashem will take care of everything else.

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