BAAL SHEM TOV STORY! How Much Effort Does God Expect From You?

All right, you want to hear a story? Story's like this. Once upon a time, the Bal Shem Tov was collecting money and he went to a house, I guess where people had a lot of money, and he knocked on the window and then he turned around and he left. And the tell me them his students were with him. They were observing him. They thought that was very strange. He went over to this house, knocks on the window, and then before anyone has a chance to answer, he walks away. And they're just observing. And a minute later, somebody comes out of the house and looking around, what's going ding dong ditch? What's going on? Neighborhood kids, let's go. Oh, Bal Shem Tov, the tzaddik was here. Oh, but he's walking away. He must have been a So, the the balabos, the homeowner, goes running after the Bal Shem Tov and says, uh, you know, basically asks him why he knocked on the on the house. Bal Shem Tov says, "Oh, yeah, I'm collecting money." Well, how much? Told him the amount. Okay, let me go get it. Ran to the house, got the money, gave the Bal Shem Tov the money. So, the the tell me them were very puzzled. What's going on here? Why did the Bal Shem Tov behave this way? If it was necessary to go actually collect the money, then the Bal Shem Tov should have stayed there until the guy came outside and you could have a conversation with him and ask him for the money. If it wasn't necessary to go through that whole procedure, then why even bother going to the house and knocking on the window? Just let the guy come to you. Let the guy, I don't know, maybe some an idea will just pop in his head that he has to go find the Bal Shem Tov and give him money. So, tell me them asked the Bal Shem Tov about his conduct and he explained like this. The Torah says, "And the Lord your God will bless you in all that you do." This is a fundamental concept. Virash Hashem Elokecha, Hashem will bless you. Everything's Hashem's blessings. Everything. It's all Hashem's blessings. How much of it? All of it. It's all Hashem's blessings. Bechol Asher Ta'aseh, in everything that you do. The doing is the vessel within which we contain the blessings. So, in other words, and so it So, the Bal Shem Tov said, "I had to do something, but how much do I have to do? Something." So, going to the house, knocking on the window, that's already a physical action. That's doing something. So, I did it. I did something. Once I did something, that's a vessel. Now, let Hashem fill it however he wants. So, here's the thing. Follow this. We tend to think that when it comes to the balance between what we'll call bitachon and hishtadlus, trusting in God or putting in the work ourselves, that there's some type of a balance, like a percentage, and we're trying to figure out what's the right Is it 50/50? Is it 40/60? 60/40? We're trying to find out the right balance. And that's actually an incorrect way to approach it. It's not a balance. They're not on the same level. They're not the same thing. There is a relationship, a dynamic relationship between bitachon and hishtadlus, between our trust in God and and our own efforts, but it's not a matter of balance of what portion, you know, what's the what's the degree [clears throat] or the amount of each one. That's not how it works. It's a relationship like a vessel and its contents. There was the the big veer, the philanthropist, Mr. Reichmann. He came over after the war with nothing. Didn't have a penny to his name, and he built up a whole empire. He was a billionaire. And toward the end of his life, they asked him to describe his like the formula for his success. So, he said, "The reality is that it's 5% seichel and 95% mazel. That's the reality." And they said, "And if you had to start all over again, like you were penniless again, and you had to rebuild your empire from scratch, would you change that formula? Would you do anything differently? He said, "Yeah, I would switch in the 5% of seichel for another 5% mazel. We'll let it be 100% mazel." Meaning to say, even the little bit of seichel, meaning the the acumen, the the business savvy, he was like, "That's not what it was. It was 100% mazel." He called it mazel, but you know, he was a frum Yid. He meant When he said mazel, he didn't mean random luck. He meant Hashem's brochos. He meant blessings. The point is, it's all Hashem's blessings. Everything's Hashem's blessings. Hishtadlus is not a balance of, "Okay, Hashem, I'll do this part, you do that part." That's a wrong way of looking at it. It's Hashem does all of it, but I have to create some physical vessel for that blessing to enter the world. Let me explain what that means, cuz this is a spiritual concept. Do you know that you can have blessings and not have access to them in your embodied state? It is akin to having money in your bank account, but not having any idea ID to get the teller to take the money out and give it to you. Imagine, you have an account under your name, millions of dollars sitting there, and you're coming to the teller and like, "Do you have ID? Do you have a No, I don't Just trust me." No, we we can't we can't give it to you. "But it's my money." Yeah, it's your money, but we can't give it to you. Um That's by the way the whole idea of a brocha from a tzaddik. When you get a brocha from a tzaddik, from a righteous individual, I mean, we can all give each other brochos, but specifically from a tzaddik who sees what's going on in the in the spiritual realms, a brocha from a tzaddik basically, the way that it works, is they don't create new flows of of energy. They identify where energy is caught or stuck in the pipeline and they open it up for you. Meaning it's like you're going to the teller and you're like, I want to make a withdrawal. I thought I have a million dollars in this bank. Well, we don't know you. Who are you? And then the tzaddik comes in and says, don't worry, I know the president of the bank. I can vouch for this guy. Go go get him his money, right?