Rabbi Dr. Tzvi Hersh Weinreb of the OU quotes Rabbi Moshe Fuller:

“Some people tell G-d how great their problems are.
I tell my problems how great G-d is.”

I was shown the following in Rambam’s list of the 613 commandments.

Negative Mitzvah 58: Those engaged in warfare shall not fear their enemies nor be panic-stricken by them during battle. (Deut. 3:22, 7:21, 20:3)

IDF Soldier of the Nahal Haredi battalion dons his tefillin.

Deuteronomy 3:22 “You shall not fear them; for HaShem your G-d, it is He that fights for you”
Deuteronomy 7:21 “You shall not be terrified by them”
Deuteronomy 20:3 “1 When you go forth to battle against your enemies, and see horses, and chariots, and a people more than you, you shall not be afraid of them; for HaShem your G-d is with you, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.

2 And it shall be, when you draw nigh unto the battle, that the priest shall approach and speak unto the people,

3 and shall say unto them: ‘Hear, O Israel, you draw nigh this day unto battle against your enemies; let not your heart faint; fear not, nor be alarmed, neither be you affrighted at them;

4 for HaShem your G-d is He that goes with you, to fight for you against your enemies, to save you.’”

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When a Jewish soldier is called up to the battlefront, he must trust in HaShem. He must realize that he is fighting for the sake of the Master of the Universe.

The Jewish soldier is commanded not to fear the enemy. He must gather all his courage and rely on HaShem to protect him.  This is no small feat.

A Jewish soldier who retreats from the enemy because of fear violates this Negative Mitzvah.

(I heard these words from a rabbi at a new Aish HaTorah center in Philadelphia)

Rabbi Chaim Leib Shmulevitz lived during the WWII era.

At one point his health took a down turn.  Yet he stood to speak to his students that Shabbat regardless of his health.

“I am going to die,” Rav Shmulevitz said.

“I am going to die,” he repeated.

“I am going to die.”  His students were getting nervous.  Was the Rav okay?

“I am going to die!” Should we call for doctors?

Over and over he called out, “I am going to die,” until he cried out with great furor “I am going to die!!” and then broke into a broad smile and said:

“In this week’s parsha, someone says the words, ‘I am going to die’…and what a difference there is between me and him.”

Esav (Esau) says, “I am going to die, give me the soup, pour it down my throat, I’m going to die!”  He lives for the moment.  He is hungry now.  “Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die” - said the glutinous Romans.

The Rabbi related a story from his friend:

We were on a plane with our rabbi and several of his students.  There was a terrible malfunciton with one of the plane’s mechanisms.  The captain ordered everyone to stay seated and fasten their seat belts, that this was not a joke.  The turbulance was rough.

The students asked, “Rabbi, what should we do?!”  And the Rabbi said, “What can we do? Pray.  Say these Psalms.”  And just then a man sitting in the seat next to the students reaches up and frantically calls the flight attendant.  The flight attendent leaves the security of her seat and asks what the man needs.

“I need a Jack Daniel’s right away! This could be the last drink of my life!”

For the Esav’s of the world, the end of this life is the end of everything.  But we know that the end of this life is but a transition to the next stage in a great process.  Knowing that, and integrating that into our lives, transforms the phrase, “I am going to die.”

“Anyone who has been following the progress of the Jewish population in Eretz Yisrael can see clearly how from every step backward came an even greater development for the good, and out of every crisis came a step forward.”

(Rav Kook’s Ma’amarei HaRe’iyah: “Shuvu LeBitzaron”)

Many things are happening right now, in a global way, and in a personal way.

“The one thing you can’t take away from me is the way I choose to respond to what you do to me.  The last of one’s freedoms is to choose one’s attitude in any given circumstance.”

- Victor Frankl

כל העולם כולו גשר צר מאוד, והעיקר - לא לפחד כלל
Kol ha’olam kulo gesher tzar me’od, v’ha’ikar lo lefahed klal.
“All the world is a very narrow bridge, and the most important thing is not to fear at all.”

- Rebbe Nachman of Breslev

Some very needed words by Rabbi Lazer Brody.

Beware of being swept up with Messianic speculation! I know it’s inspiring…but we should know the dangerous pitfalls of exciting over such speculation.

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(Source: Breslev)

According to Rebbe Yehoshua’s opinion in the Midrash (Yalkut Shimoni, Bo, 210), “Moshiach” (Hebrew for Messiah) will come during the month of Nissan (Rebbe Eliezer disagrees, and says that Moshiach will come in Tishrei). Perhaps that’s why everyone’s longing for redemption reawakens during the month of Nissan, when G-d redeemed the children of Israel from bondage in Egypt.

Everybody seems to be writing about Moshiach these days and everyone seems to be talking about him. Tamar Yonah (Israel’s Oprah, but a lot more talented) asked for my opinion during one of my recent appearances on her weekend Israel National Radio show broadcast.

My answer was a cold sponge on the enthusiam of the Messianic double-guessers: The Gemara curses those who second-guess the coming of the Messiah and says תפח רוחם, or “May they drop dead!” (tractate Sanhedrin, 97B). The Rambam actually codified this curse into religious law (Hilchot Melachim 12:2); in his classic “Thirteen Principles of Faith” (see Rambam’s commentary on the Mishna, tractate Sanhedrin, 10:1, principle number 12), and writes that we must believe in the coming of the Messiah with complete faith, and although he may tarry, we must await his arrival whenever he comes.

According to both the Lithuanian tradition (disciples of the Vilna Gaon) and the Chassidic tradition (disciples of of the Baal Shem Tov), we must patiently wait for Moshiach with simple and pure faith. Torah, prayer, and good deeds are what the soul needs, not Messianic speculation.

Throughout Jewish history, whenever a false messiah or an expected “moshiach” arrival date became a disappointment, many people lost their faith.

I once heard a very sharp joke that the big tobacco companies finance the messianic movements, because whenever a messianic movement is proved wrong - either when the messianic candidate fails to save the world or when the speculated due date expires - then many of the movement’s members, former Sabbath observers, begin smoking on the Sabbath, and tobacco sales increase.

My esteemed teacher, the Melitzer Rebbe shlit”a, told me the following story: In 1860, rumors spread like wildfire that the Messiah will be coming that very year (1860 in the Jewish calendar is 5620, and 620 is the numerical equivalent of כתר, “keter”, which means “crown”, an allusion to Moshiach and the kingdom of David). In the prayer house of the great Chassidic master Rebbe Yechezkel of Shinova, the son of the renown Rebbe Chaim of Tsanz, the chassidim were all whispering Moshiach conjectures during a prayer service. Rebbe Yechezkel banged on the podium with his fist - bringing the services to an abrupt halt - and roared, “I promise you - Moshiach will not come this year!”

Maybe speculation about the coming of the Messiah would make interesting betting in Las Vegas, but it adds nothing to a person’s love of G-d, fear of G-d, Torah scholarship, soul development, and/or spiritual awareness. So why speculate? Why give yourself a broken heart by being disappointed when your expected Moshiach due date becomes just another day?

Rebbe Nachman of Breslev teaches us that the only way to safely make it through these times is with simple and innocent faith. I strongly suggest that we all follow his advice.

Again, my apologies for the damp sponge, but one must extinguish a fire when it burns in the wrong place. A candle-light of simple faith is always better than the fire of messianic conjecture; the latter - unfortunately, destroys everything in its path.

In these uncertain times, we have great opportunity and need for strengthening our emunah, our trust in Hashem.

One of my rabbis once said to me:
“Pray like everything is in G-d’s hands;
take action like everything’s in your hands.”

I found this “children’s” book of poetry most enlightening.  Here’s one that I enjoyed and reminded me of Rabbi Lazer Brody’s book on emuna. “The Worry Worm.”

Worry
by Jeff Moss
from “The Sesame Street Book of Poetry”

I worry that my fur’s not straight
Or that my shoes aren’t tied.
I worry playing hide-and-seek
I’ll find no place to hide.

I worry that I might get lost
Out playing in the park.
I worry if my night-light breaks
I’ll be stuck in the dark.

I worry that I might be late,
I know I’d better hurry.
Sometimes I worry oh so much
I’m worried that I worry.

“I am certain that the stock market will rise.”
“I doubt whether we’ll ever pull out of this financial mess.”

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In the chumash (five books of Moses) there is no word for “certainty” and no word for “doubt.” The Hebrew word “vaada’ut” and “safek” (certainty and doubt) are of rabbinic origin.  What can we learn from this?

First, we need to know that the Torah is the foundation, the blueprint of existence.  The Torah preceded Creation; Creation springs forth from Torah.

Therefore, certainty and doubt are not real; they are human fabrications.  They are not part of Torah.

The Torah is Truth.
In a world entirely filled with Truth,
there is no room for certainty
because there is no such thing as doubt.

Hashem is the source of my sustenance. Truth.

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p.s. Why do you think our holy Rabbis of blessed memory needed to employ the terminology of “certainty” and “doubt”?