Without Torah There Is No Emunah and Bitachon

Rebbe Chiya and Rebbe Yossi in a Zohar story, witnesses to the power of self-sacrifice - "And if you say, what shall we eat in the seventh year..." (25:20)

The question of what will we eat? What will we drink? This haunts everyone. "And if you say, what shall we eat in the seventh year"—you are asking what we will eat? Hashem said you will have everything good! You will have abundance, you will have everything. Hashem says you will have everything good, Hashem promises that you will have everything good, and you ask what we will eat... Is this faith in Hashem?!

The holy Zohar brings in Parashat Behar regarding the verse "What shall we eat, what shall we drink"—Rebbe Chiya and Rebbe Yossi were standing on a high mountain; they had an abundance of food. They took with them several mules and donkeys with an abundance of food. They are standing on the mountain and see something shocking. They see two people walking in the heart of the desert who found a man who had lost his way and had been lying there for two days without food, dying in the heat of the sun, two days from death. That man says to them, "I haven't eaten or drunk for two days." So one of them gives him food and drink, and the other screams at him, "What are you giving him! Don't give him any! It is forbidden! 'And you shall guard your souls very carefully!' This is a matter of life and death (pikuach nefesh), I won't allow it, let him die! What do you care if he dies! Your life comes first!"

"What do you care that I am giving him some?"

He said to him, "If you give him all the food, in the end, you will come to me, you will ask me, you will want food from me, and then I won't give you anything!"

And Rebbe Chiya and Rebbe Yossi see this whole story from afar. Rebbe Yossi and Rebbe Chiya understand from the gestures everything that is going on there, how he is screaming at him not to give him food, and the other continues on, feeding him, giving him drink, petting him, lifting him up until he recovers. That one gave him all the water he had, all the food he had; he remained with nothing, without a drop of water.

These two continue walking alone. After half an hour, that same one who gave away all his food, all his water, gets heatstroke. He is in the heart of the desert, 12:00 noon, the sun is beating down at 50 degrees Celsius, he falls and faints under a tree. The other one said to him, "Do you see? I told you that you would faint, I told you that you would die without food and drink." Now I am leaving you here, I don't care about you, and he left him in the heart of the desert.

With such self-sacrifice, there will surely be a miracle for them

And when Rebbe Chiya and Rebbe Yossi saw that one lying under the tree fainting, Rebbe Chiya said to Rebbe Yossi, "We have an abundance of food, let's give it to him, let's run to him, we must save him!" Rebbe Yossi answers him, "Shta naitiv v'nechma"—"Now let us sit and see, 'Surely Hashem will perform a miracle for him.'"—Surely there will be a great miracle now. There is a story here, don't intervene in the middle of the story, don't run to give him the food. The world is not ownerless! A person gives his food away, now he will die?! There is no such thing! Here there will be a great miracle!

They stood there and watched how he fell asleep. Suddenly, a giant snake arrived, crawling toward him, which could have swallowed him in one gulp. Rebbe Chiya said, "Woe to that person"—we're finished, this is the end for him! Poor guy, he has to die in such a strange way. Rebbe Yossi said, "Do not fall into despair, after all, he gave away all his food, all his water, he trusted in Hashem, so Hashem will not abandon him. You will see what a miracle he will have." Suddenly they see an even larger snake descending from the tree than the first one, truly giant! And it bites the head of that first snake and swallows it and kills it, and that man remains whole, sleeping his sleep in peace and tranquility in the heart of the desert. And then Rebbe Chiya and Rebbe Yossi went down to him from the mountain, woke him from his sleep, gave him food and drink, and told him about all the miracles that happened to him.

Hashem is always with me

One must know that before every person comes into the world, Hashem has already prepared for him all those who will help him, who will save him, who will sustain him. Wherever a person goes, at every step, there is a person standing to help him. Even if you are in the heart of the desert, in the heart of the sea, there is always someone standing next to you. You are never lost, Hashem is everywhere, in every place Hashem is with you. At every moment, a person's salvation is ready; he only needs to let out one cry to Hashem, one true cry, and he will already have salvation. If you only cry out, "Shema Yisrael Hashem Elokeinu Hashem Echad," "Ana Hashem Hoshia Na" in the merit of our Rebbe... then you will be saved immediately.

A person needs a bit of trust (bitachon), a bit of faith, a bit to sing, to pray with intention, not to be afraid, "Where will I have money from?" After all, the One who created you—created the money, created everything. He created you even before the money. All the money in the world belongs to you; Hashem wants you to study Torah. You committed many sins, so it doesn't fall to you immediately, it doesn't fall to you straight from the ceiling.

Trust in Hashem because only in this way will the Geulah come

Why are you worried? Everything was announced in Heaven! 40 days before a person is formed, they plan in Heaven that on this day he will have a house, and on this day he will have a field, parnassah, everything is announced even before a person is born, because the Geulah can only come when a person trusts in Hashem, his eyes looking to Hashem, "The eyes of all look to You, and You give them their food in its time," in its time! Everything in its time, at its proper moment. What is coming to a person—an apartment, furniture, etc.—everything is in its time, because the very worry about money, the very thought about money, distances the salvation from him, distances the apartment from him, distances the parnassah from him. All his life a person thinks about parnassah; he doesn't know that the moment he stops thinking about parnassah, then the parnassah will come to him, will run to him. What is "parnassah"? "Par" (bull) "nosea" (travels/flees)—you run after the bull and the bull travels, the bull runs away. "Parnassah"—travels with an 'ayin'. You are chasing after parnassah? Then the parnassah runs away from you.

The Rebbe says in Torah 206—that trust (bitachon) is without end, there is no limit to trust. "Trust in Hashem forever"—trust is something without limits, there are no limits to faith and trust. The essence of trust in perfection is through the intellect, through Torah. Trust comes from the intellect! If you don't have intellect, you don't have trust and faith. You study Torah, so you have trust; you don't study Torah, so you don't have trust. The Rebbe says—if you would study Torah, then you would have intellect and you would know that everything is Hashem. Therefore, a person must study much Gemara, and then his mind is straightened, because according to the intellect, so is the trust. The more intellect a person has, the more mind, then he has more trust, more faith.

One must know that before every person comes into the world, Hashem has already prepared for him all those who will help him, who will save him, who will sustain him. Wherever a person goes, at every step, there is a person standing to help him. Even if you are in the heart of the desert, in the heart of the sea, there is always someone standing next to you. You are never lost! Hashem is everywhere! In every place Hashem is with you! At every moment, a person's salvation is ready! He only needs trust! He only needs to let out one cry to Hashem! One true cry and he will already have salvation. If you only cry out, "Shema Yisrael Hashem Elokeinu Hashem Echad," "Ana Hashem Hoshia Na" in the merit of our Rebbe... then you will be saved immediately.