As a preteen, I was in a workshop at school where a volunteer stood on the edge of the table wearing a blindfold and the rest of us lined up next to the table ready to catch him to see whether the blindfolded volunteer was ready to free-fall off the table into our hands. The workshop leader explained that trusting friends, family or teammates is more than having faith in their ability to pull through for you. It means having the highest confidence in their dedication and loyalty to you that you would be willing to free-fall, even without seeing them, knowing they will catch you.
There is a profound difference between faith in G-d and trust in G-d. Faith is a set of beliefs that can be nurtured in any person with the right education and guidance. Trust is something every individual needs to work on. Can you act upon the truths you believe even when reality seems to contradict them? This week’s parsha gives the perfect example of this. The parsha opens with laws about agriculture in the Land of Israel. After six years of plowing, planting and harvesting, the seventh year was a national sabbatical and no fieldwork was allowed. This mitzvah is called Shemitta. You don’t need to be an economist to realize what this means. In a society where almost one hundred percent of the industry is agriculture and import was not a thing, a full year of no fieldwork meant that the entire region would run out of food which is bad news. The faithful Jew is now in a theological bind. On the one hand, G-d is the omnipotent and eternal Master of the universe and the Torah represents G-d’s will and wisdom. On the other hand, forcing an entire nation to lay down their plows and sickles for a year means they won’t have any food, and people must eat. What gives? Amazingly, the Torah seems to imply that any rational human being is expected to ask this question. “And if you should say, "What will we eat in the seventh year? We will not sow, and we will not gather in our produce!" G-d does not chastise the questioner for not having sufficient faith. Instead, the Torah continues: “Know then, that I will command My blessing for you in the sixth year, and it will yield produce for three years. And you will sow in the eighth year, while still eating from the old crops until the ninth year; until the arrival of its crop, you will eat the old crop.” Simply put, G-d is saying “Trust me!” Even though the mitzvah of Shemittah seems like the entire economy will go into free fall with no hope in sight - G-d has it figured out. If you follow these rules properly, and express your trust in G-d, the crops preceding Shemitta will sustain you for many years and you will be just fine. A friend opened a small business several years ago and took G-d as a partner by committing to giving one-tenth of his earnings to Tzedaka as obligated according to the Torah. He confided to me that he once needed to send off his ten percent to charity, but realized that if he pressed “send” on that check, his business bank account would be empty. After an agonizing few minutes he decided to send the money anyway, and G-d would need to take care of the rest. Sure enough, by the end of the week, he landed new clients completely unexpectedly and his account has never been empty since. That’s called trust in G-d. It’s not easy, but nurturing our trust in G-d is the best way to ensure a life of success and serenity.