With Perfect Faith

On our quest to acquire perfect emunah and think correctly, we want to purify our minds with the right hashkafa according to the Torah. The pasuk in parashat Ekev warns, if a person becomes well-to-do, he will forget about Hashem, saying, it is my might and strength that made me this wealth. The Saba from Kelm points out, the Torah does not say, maybe he will say this, because the nature of a person is to automatically think that way. It is only with proper training that we can uproot this thought process. If we see a successful businessman, what are our thoughts about his wealth? Do we think about what appear to be the immediate causes that brought him his wealth, like the product he sells or the stocks he bought? Or do we think that Hashem wanted him to be wealthy and He gave him his wealth? If we see an army successful in battle, do we think about their great strategies and war tactics? Or do we attribute their success to HaKadosh Baruch Hu? This is one way in which we could test our level of emunah, seeing if our initial thoughts have adapted to the way that Hashem wants us to think. The Gemara says in Masechet Berachot that Rav Huna had four hundred barrels of wine that soured, and when the Rabbis heard about it, they immediately told him to check into his deeds. Rav Huna asked the Rabbis why they suspected him of doing something wrong, and they replied, because without a question it was Hashem who made the wine sour, and it was a kapara for something that the Rabbi did wrong. Rav Huna looked into his deeds and indeed discovered his error in a different business dealing, and right after he made teshuvah , the issue of the wine went away. The baalei mussar point out from here, usually the way it works is when someone experiences some type of misfortune like this, he thinks about all the different natural causes of why the wine may have spoiled, but Chazal are teaching us with their pure emunah that the natural causes don't matter. Everything that takes place is because of Hashem. If we fix what Hashem wants us to fix, then the issue goes away. The Apta Rav used to say, the way of the world is when someone makes a certain hishtadlut and it doesn't work out the way he hoped, he thinks, “If only I would have done things differently, then I might have gotten what I wanted.” If the person said something he wishes he didn't say, he would think, “If only I would have said something else, then I would have gotten what I wanted.” Both of those reactions are incorrect. The outcome that took place was exactly the outcome that Hashem wanted to take place. And if the outcome could have been different because of different words or a different hishtadlut , then Hashem would have put those thoughts in the person's brain at the time he was making the hishtadlut . It is extremely difficult for someone to put in a lot of effort into something and then believe that the result had nothing to do with his efforts. But this is the way Hashem wants us to think, because this is the absolute truth. This is the way He runs the world. Even if someone says, “I did it and Hashem helped me do it,” that is tarnished emunah. אין עוד מלבדו , there is nothing other than Hashem. He doesn't need our help. He wants us to put in our efforts for various reasons. One of them is to test us in this very area, to see if we'll believe it was Him, even though we had to put in the effort. The more we train ourselves to think this way, the better we'll get at it. And b’ezrat Hashem, we will train ourselves to the point where our initial thoughts are with pure emunah.