[Avodah] Novardok bitachon

[Micha Berger]

On Wed, April 18, 2007 6:49 pm, T613K at aol.com asked on Areivim about my comment:
:> With all due respect to the Alter of Novardok, I see no evidence that
:> bitachon comes with any guarantees of success.

: What did the Alter say?  Did he say that if you have enough  bitachon, you
: will for sure get exactly what you want?  I can't imagine he  said that.

Actually, that's pretty much what he did say. Which is why the CI wrote Emunah
uBitachon to refute the position. Leshitas CI: Bitachon is trusting that
Hashem is making sure that everything is turning out as it's supposed to.

The Alter of Novardok would sign letters BB, for ba'al bitachon. This wasn't
ga'avah. He held that his bitachon was experimentally proven, and thus simply
a matter of fact.

Novardok talmidim often went through experiences to learn middos. Such as the
famous story of being sent to the pharmacy to buy nails as a means of learning
anavah and not to be dissuaded because of what others would think of you.

One such excercise was to be put on a long train ride with no return ticket.
Never lost a talmid. This was to show why bitachon is justified -- everything
turns out okay in the end if you just rely on Him.

How far is this from REED's famous formula of bitachon plus hishtadlus. A
person needs to put in hishtadlus to get what he wants to the extent that his
bitachon is imperfect. Doesn't this implictly rest on a definition of bitachon
that is about getting whatever it is your histadlus is working toward?

: Anyway, so far I haven't seen anything in MOAG about perfect bitachon
: bringing perfect results, or conversely, that if things go wrong, it means you
: didn't have perfect bitachon.

Mussar has three Alters, that I know of.

First was Kelm, founded by the Alter of Kelm, R' Simcha Zisl Ziv. REED is a
product of Kelm, and not the first prominent Rav Dessler who studied and
taught in Kelm. One of his talmidim went on to become the Alter of Novardok --
R' Yosef Yoizl Horowitz. And another talmid, R' Nosson Tzvi Finkel became the
Alter of Slabodka.

MOAG is about life in Slabodka -- the fountainhead of many of the 20th
century's gedolim. I don't recall much about the Alter of Novardok in it, if
anything.

Tir'u baTov!
-mi

-- 
Micha Berger             Spirituality is like a bird: if you tighten
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Fax: (270) 514-1507                            - Rav Yisrael Salanter