True Faith

It is easy to be a believer when your belief is not challenged - but it is extremely difficult to hold one's ground when a real crisis occurs. It takes no effort to mouth expressions of bitachon when nothing substantial is at stake, and one may also take pleasure in delightful fantasies of how one would behave if faced with a certain situation. Over the course of time a person learns to fool himself - and everyone around him - believing that his level of faith is much more exalted than that of his peers. In reality, though, his belief in his emunah is merely a means by which he can enrich his pleasant dreams about the uncertainties that life will bring in the future.

However, a person will eventually face a test whereby he can determine if he really has trust or has merely trained his mouth to chirp, "bitachon, bitachon." A time will come when he will encounter a situation that demands faith. Will he meet that challenge, fortified by his bitachon? Or will he ignore it, and turn to vain and futile machinations?

(Rabbi Eliezer Parkoff)