Hayom Yom: Tackling Life's Tasks - 29 Sivan

A Pearl to Cherish

One of the most far-reaching innovations of Chassidus is its understanding of hashgachah peratis — how G‑d supervises and directs every detail of creation. The Baal Shem Tov taught that even the twists and turns of a leaf falling from a tree reflect a particular Divine will and desire.2 This was a departure from the approach of some Torah luminaries of earlier generations who did not accept this conception, or even rejected it outright.3 In their opinion, G‑d controlled the world with a general providence, whereas only the Jewish people (and all the more so, the righteous among them) were subject to His specific care and attention.

When we heighten our awareness of G‑d’s ever-present guiding hand, we can see how every moment of our lives becomes an opportunity to communicate with Him.

In this spirit, the Rebbe Rayatz once recalled a thought that his father, the Rebbe Rashab, had shared with him many years earlier, when he was fifteen or sixteen years of age:

“In everything, even in the minutest circumstance which we created beings reckon as nothing and do not take at all into account, there is a Divine intention, a Divine Will; and Divine Providence arranges the circumstances that will enable this intention to be realized in a certain way.4

“One day in the summer of 5656 (1896) I was strolling with my father in a field in the country resort of Bolivke, near Lubavitch. The crops were almost ripe, and the grain and the grass were nodding in a gentle breeze.

“‘Behold G‑dliness!’ said my father. ‘Each movement of every single ear of grain and blade of grass was included in the Primal Thought of […] Him Who watches and gazes until the end of all the generations; and Divine Providence brings this thought to realization for the sake of a certain Divine intention.’

“As we walked on we found ourselves in a forest. Deep in contemplation of what I had now been told about Divine Providence, and overwhelmed by the gentleness and the earnestness of my father’s explanation, I plucked a leaf from a tree that I passed by, and held it for a while in my hand. As people often do and without taking particular notice, I tore off little pieces from the leaf every so often as I walked on, esconced in thought, and tossed them to the ground.

“My father then said [after explaining a teaching of the AriZal on the function of every created being]: ‘Just now we discussed the subject of Divine Providence — and quite without thinking you plucked a leaf, held it in your hand, played with it, turned it around, squashed it, tore it up in little pieces, and scattered it in various places. How can a person be so lightminded in relation to something created by the Al-mighty?’”5