He who has enough to sustain him for the day but is apprehensive about the morrow is considered to be wanting in faith

Freely translated and adapted

18 Menachem Av, 5714 (1954)
In reply to your letter of the 10th of Menachem Av:

I am baffled by the statement in your letter that the difference [in your wealth] between last year and this year [is so great that it] defies the laws of nature - and in the phraseology of your letter you are not referring to [a difference on] the side of good, [but to the other side, due to the losses in your investment portfolio].

According to my thinking, if you will remind yourself about your current, [i.e., vastly improved,] state of health and if you will consider that your wife is currently expecting a child in a good and auspicious hour, then it is abundantly clear that it indeed is, thank G d, beyond the laws of nature - but to the side of good.

The fact of the matter is that for a short period of time the amounts that lie in your bank account have lessened, but this has caused no real loss in your actual standard of living, and surely has not affected you negatively in any of the three [critical] areas of children, life [and health,] and sustenance.

There is a popular saying from our Sages (Sotah 48b), that "he who has enough to sustain him for the day but is apprehensive about the morrow is considered to be wanting in faith."

This being so, [imagine how one should feel] when one - thank G d - has enough cash to keep him going not only for the day but also for the month, and particularly when one has a sufficient reserve for the next several years but worries what [the situation] will be many more years in the future.

When the deposits in the bank become smaller and consequently the anxiety about what will transpire many years in the future becomes ever greater, and one forgets at the time that [these losses] are truly incomparable to the goodness of improved health and the fulfillment of their wishes [for having a child] - this denotes an obscurity and concealment [of G dliness and His bountiful blessings] to an extremely great degree.

Surely you understand that I am not stating the above as a reprimand. Only that it is a pity and it hurts to see a Jew who has so much to be joyful about - not only regarding spiritual matters but also regarding material matters, which is to say that the joy is then not only a soulful joy but a bodily joy as well, of both the Divine and animal soul. And instead of [focusing on] this [joy], you are worried and pained about what will G d - the One Who sustains all with kindness and mercy - do several years from now with regard to your sustenance and the sustenance of your family.

As we now already find ourselves in the joyful days, and according to the expression of the Zohar (Yisro 78b), that from the tenth of Av the forces of Esau, [i.e., the forces of evil,] vanish and are not to be found, so too should there be lost and never be found again all the concealments and blandishments, [i.e., the above anxieties,] that stem from the side of Esau.

You will then see the fulfillment of serving G d with "all your heart" (b'chol levavcha) and with a "complete heart" (b'leivav shaleim) [in both cases with the Hebrew spelling of the word "heart"] written with two letters "veis" [signifying serving G d with the completeness of both the heart of the Divine soul and the heart of the animal soul] - so that you will serve G d with joy.


From Healthy in Body, Mind and Soul, compiled by Rabbi Sholom B. Wineberg, published by Sichos in English