Now, hashgacha pratis, to explain a little bit the shittah of the Baal Shem Tov concerning hashgacha pratis, divine providence, is something that we all know and we're so used to using the terms hashgacha pratis. Whenever we talk, we say, \"Well, this happened and it's b'hashgacha pratis, it's divine providence that it came out on this day and it's divine providence that this happened and that happened.\" And we're so used to these, this concept of hashgacha pratis, that everything that happens in the world is b'hashgacha pratis, is with divine providence. And this is true, actually. The Baal Shem Tov did say that everything that happens in the world is controlled by Hashem, and Hashem takes specific care that everything that happens, it should be done in a certain way that He wants it to happen. And the example that the Baal Shem Tov gave is even that a leaf from a tree that falls down and turns over is also b'hashgacha pratis. That means that Hashem Himself takes care and makes sure that this happens. And it's not that it happened by itself, but Hashem makes it happen specifically for a certain reason. And the Baal Shem Tov added even more, that not only is everything b'hashgacha pratis and there's a specific plan Hashem has for that specific object and that's why He made that specific thing happen, but everything is connected to the כללות העולם, to the whole world. That means that there is one master plan that Hashem has for the whole world, and every little detail that takes place in the world is connected to and has an influence on the master plan that's connected to the whole world. That means that when a leaf turns over, not only is there a reason why Hashem wanted this leaf to turn over and Hashem Himself did it, but it's important for the master plan of what Hashem had in mind for the whole world that this little leaf should turn over. Now, obviously, we don't know why and how and what and when, what Hashem had in mind, but it's definitely b'hashgacha pratis that Hashem specifically took care Himself of this leaf. And that applies to every single little item that goes on in the world. Now, to us, this is something very simple and we're used to it and it's a simple thing. We're always quoting it's hashgacha pratis. But in truth, it's not so simple. Till the Baal Shem Tov, things weren't that way. Not everybody, till the Baal Shem Tov, really accepted this and said that everything was b'hashgacha pratis. Now, start from the beginning. There are different opinions, and we'll start with the extreme ones, the wrong one, apikorsut, just to get to the point, that there are certain people who b'klal don't believe that Hashem created the world. Obviously, this this is apikorsut, this is against the whole foundation of Yiddishkeit, we know that Hashem created the world. Then there is an opinion Hashem did create the world, but He just created it once. And now it's on its own. It's continuing to exist on its own. And we know that's wrong also. That's also apikorsut to believe that Hashem created the world once and then it goes on by itself. We actually say in davenen every morning, המחדש בטובו בכל יום תמיד מעשה בראשית. Hashem recreates, with His kindness, the world every day. And really, it doesn't mean every day, it means constantly, every second, Hashem recreates the world. And I will explain that a little bit later in more detail. This is apikorsut to believe that Hashem does not recreate the world. Not even talking about those opinions. But then there were opinions of גדולי ישראל, of great Jewish scholars, that there is no hashgacha pratis on every little thing. That means that Hashem does not take care of every little item in the world. Over the human race, mainly over Yidden, Hashem is משגיח בהשגחה פרטית. Hashem takes care of every little thing that happens to every single Yid. But everything else in the world is השגחה כללית. It's a general hashgacha. Hashem takes care of it in a general way. For instance, Hashem decides whether there will be a war at this time, or there will not be a war, and that Hashem makes, Hashem makes it happen. Hashem decides that in this war a lot of people should get killed, and Hashem makes it happen. But the details of exactly what should happen, of whether this building should fall and that building should fall, or not, that, they claimed, is not b'hashgacha pratis. That is not something that Hashem personally takes care. He takes care of the כלל, not of the פרט, of the general not of the פרט, not of the details. Except of Yidden, there there is hashgacha pratis, that's what they said. And actually, this is what the Rambam writes in Moreh Nevuchim. The Sefer HaChinuch, who is one of the Rishonim, who usually goes in the footsteps of the Rambam, also claims the same. He writes, brings different opinions concerning the hashgacha of Hashem, and he writes that the way to believe is that Hashem is משגיח בהשגחה כללית, that Hashem takes care of the world in a very general way, but not b'hashgacha pratis over the whole world, except over Yidden. And he says that this is the right way to believe. But this all was till the time of the Baal Shem Tov. The Baal Shem Tov came and he taught, and one of the foundations of his teachings was that Hashem takes care of every little detail in the world, whether it's from the human being, or whether it's from צומח or חי, animals or plants or anything else, every little detail happens by Hashem. And after the Baal Shem Tov came and taught this, it was basically accepted by most Yidden. In the beginning, when the Baal Shem Tov came out with this teaching, there was a התנגדות, there was opposition, and some people quoted the Rambam and the Chinuch, and they said, \"How could the Baal Shem Tov say this?\" and this is one of the things that people fought, opposed the Baal Shem Tov. But not long after the Baal Shem Tov, this was basically accepted by everybody. It's hardly a person now that you would hear say, \"Well, things are not by hashgacha pratis.\" Actually, the Alter Rebbe once met one of the great leaders of the Misnagdim, and they were discussing the subject of hashgachah peratit, and they said, \"Where did the Baal Shem Tov take that there is hashgachah peratit on every little thing?\" And he said, \"Well, it says in the Zohar, and he brought from Kabbalah.\" And they said to him, \"We cannot paskenen a halachah from Kabbalah or from Zohar. Where do we find it in halachah, someplace in the Gemara, in נגלה someplace?\" And the Alter Rebbe says, \"Yes, we do find it in a Gemara.\" And the person who he said it to was a great scholar, and he started thinking, he couldn't think of the Gemara. And the Alter Rebbe said there is a clear Gemara in Chullin דף ס״ג עמוד א׳. The Gemara says there, well it quotes a pasuk where it says, \"משפטיך תהום רבה\", which means your judgment is all the way to the underground. And the Gemara says, \"אמר רבי יוחנן\", Rabbi Yochanan said that what this means is that there is a judgment, Hashem makes a judgment when a שלך, a שלך I believe is a is a seagull, when a seagull catches a fish, there is a judgment by Hashem which fish should be caught. Now fish are not in the מין המדבר, and not from the humans, and certainly not from Yidden. And the Gemara makes it very clear that Hashem judges and decides which fish should be caught. There is another place where we have a Midrash, and the Midrash also says that there is a bat kol, a voice of Heaven that comes out every time a bird is caught, when you shoot a bird, there's a bat kol from Heaven. But here it says clearly, \"משפטיך\", that means Hashem's judgment is on every little thing, even on a fish, whether a fish should be caught. And after the Alter Rebbe told this to that person, he agreed, he said, \"You're right.\" And basically, this was accepted, that the inyan of hashgachah is hashgachah peratit, that Hashem is mashgiach, takes care of every little detail all by Himself. I want to explain what is the reason for the Baal Shem Tov's, I don't want to use the word philosophy, not a philosophy, it's a fact, the Baal Shem Tov's opinion, the Baal Shem Tov explaining this, what is the reason for it and what is behind it. And then I will also try to explain what was the philosophy behind the idea, the opinion of the other גדולי ישראל before the Baal Shem Tov, and we're talking here about the Rambam and the Chinuch and people of that sort. Once, one of my chaverim, classmates, went into yechidus to the Rebbe. When you went to yechidus, you told the Rebbe everything that was on your heart, whatever bothered you. He went in to the Rebbe and he told the Rebbe, wrote in the צעטל to the Rebbe that one of the things bothering him, that he can't really understand, is hashgachah pratit. I happened to be standing there when he went out of yechidus, so he told it to me mamash as soon as he went out. He asked the Rebbe, he doesn't understand hashgachah pratit, it's not אפגעלייגט in his mind, it's not clear in his mind. And the Rebbe said to him like this: He used the words, \"איך קען נישט פארשטיין השגחה פרטית\", I can't understand hashgachah pratit. So the Rebbe said, \"און איך קען נישט פארשטיין ווי אזוי ס'קען נישט זיין השגחה פרטית\", and I can't understand how it's possible there shouldn't be hashgachah pratit. And just in short, because yechidus just took, probably for a bachur, yechidus took 1 minute, 60 seconds, or 2 minutes, or at the most 3 minutes, so the Rebbe didn't spend much time to explain it to him, but the Rebbe said to him like this: We know that everything was created by Hashem, not only in general, every detail was created by Hashem. If these details were important enough for Hashem to create it, then why is it not important enough for Him to take care of it? These are the words that the Rebbe said, and that's why I don't understand how someone could say there is no hashgachah pratit. Now this is the basis actually, just in a few words, for what the Baal Shem Tov taught about hashgachah pratit, and now I'll explain it in more detail. It's connected to the famous saying of the Baal Shem Tov on a pasuk in Tehillim. The pasuk says, \"לעולם ה׳ דברך נצב בשמים\", which means forever, Hashem, Your word stands in the heaven. And the Baal Shem Tov says, what does that mean? That means that when Hashem created the world, He said עשרה מאמרות מאמרות, we learned he said ten statements. One of them was יהי רקיע, let there be a heaven. Those words that Hashem said in the beginning of creation keeps on standing in creation, that means Hashem keeps on repeating, so to speak, the עשרה מאמרות, and that's what makes everything exist, like I said before. That it's not that Hashem created the world once, but Hashem keeps on recreating the world every second, every second, constantly. If Hashem wouldn't constantly hold up the world and give it its existence, then the world wouldn't be able to exist. There are some people who claim, like I said before, that Hashem created the world once, and that's it, and now the world continues by itself. And they even bring a proof. The proof is that when a person makes a vessel, let's say somebody, a goldsmith, a silversmith takes a piece of silver and makes a cup out of it, after he makes it, he doesn't have to constantly hold it so it should stay up. He lets go of it and now it continues by itself. So the same thing they say is concerning Hashem, he created the world and now it continues by itself.

So the Alter Rebbe in Sha'ar HaYichud VehaEmunah discusses at length and he says it's not the same. Why? Because when when a person makes something, it's yesh mi-yesh, it's something from something. There was a piece of silver before, it was something there. And what he did was he just made a form, a certain form out of it. Now, in that piece of silver, potentially all the forms were there. So all you do is you bring out from the potential form to make it specific, that should be the form. But it was there before, you didn't create anything new. It's yesh mi-yesh, something from something. But Hashem created the world yesh me'ayin, something from nothing. And therefore, since before he created the world it was nothing, that means, in other words, that essentially the true being is nothing. When you create When Hashem created the world, what he did was he went against the grain of, let's use the term, nature of being. The real nature of true being is that world shouldn't be. And when the world is there, it's fighting the true way being should be, that there should not be a world. And when you have something that is against the nature, you constantly you have to hold it up. The best proof is, for instance, from this cup of water. The nature of water is to fall, to flow. The reason the water is standing is because there is a cup holding it. It constantly has to hold it up. It didn't become now water that's standing. If you break the cup it'll fall by itself. Why? Because the nature is for it to fall. Now, if you're fighting that nature, you have to constantly hold it up. The Alter Rebbe brings the example of קריעת ים סוף when Hashem split the sea. It says how did this the water stand up? Because there was a wind constantly blowing the whole night. Why? Because the nature of water is to fall, so for the water to stand you had to push it up and constantly hold it up. The same is with the creation. Naturally, and it's not nature because the word nature means something that is part of the creation, but I'm saying the way essentially things are, the world is not there. World doesn't have to be there essentially. The world was there only because Hashem created it. And therefore, Hashem has to constantly keep it up. And what does he keep up? The same thing that he did in the beginning of creation. In the beginning of creation Hashem created not only the world as a whole. No one will say that unless a person doesn't believe, but every religious Jew knows that Hashem created every little detail that exists in the world. And since he keeps on recreating everything, that means he is taking care of every little detail. So, every little detail that's there is because Hashem makes it happen now. That means Hashem is taking care of it. That means that there is hashgacha pratis, that means Hashem is mashgiach, that Hashem looks after it and makes sure it's there. And if it's created and it's in a certain position, that means Hashem is creating it in that position. And a minute later it's in another way, or Hashem makes it happen the other way. So, obviously, every little thing since we we know that every little detail was created by Hashem, so obviously Hashem is continuing to create every little detail, and therefore, there is hashgacha pratis. There is no way to say that the details are disconnected from him, because he is recreating it. So, if he is recreating it, so it's not disconnected. So, obviously, he is taking care of it, he's making it. And then there is another point here. When can we make a difference between hashgacha klalis and hashgacha pratis, meaning the general taking care and the specific? When can we make a difference and why should we make a difference? That's only when we talk about somebody that compared to him there is a difference between small things and big things. For instance, you would say the president of the United States only takes care of major laws. All the little details are taken care of by others. Then you have in the city, you have the and then you have the little detail are taken care of by others. Why? First of all, he can't take care of everything. The president or whoever it is can't take care of every little thing. It's too much, you just can't. Plus, certain things are very important, so the general things are important, then when it comes to little details, not that important that he should take care of it. That only is true when we talk about somebody that, first of all, there is a limit that he could only do a certain amount, he can't do more. Second of all, that certain things are more important for him, they're closer to him, and certain things are less important to him. In truth, when we truth when we talk about Hashem, Hashem is unlimited. And therefore, you can't say, well, he can't do the details. But number two, why would the general, the klal, be more important and closer to him than the details? He is beyond the details, and he's beyond the general creation. The whole creation is considered a השפלה. It's considered a descent for Hashem. The expression brought in Kabbalah, Zohar, is לאו אורחא דמלכא לאשתעיא במילי דהדיוטא, it's not the it's not the common for a king to get involved in simple, ordinary matters. So, for Hashem to get involved into the world is something that's below him. But he did, nevertheless, decided to create the world. To him, the details, the small things, are just as important as the big things. Or the big things are just as not important as the small things. When are things more important or less important? When they are what we call b'erech. B'erech means they're in comparison. Like the example always given, the difference between, you have a million, and you have one, and a 100, a 100 is closer to a million than one. But if you have infinity, a million and one are the same, because it's not b'erech, it's not within the comparison, it's not within that level at all. Hashem is completely beyond any part of creation, and there is no difference to him whether it's the most important matter that we think are most important, or the lesser important matters. I think I mentioned the other week what we say in in הלל, רם על כל גוים השם על השמים כבודו. מי כהשם אלקינו המגביהי לשבת, המשפילי לראות בשמים ובארץ. And the way it's explained in חסידות that this is a discussion between the גוים להבדיל the Yidden. The goyim claim, רם על כל גוים השם. Hashem is so great, the goyim who believe, Hashem is so elevated, על השמים כבודו, Hashem is in heaven. The heaven is closer to him than the earth, because he is spiritual, so spiritual matters are closer to him. And we say, מי כהשם אלקינו המגביהי לשבת, המשפילי לראות בשמים ובארץ, and when it comes to whether it's שמים or ארץ, heaven or earth, they're both המשפילי, they're both for him low. And to him, the ארץ is not further away, the earth is not further away than the שמים. Why do they say differently? Because they think that Hashem is very great, but they don't imagine that Hashem is באין ערוך, בלי גבול, unlimited, without any comparison to any being that we could imagine. And therefore, to them, something that's more spiritual is closer to him, something that's less spiritual is further from him. But we know it's not like that. We know that he is beyond any spiritual thing that we could imagine. And therefore, to him, the ארץ, the earth, and the שמים, they're all the same. The highest and the lowest are the same. Spiritual things and physical things are the same, and that's why Hashem gave us mitzvot, physical mitzvot. And some people say, well, how could Hashem, who is spiritual, care about physical mitzvot? How could he care about spiritual things? He's beyond us completely. He just lowered himself and wanted to be close to us. So, to him, it's all the same. There's a pasuk that says, and in Tanya he brings this, כולם בחכמה עשית, השם made everything with chochmah. Now, chochmah is wisdom, it's intellect. Asita is action. They're two different worlds. Should have said, כולם בחכמה חכמת, you were smart with chochmah, or כולם במעשה עשית, with action, you acted. כולם בחכמה עשית don't make sense. With chochmah, you made? And the answer is to show that compared to Hashem, chochmah, which is the highest thing, and asiyah, action, which is the lowest, are the same. I always mentioned this, that the story that Rav Hillel, the Rav Aizik Homiler said. Rav Aizik Homiler was a very big chasid of the Alter Rebbe, he was a great mind. But there was another chasid of the Alter Rebbe that he was even greater, he was Rav Zalman Zazmer. And the Rebbe Rashab in a maamar, who wants to say that there is a kind of chochmah called חכם בעצם כח חכמתו, a חכם who is the essence of his חכמה, whatever it should mean, he says, כמו רב זלמן זזמר, like Rav Zalman Zazmer. So, once Rav Aizik Homiler, who was a great chasid himself, was sitting and talking, and he says, you know, Rav Zalman Zazmer is much greater than me. And he said, you know, just like the brain of the cat compared to me, that's how my brain is compared to him. And then he added, it's not like that. It's not that my brain that the cat's brain to me and my brain to the to Rav Zalman Zazmer. לגבי רב זלמן זזמר, my brain and the cat's brain are the same. Why? Because he said that his brain is so be'ein erech, so without comparison, that lower and higher, it's all the same. It's in a complete different category. It's like, it says in Tanya an example, he says, you find certain things that you can't even say that it's not because it's completely not in the category. Just for instance, if someone would come and say, you know, that the idea that this person said is so deep, you can't even touch it. It's true, but it makes no sense. Touching is completely different world than seichel, to say, it's so deep that the greatest scholars couldn't understand it, because it's in the category of understanding. But it's not at all in the category of touching. If you can't even say that, same thing here. Certain things which are not in the category at all. And therefore, Hashem compared to the world, the world that He created, it's be'ein erech, and therefore there is no difference whether it's a כלל or a פרט. So why would we say that Hashem would get involved in taking care of the כלל, that, in Yiddish we would say, dos past im, that fits him, after all, it's a very major thing. But the small little details about the leaf, that He wouldn't. For Hashem, the leaf is as important or as unimportant as the made the most major event that happened in the world. So if He lowered Himself for whatever reason He had, that He wants to take care of the general happenings of the world, the wars of the world, and things like that, then why wouldn't He take care of the small things? What is the difference? And besides, if we're going to say that there are certain things which are not hashgacha pratis, which Hashem Himself doesn't take care, then what we're really saying is that there is something which is actually separate from Hashem. There is a place, an event, where Hashem is not found. That's what we're saying. Hashem doesn't take care of it, and this is happening, so to speak, by itself. This is the complete opposite of what our fundamental belief is, that מלא כל הארץ כבודו, the world is full of His glory, of His honor, there is nothing that is separate from Him. אין עוד מלבדו, there is nothing but Him. So how could there be something where He is not involved? And therefore we have to say that everything that happens in the world, every place, every thing, every event, everything is connected to Him, is from Him, and therefore you must say that He takes care of everything. The question is only, what was the opinion of the גדולי ישראל before that said that there was no hashgacha pratis, it's only hashgacha klalis?

Now the truth is, there is a maamar from the Mitteler Rebbe where he writes that the Rambam, when he wrote that there is no hashgacha pratis on all things of the world, he was talking from a different level. And he explains על פי קבלה that from a different level, from a different way of looking, in that level there is no hashgacha pratis. And that's what the Rambam meant, but in truth the Rambam himself also held of hashgacha pratis. Now first of all, some might say, this is all kabbalistic, and it has nothing to do with the Rambam, because we know that the Rambam did not study Kabbalah, and that is the way it's known in the world, that the Rambam did not study Kabbalah. But the truth is this is not the way we know it. We have a Kabbalah, a tradition from the Baal Shem Tov, that the Rambam did learn Kabbalah. Some say the Rambam didn't learn, and there is the difference between the Rambam and the Ramban, that the Ramban did and the Rambam didn't, but we know that the Rambam did learn Kabbalah. He just didn't put it openly into his sefer, but in the sefer, especially Moreh Nevuchim, there is a lot, a lot of Kabbalah, and there are a lot of things explained in Moreh Nevuchim which superficially are not understood, things which many of the commentaries ask, and the Rambam seems not to fit to what we know usually is true, and that's why certain times certain people burnt the Moreh Nevuchim. But in sefarim it explained how the Rambam is founded on Kabbalah, and a lot of the things he writes fit to what it says in Kabbalah. And therefore it makes sense that the Rambam wrote something which is according to Kabbalah. But in truth there is another point that I'd like to make here. We find that certain understanding in the unity of Hashem, especially in the concept of understanding what Hashem is, it's hard to use this term, but I just don't have any other words, it was developed that people should understand more and more as the generations pass. As it gets closer to Mashiach, and Mashiach will come, it says ונגלה כבוד השם, the whole world will recognize the truth. So as time passes, things were developed in the understanding of the Yidden in what it means the truth of Hashem, that from generation to generation things became clearer and clearer. Now, I'll give an example. The Rambam says in Hilchot Teshuva that anybody who says that God has a body, he's an apikores. God has some form of body, he's an apikores, a min. And the Raavad writes on the Rambam, how could the Rambam say that you are a min? an apikorus if you believe so, הלא גדולים וטובים ממנו, greater people than the Rambam believed that, that Hashem is a בעל גוף, השם has some form of a body. So how could the Rambam say that if you believe that way you're an apikorus? Now, the Raavad himself doesn't hold that way. He's just saying you can't label them an apikorus because there were great people that believed that way. Now, what does that mean? Anybody nowadays who'll say Hashem has a body will definitely be considered an apikorus. Now, here we see that before the Rambam there were people who believed that way. Now, what it means is that as time passed, the understanding in the truth of Hashem became more developed and more developed in such a way that what was and understood in one way before, later if you believe that, you are considered an apikorus. What before the Rambam people thought was right, the Rambam labels him as a מין. But after all, what did they think? I mean, what did the people before the Rambam, and as the Raavad titles them גדולים וטובים, greater than the Rambam, what did they think? So, just in short, what they thought was, and was true, what is the problem? Why do we have to say that there is hashgacha pratis? We said before, because otherwise there is something that separates from Hashem. And Hashem creates everything, and how is it possible he shouldn't be mashgiach? If Hashem made it and he's creating it now again, so how is it possible he's not taking If he's creating, he's taking care. This whole kushya, this whole problem that we have to say that there is no hashgacha pratis, is all based on our limits. According to our understanding, it's a contradiction. If Hashem creates it and Hashem is all over, how is it possible that he's not mashgiach? If he doesn't take care of it, it's a contradiction to the fact that he is all over. The whole idea of a contradiction in logic is in our logic, which logic itself was created by Hashem. But in truth, who says that this logic is true in essence? So, in essence, it's possible that Hashem is all over, makes everything happen, and at the same time is doesn't take care of it. Ay, it makes no sense, it's a contradiction, it makes no sense in my mind, in our minds, because contra to us there is there is a concept of contradiction, but Hashem himself, there is no contradiction. And that's what they believed. They said that even though it sounds like Hashem is not there, no, Hashem is all over, Hashem is in everything, and still they say there is no hashgacha pratis and it's no contradiction. And the same with the other thing with Hashem being some form of a body. A form of a body is a limit to Hashem. So, they said, well, it's a contradiction to be bli gvul, unlimited, and at the same time to be limited. To us it's a contradiction, but in truth, how do you know it's not like that? So, it wasn't, God forbid, in a lack of emunah in Hashem that they believed that there's no hashgacha pratis. It came from their emunah, and they said to because Hashem is so great, he's beyond anything, so you can have hashgacha pratis and at the same time you can have not hashgacha pratis, at the same time, should be all over. But the Baal Shem Tov came and said that according to that it comes out that the whole concept of of of Hashem being all over is not within the framework of creation. In other words, within the limitations of creation it cannot happen. Baal Shem Tov said that even within the limitations of creation where there is such a thing as a contradiction, even there he is all over. And there it cannot be unless he actually is mashgiach, unless he actually takes care. I don't know if I'm getting this the point across. It's Hashem beyond the creation, from his perspective, that there is no contradiction. It could be that he's all over and he makes everything happen, and at the same time he doesn't take care of it. Now, how, I don't understand, but from our perspective it's impossible. And Hashem is all over even from our perspective. And therefore the Baal Shem Tov says that everything is b'hashgacha pratis. The only thing which is possible to use the term, if you want, that it's not hashgacha pratis, is the human race, just the opposite of what they say. They say everything is not hashgacha pratis, just the human race or mainly Yidden. And in truth, what we could say, what it seems, is that the only thing which is not b'hashgacha pratis is connected to the human race, meaning anything that has to do with Torah and mitzvot. That's where bechirah chofshit comes in, free choice. Hashem gave us free choice to choose whether to do good or to do bad. So, anything that's connected to good or bad, mitzvah or not a mitzvah, mitzvah and aveirah, that's where he lets us do, הכל בידי שמים חוץ מיראת שמים, everything is in the hands of Hashem, yirat shamayim not. Or as it says in פרקי אבות, הרשות נתונה, השם gives us the right, the permission, the ability, but not because Hashem can't control us when we want to do a mitzvah. He just decided not to control us. It was his own will. Hashem decided that when it comes to doing good or doing bad, he will not control us. And here we do have to use the explanation that they had that seems a contradiction. So it means that there is a place where Hashem is not. In our action of whether to choose good or to choose bad, Hashem is not there. Or we're saying it's not a contradiction, because that's the way Hashem wanted it. Hashem wanted that it should be this way, but hashgachah pratit is normally Hashem, doesn't say Hashem wanted it. But here it said Hashem wanted to give us free choice, so he, so to speak, turned himself away, pulled himself away, and said, \"You choose.\" But why are you able to choose? Because, \"I give you the power to choose.\" So it's Hashem's will that we should choose. And here too we have to use the idea that Hashem that is beyond contradiction, because in truth, a lot of times, you have certain actions which is a combination of two. It's a combination of a mitzvah and therefore there is free choice in the person whether they should do it or not, and at the same time, this affects other people and by them, there is no free choice. A lot of times, you have certain actions which is a combination of two. It's a combination of a mitzvah and therefore there is free choice in the person whether they should do it or not, and at the same time, this affects other people and by them, there is no free choice. It's similar to what the Alter Rebbe says, that when somebody gets hit from somebody else, so he said like this, you shouldn't be angry at the person who hit you, because it's hashgachah pratit. Hashem did it. You got hit, Hashem did it. You didn't choose, it wasn't a question of a mitzvah that you should do, something happened to you. It's not free choice, it's Hashem doing it to you. If that's Hashem doing it to you, then why be angry at the guy who did it? He's only a shaliach of Hashem. Which in truth we find it in Tanach when he cursed, what's his name, cursed David HaMelech. Shimi ben Gera cursed David HaMelech, he said, \"כי ה׳ אמר לו קלל.\" Hashem said to him that he should curse. Where did Hashem say? Because David from his perspective said, \"I got cursed, so Hashem wanted me to get cursed.\" But at the same time, that person will be punished for doing it. Why? Because for him it was a question of doing the right thing or the wrong thing. It's free choice. Now here we have one act that is free choice and not free choice at the same time. And this is true. The Torah says that when it comes to a mitzvah there is free choice. What's the facts? Torah says, we know it's true. We know that everything has hashgachah pratit, so therefore they're both true. And here we do have to come onto this idea that there is a question of how it's possible, is beyond contradiction. But if Hashem says that you have free choice, he said you have free choice. The question of Hashem knowing what's going to happen and that should contradict free choice, that's not a question. The Rambam does say that. The Rambam says that if Hashem knows what's going to happen, so he knows what you're going to choose, so how do you have free choice? And the Rambam says therefore it's beyond our understanding. \"כי לא מחשבותי מחשבותיכם,\" we can't understand it. Comes the Raavad and says, \"I don't know the Rambam,\" he says, \"if you didn't know the answer, why'd you write the question? כי לא נהג כמנהג החכמים, you don't ask a question if you don't know the answer.\" And he answers it, and the simple answer is that it's not a contradiction, because Hashem knows what you are going to choose. Just like we human beings, after a person chose, we know what he chose. Hashem, who is beyond time, knows before what he's going to choose, but it didn't affect him, it didn't influence him. Here comes in the famous story, everyone knows the story of Rabbi Yehonatan Eibeshitz. The famous story that once, the king who was very friendly with Rabbi Yehonatan Eibeshitz, used to always have discussions with him, once asked him this question. Said, \"You believe that there is free choice?\" \"Yes.\" \"You believe Hashem knows everything?\" \"Yes.\" \"So how do the two fit?\" So Rabbi Yehonatan Eibeshitz says to him, \"I'll show you.\" He says like this, the king was planning to make a visit to a certain city. That city had two gates, two entrances: one a big one, one a small one. And he said, \"You have a choice to go whichever one you want. I tell you now, I know where you're going to go, and you'll tell me later if you were influenced where to go.\" So he made him write down on a piece of paper, something, sealed it up, they locked it up. Then when the time came, the king traveled to that city. He came to that city, and obviously everyone expected him to come through the big gate, and it was decorated. The king with all the entourage came to the gate, gave an order to stop. They all stopped. The king was thinking, \"Rabbi Yehonatan Eibeshitz for sure thought I would go through this gate. I'll show him.\" Made everybody turn around and go through the other side. They didn't know what the king wanted, anyway, he went to the other side, came to the gate and he stopped, started thinking, \"Probably he was as smart as I am, he knew that I'll\" \"I'm going to special not go to the big one, I'll go to the small one. I'll show him!\" Made everybody go back. Came back to the first gate. Again he stopped, and he said, \"Well, he's probably as smart as I am.\" And he went back and forth, and back and forth, and couldn't decide. And he's thinking, \"You bet I wasn't influenced. You bet I have free choice. I just couldn't decide.\" Then he thinks to himself, \"I have an idea.\" Calls some people, says, \"Make a new gate. Break through the wall. Make a new gate.\" Broke through the gate, they all went through. Called Rabbi' Yehonatan Eibeshitz, \"Bring the piece of paper.\" All Rabbi' Yehonatan Eibeshitz wrote, he quoted a Gemara. The Gemara says, \"מלך פורץ גדר ואין מוחין בידו.\" A king is able to break through, make to make to break through a wall, break through a fence, and no one can stop him. It's an expression in the Gemara. And he says, Rabbi' Yehonatan says to him, \"You see? I knew what you were going to choose.\" Now, how he knew, I really don't know, whether it was ruach hakodesh, because he was a great tzadik, or he was smart, such a smart man, he knew the psychology of the king and he realized what the end is going to be. But whatever it is, he knew what he was going to choose. But still, it didn't influence him, because he just knew, as a person, he knew what's going to happen. Hashem knows what we're going to choose, and therefore, it doesn't influence us, and that's not a problem. So, knowing, the knowledge of Hashem, and our choosing is no contradiction. What would be a contradiction is if Hashem is mashgiach. If Hashem takes control and makes everything happen, and at the same time Hashem says, \"You have free choice,\" these two are two opposites: or He makes it happen, or you choose yourself. So there are a lot of different explanations, especially in Chasidut, but the simple one is that in these matters where Hashem gave us free choice, He actually does not push us to do. But not because He can't, there's something that He's lacking, it's because He wanted us to have the free choice in order for us to get reward, and God forbid punishment, whatever it is. That's why He did it. But we still have to understand, when you have the same thing which comes from free choice, and it affects, at the same time, that same act affects somebody else or something else, and for that person it's definitely hashgacha pratit, how do these two things fit? Well, that's something that we have to say that since Hashem said that you have free choice, and on the other hand looking at it from his point of view, from the point of view of the other person, it definitely is hashgacha pratit, and the two come together, yes, ai it's a contradiction, like I said before, Hashem is beyond contradiction. But that's where Hashem made it clear that there is choice, but in things where there is no free choice, here the Baal Shem Tov came and said that it's not so. There is no need to say that there is a contradiction and Hashem is beyond the contradiction. That could be true, but from our perspective of this world, being in this world, we are within the level of these contradictions, so in order to say that Hashem from our perspective is all over, then you have to say that everything is hashgacha pratit. The only question that might come up is, if everything comes from Hashem, where does evil come in the world? I'm not talking about people being evil, which is part of good and bad, which is from free choice, but when bad things happen to a person or to people. We know that Hashem is only good. כולו טוב. אין רע יורד מן השמים. Nothing bad comes from heaven. So where does bad come if everything is השגחה פרטית and Hashem makes everything happen? And the answer is, everything is good. Everything is good! There's no such thing as something bad happened to a person. We know the famous story of Nachum Ish Gamzu, where he said on everything, \"גם זו לטובה.\" This is also for the good, something that looks terrible. We know the statement of Rabbi Akiva, where he says, \"כל מאי דעביד, עביד רחמנא לטב עביד.\" Whatever Hashem does is for the good. That's why there's a מדרש פליאה they claim, I never saw it inside, the Midrash says that tzadikim always eat מן הגזל ואומרים כדרלעומר. They eat from gezel, they eat means from stealing, and they say כדרלעומר. So I heard a peshat: gezel is an abbreviation: גם זו לטובה. So whatever they eat is good, they always say, \"גם זו לטובה.\" And they say כדרלעומר is כל דעביד רחמנא לטב עביד. Everything Hashem does is for the good.

Now, in that itself, there are different levels. Sometimes we say, when Hashem does it for the good, that means it's going to lead you to good. For instance, it's going to cleanse the person. It could be a punishment and it's bad, but it's for the benefit of the person. So at this point it's good, but it's גם זו לטובה, it's for a good purpose. Then there is another level, when you say it's good really, not just for the good, in itself it's good, but we just don't see it. It's good it's In disguise. It's good in disguise, like a child sometimes doesn't understand what an adult does, and it looks bad and really it's good. Or sometimes you can have somebody give you a beracha, a blessing, in a language that you don't understand, and it's possible that in your language that same word happens to be a curse. So you listen to the guy, the guy is cursing you, and really he's giving you a beracha. But you you don't understand the language, it's covered. The first way is that it's actually not good, but it's for the good. The second way is that it's good in disguise. And then there's a third way that it's even better than good, it's such a high level of good that it cannot come down into this world in the form of good, it has to be hidden, whether it's too great, or whether it has to be hidden from the Satan. We find sometimes in Torah that certain great things came down to this world, but it had to be hidden from the Satan, the Satan shouldn't get involved and do some harm. Like for instance, it says why is it that David HaMelech, Mashiach, born from first of all from Ruth, starting descendants of Ruth, who was a convert and her parents were all goyim? Going back even earlier, it all comes from Yehuda and Tamar, which was not such a beautiful story. So it says that Hashem made it so that that great neshama should come down, that the Satan shouldn't be able to get involved and stop it. Even Moshe Rabbeinu himself, Moshe Rabbeinu was born from a marriage that had that marriage taken place after the Torah was given, hard to say, but Moshe Rabbeinu would have been a ממזר. Because the father married his aunt, and that's חייב כרת, and the child now from a marriage of a nephew and an aunt, child is a ממזר. But before Matan Torah it wasn't forbidden. But why did Hashem make it such a great neshamah should come down to such a marriage which is definitely not nice after after Matan Torah, that would be forbidden, forbidden of karet? So it says because Hashem didn't want that the Satan, the בית דין של מעלה, whatever it is, should take pay too much attention to such a great revelation and then they would get involved. And Hashem set up, we call it the סדר השתלשלות, that there is a בית דין של מעלה and there is a Satan, and what they say, Hashem put Himself in that position that He should listen to them. He didn't want him to get involved, He brought it down that way. And the same thing here, sometimes good comes down in the world at such great level of good that it has to be hidden. So it's hidden in a form that it looks like it's bad. But these are three ways, three ways of looking at it, or three times, three types of things happen, and the difference is how a person accepts it. The first level, a person will accept, he'll accept it, he knows it's for the good, he'll accept it. The second thing, which is actually good in itself, is accepted b'simcha, with joy. And the third way, you would accept it with more joy than you accept something that's good, because you know this is even a greater good. And because of that we find that tzadikim, they never felt that there was anything bad that happened to them. We know the famous story of Rav Zusha that once there was a a person came to the Mezritcher Magid and said to him, \"I learned in the Gemara that you have to accept the bad like the good with the same simcha. How is it possible? How could a person accept the bad with the same simcha as good?\" So he said, \"You know what? Go to the beit midrash there, I have a talmid sitting there, his name is Zusha. Ask him the question.\" So he went into the beit midrash and he looked for Rav Zusha and he sat down next to him, and he says, \"The Rebbe sent me to ask you a question.\" Fine. \"The Rebbe said to explain to me how could a person accept the bad the same way as you accept the good with the same simcha, or even more?\" And Rav Zusha was known to be very, very poor, he was sick, he had problems in the family, all the tzarot in the world you can imagine. And Rav Zusha looks at him, he says, \"I really don't understand why the Rebbe sent you to me. He should send you to a person that that experienced bad and therefore he can be able to explain to you how you could accept the bad as a good. I never experienced bad. I have no idea what this means.\"