Not Every Trial Is a Hardship | 5 Types of Trials Every Person Goes Through in Life

00:00 Today we’re going to talk about different kinds of tests with which Hakadosh Boruch Hu tests a person, as we find in the Torah. As we discussed, every morning we ask, “Do not bring us to a test.” A Jew asks Hakadosh Boruch Hu not to bring us to a test, so that we can serve Him in peace, quiet, and tranquility. But in real life, there are tests. And as we discussed, their purpose is not to put obstacles in our way. It is not to trap us or break us. On the contrary, the tests are there to strengthen us, to awaken the hidden, deep, powerful inner strength within us. As we discussed, the Hebrew word for a test, nisayon, is related to nes, a banner—something raised up: “Raise my banner upon the mountains.” Through a test, a person rises, grows stronger, and discovers that deep inner strength, as explained in Chassidus. We’ll talk more about that later. But today we’re going to discuss different kinds of tests. When we look in the Torah, we find the subject of tests in several places, and in each place the test is of a different kind. It’s fascinating to compare them. Each of us encounters these different kinds of tests at various times and in various situations in our lives. As we’ve said, their purpose is only to strengthen us and bring us to a higher place in life. These five kinds of tests are explained in maamarim of Chassidus. The Tzemach Tzedek mentions them briefly, and the Rebbe Rashab explains them at greater length in the last maamar he delivered on his birthday, 20 Cheshvan 5680. It is a very powerful, wonderful maamar on the verse, “You gave those who fear You a banner to raise because of truth, selah,” from chapter 60 of Tehillim. That year, on 20 Cheshvan 5680, the Rebbe Rashab entered his sixtieth year. In other words,

02:32 he turned fifty-nine and began his sixtieth year. Following the custom of the Baal Shem Tov to recite the chapter of Tehillim corresponding to the year of life a person is entering, he began chapter 60. That is why he wrote and delivered a maamar of Chassidus on this verse. It’s also worth mentioning an interesting story: the Rebbe Rashab delivered this maamar privately to his only son. A few months later, that same year, the Rebbe Rashab passed away and ascended to heaven, and his only son, the Frierdiker Rebbe, assumed the leadership. So this maamar was delivered by father to son in an intimate, private way. When he delivered it, he also told him that one should deliver maamarim of Chassidus on one’s birthday. May Hakadosh Boruch Hu grant that you, too, be able to deliver maamarim of Chassidus on your birthday, and that it be with kindness and mercy. Interestingly, the Frierdiker Rebbe relates that this blessing, this promise, was fulfilled exactly seven years later. That was in 5680, and seven years later, in 5687, on 12 Tammuz—the Frierdiker Rebbe’s birthday—he was released from arrest. That very day, 12 Tammuz, became a festival, the Festival of Liberation. From that year onward, every year, the Frierdiker Rebbe would deliver maamarim of Chassidus at the great farbrengens for the Festival of Liberation on 13 Tammuz. So what the Rebbe had told him came to pass. And what’s even more interesting is that the subject of that maamar was tests. Seven years later, when the Frierdiker Rebbe was released from arrest, he, too, spoke about those same themes in many of his 12 Tammuz maamarim. After all, 12 Tammuz marked one of the most difficult tests for the Jewish people in that difficult period. Through the Frierdiker Rebbe and the battles he waged against

04:50 the Communists, he stood with courage, prevailed, and showed the whole world that a test is not truly an independent reality. When a Jew strengthens himself and awakens his innermost, essential strengths, he not only succeeds in overcoming the test; the test itself becomes nothing, and indeed, darkness turns into light. That is what happened on that 12 Tammuz. Many of the Frierdiker Rebbe’s 12 Tammuz maamarim discuss tests, and at his 12 Tammuz farbrengens the Rebbe also spoke extensively about tests and what they mean in our lives today, in our time. So today we’ll try to go through at least the five kinds of tests found in the Torah, and explain how they appear in our lives. The first test that appears in the Torah is, “And G-d tested Avraham.” We all know what Pirkei Avos says: Avraham Avinu was tested with ten tests. There were ten tests. In fact, according to some earlier opinions, the tests began back in Ur Kasdim, when he was thrown into the fiery furnace for publicizing the name of Hakadosh Boruch Hu—the story with Nimrod. Lech Lecha. There are ten tests in the Torah, but there is only one time when the Torah uses the word “test”: the test that most commentators consider the last one, the test of the Akeidah, the tenth test. “And G-d tested Avraham.” That is the first kind of test. The second kind of test in the Torah we find in Parshas Beshalach: “There He established for him a statute and an ordinance, and there He tested him”; “so that I may test him, whether he will walk in My Torah or not.” This was when the Jewish people left Egypt. There we find the second kind of test: tests in matters of Torah and mitzvos, and material hardships and challenges that can sometimes weaken a person’s observance of Torah and mitzvos. It takes strength to stand up to them. We’ll come back

07:23 to that. The third test is especially interesting, precisely because we wouldn’t have thought of it as a test at all, but the Torah does call it a test. It happened at Matan Torah. After Matan Torah, in Parshas Yisro, following the Ten Commandments, it says, “And Moshe said, ‘Do not be afraid.’” The Jewish people were frightened by the sounds and lightning, the sound of the shofar, and the wondrous Divine revelation at Matan Torah. Hakadosh Boruch Hu tells Moshe to say to the Jewish people, “Do not be afraid, for G-d has come in order to test you.” A test. What exactly was the test of Matan Torah? “G-d has come in order to test you, and so that His fear will be upon your faces always.” The commentators offer many explanations, but let’s go straight to the Ramban, Rabbi Moshe ben Nachman. He explains that Matan Torah really did involve a test. What exactly was it? Interestingly, he says there were actually two tests, not just one, and both are alluded to in this verse. One, he says, is a test through closeness—not a test of hardship or challenge, but a completely different kind of test. It is called a test through closeness. The Ramban says that a master will sometimes test his servant’s abilities by drawing him close, showing him love and affection, and giving him things of great importance, depth, and intimacy. He expects a response in keeping with that closeness: that the servant will appreciate it and serve with much greater enthusiasm and strength. That is what happened at Matan Torah. Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself was revealed to the Jewish people—not through an angel, not through a seraph, not through an emissary. “And Hashem descended upon Mount Sinai”—He Himself, in His glory. The wondrous Divine revelation and the love with which Hakadosh Boruch Hu drew us close—“And You, our King, drew us close to Your service”—the great closeness that Hashem showed

09:43 For us, that itself should stir a Jew to serve Hakadosh Boruch Hu with enthusiasm, with love, with care in fulfilling the mitzvos, and in a wonderful way. And the fourth test, which was also at the giving of the Torah, appears later in the verse: “So that His fear may be upon your faces always.” The fourth test is one connected with the yetzer hara, a test we all know: the tests involving fear of Heaven, fear of G-d, whether a Jew is mindful that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is present, watching him, and that his behavior matters to Him—or whether he follows the yetzer hara and the desires of his heart. About this, too, the verse says, “For G-d has come to test you.” What does it say next? “So that His fear may be upon your faces, so that you do not sin.” In other words, fear of Heaven—not sinning, not committing transgressions, because a Jew is connected to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. So we have the test of the struggle with the yetzer hara. The fourth test—the fifth and final one—we find in the book of Devarim, in Parshas Re’eh. There the Torah tells us that sometimes we may see a prophet arise among us and perform signs and wonders, and he will have powers. He will be a person with spiritual powers, with all kinds of prophecies or acts of magic, or he will say that things will happen and it looks as though they do. That can cause many people to be drawn after him. This, too, is a test. There are tests of faith: tests in which Hakadosh Boruch Hu makes it seem as though there are people who do not serve Hashem—on the contrary, they worship idols—and yet they succeed and perform all kinds of miracles, wonders, and extraordinary things. We might think it worthwhile to associate with those people. About this, too, the Torah says, “For Hashem your G-d is testing you, to know what is in your heart”: whether your heart will turn to serving other gods, G-d forbid, whether this will lead to idol worship—or to serving Hashem. So we have found

11:59 five kinds of tests in the Torah. Let’s translate that into everyday life. We’ll start with the first test. What exactly was the test of the Akeidah? The Akeidah is considered the most important test in history. So much so that we mention it in our prayers every single day. Halachah says that we should read the passage of the Akeidah every day, and there is a prayer that goes with it. In other words, the passage of the Akeidah is considered something extremely important to the Jewish people, something fundamental for all generations. That is the one place in Avraham Avinu’s life where it says, “And G-d tested Avraham.” Hakadosh Boruch Hu put Avraham Avinu to the test. What exactly was the test of the Akeidah? There is the well-known question: Why is this considered a test? What was difficult about it? Avraham Avinu was a person wholly devoted to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Avraham Avinu was a Jew whose whole being was one of mesirus nefesh. At the age of 137, the age at which Avraham Avinu went to the Akeidah, was Hakadosh Boruch Hu only now testing him? He had already gone through many tests in his life. What is special about this test that we call it the test of the Akeidah? Chassidus explains this, though the Ramban had already introduced the idea. The Ramban says that the test of the Akeidah was a test to reveal what was in Avraham Avinu’s heart. And here we need the explanations of Chassidus. There is a wonderful explanation given—or rather, written—by the holy tzaddik Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Vitebsk, or, as chassidim call him, Reb Mendel of Horodok. Rabbi Menachem Mendel was a student of the Maggid of Mezritch; some say he also saw the Baal Shem Tov. The Alter Rebbe is considered his student and colleague, and there are many stories. But what Reb Menachem Mendel of Horodok writes is this: He asks, seemingly, if Hakadosh Boruch Hu asks any person—especially a righteous person—to do something, surely he will do

14:14 it willingly. What exactly was the test of the Akeidah? After all, every tzaddik has mesirus nefesh. But here we see something beyond that. There are many explanations, but he writes an interesting one. He says that the test of the Akeidah was that Avraham would not question it in his mind. The test was not simply giving himself over, giving his life; that is not exactly what is difficult for a tzaddik. What was difficult for Avraham Avinu was the contradiction that had now arisen. Hakadosh Boruch Hu had promised Avraham Avinu that he would have a son and that the chosen people would come from him. A son who would establish a people, who would go on to conquer the world. They would be Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s chosen people, bringing Divine light into the world through Torah and mitzvos. “For through Yitzchak shall your offspring be called”—that is what Hakadosh Boruch Hu told Avraham Avinu. And now Hakadosh Boruch Hu suddenly comes and tells him to take his only son, born to him when he was a hundred years old—ninety-nine years old—actually, at a hundred years old, and tells him to take this child and do what? Bring him to the Akeidah. This goes completely against the whole essence, the whole foundation, the whole basis of everything. G-d forbid, if it had happened as it appeared, there would have been no continuation of the Jewish people at all. And despite that, “You found his heart faithful before You.” The test of the Akeidah is the hardest test because it is a test of loyalty. It tests whether, for even a moment, you suspect that Hakadosh Boruch Hu might change His mind or might not be faithful to you—that He told you something and is not keeping His word. And Avraham Avinu not only did not question it in his mind; the Alter Rebbe adds that we see that he went—“And Avraham rose early in the morning”—he went with alacrity.

16:16 A person who gets up early in the morning and sets out with alacrity is full of energy, completely devoted to what he is doing. How could that be? This was, in fact, Avraham Avinu’s greatest test: a situation that, on the face of it, seemed to run counter to the entire basis of his faith in Hakadosh Boruch Hu. It was as though it would shatter that entire foundation. And even then he said, “I give myself over to Hakadosh Boruch Hu.” That is what happened with Avraham Avinu. Although Hakadosh Boruch Hu told him something that, on the face of it, seemed completely opposite to everything He had said until then, Avraham Avinu did not question it—not even in his mind. He had no doubts, no second thoughts at all. He went with all his energy to do what Hakadosh Boruch Hu had asked of him. This is the first test in our lives. As it says in the Midrash and in Chassidus, Hakadosh Boruch Hu does not give this test to everyone, only to the souls of great tzaddikim. It is not an ordinary test. To face such inner turmoil and not let it disturb you—and, more than that, not to question it, but to do what is asked with joy and a glad heart—requires a very high spiritual level. But this is the first test that appears in the Torah. The second test, as we said, in Parshas Beshalach, concerns more ordinary tests, ones that happen to every one of us. This includes the whole subject of the test of wealth, the test of poverty, and the test of hardships: sometimes Hakadosh Boruch Hu places challenges in our lives, and those challenges can break us. We have to be very strong and say, “No, this will not break me. I am stronger.” Why am I stronger? Because I believe. We must awaken our faith in Hakadosh Boruch Hu and understand, with tremendous trust, that things will certainly be good, that Hakadosh Boruch Hu

18:15 He cares for me, He watches over me, He will take care of me and continue to take care of me. To go through life with that clarity, with a person’s inner connection to himself—the inner connection of a Jew to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. To say, “I’m certain: if Hakadosh Boruch Hu said it would be this way, I have no doubt.” That, in fact, is what most of the tests we face in life are about. That’s what happened to the first generation. The test of the manna, the test of the rock—when the Jewish people were in the desert, these were their tests. Hakadosh Boruch Hu tested them: Was their faith strong? Was their connection strong? Were they certain that Hakadosh Boruch Hu would fulfill what He told them? Every Jew faces many tests of this kind in life. Getting up in the morning, not getting up in the morning, going to sleep, going to sleep, going about your day, doing things. Am I using my time properly or not? The third test, the test of closeness to G-d, is different from all the others. Usually, as we said, a test means difficulty. It’s when things aren’t going well, when things seem very hard to me, get in my way, oppose me, interfere with me and confuse me. Here it’s the opposite. Sometimes the test comes precisely from closeness. Hakadosh Boruch Hu brings me so close, gives me so much, bestows so much upon me and shows me such a shining countenance. The natural response should be what King Shlomo says in Mishlei: “As water reflects a face to a face, so the heart of one person reflects another.” If someone shows you a loving face, instinctively and naturally you respond with a loving face. How much more so when Hakadosh Boruch Hu shows us love and closeness. How close we should feel to Him, serving Him with joy, with a shining countenance, with love, with hiddur—doing the mitzvos not merely to meet our obligation. And that is what happened at Matan Torah: “For G-d has come to test you”

20:20 —that is what the verse says. Hakadosh Boruch Hu could have conveyed His will and His mitzvos through Moshe Rabbeinu. There would have been no need for the whole great event of Matan Torah, the thunder and lightning, the sound of the shofar, and Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself descending upon Mount Sinai with the angels. Why did He do all that? He could have passed on the message through Moshe: Start putting on tefillin; wear tzitzis. But He didn’t do it that way. He Himself, in all His glory, revealed Himself at Matan Torah in the most powerful and impressive way possible. What was the message? What was the purpose? “For G-d has come to test you,” the verse says. To uplift us, to give us strength, to fortify us. “And so that”-- so this, in fact, gives us the ability to serve Him with so much more. And that itself is the third test. The test is that Hakadosh Boruch Hu gives us such abundance: Do we reflect the light back in the way it was given to us, or do we take it for ourselves without expressing it, without doing anything with it—without grasping its depth? So this third test is a test of closeness. Then comes the fourth test, mentioned in that same verse. “For G-d has come to test you,” and the verse continues, “and so that the fear of Him will be upon your faces all the days.” Matan Torah was also a kind of test for the future. At the moment of Matan Torah there was an extraordinary Divine revelation, and it led the Jewish people to accept and observe the Torah with all their love, with all their heart and with all their feeling. But the moment after Matan Torah, when the Shechinah departed from Mount Sinai—“When the shofar sounds a long blast, they may ascend the mountain”—the Shechinah departed, and the world returned to its natural state. So did the Jewish people forget that connection? Regarding this, it is said

22:11 that the purpose of the revelation at Matan Torah, besides what we discussed earlier—the idea of “as water reflects a face to a face”—was also to enable us to serve Hakadosh Boruch Hu and fight the yetzer hara. The yetzer hara pursues us all the time, morning and evening, especially in the morning. It wants to distance us from a life of Torah and mitzvos, from observing Torah and mitzvos, and convince us that there is something tastier, better, sweeter, more appealing. And here, too, is a test connected with Matan Torah: Through Matan Torah we received the message that there are tests, that there is a yetzer hara pursuing you. “For Hashem your G-d is testing you, to know.” The test is meant to help you become stronger, more G-d-fearing, more connected to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Then there is the fifth test, the one the Torah speaks about in Parshas Re’eh: “For Hashem your G-d is testing you, to know.” This is the test of situations—things that happen in the world that seek to distance us from a life of Torah and mitzvos. Here we have to be very strong. There is a constant tendency in the world to persecute the Jew, belittle him and cause him, G-d forbid, not to observe Torah and mitzvos. These are the tests we face. It is a test in matters of faith: Sometimes it looks as though things are going better for the other side, while on this side I face more obstacles, more contempt. That can cause a person to forget who Hakadosh Boruch Hu is and who runs the world. This is the final test: “For Hashem your G-d is testing you, to know.” Hakadosh Boruch Hu places us in all kinds of situations where the righteous suffer and the wicked prosper, where good people suffer and bad people do not. There are all kinds of difficult questions about how the world is governed and how nature works. We, too, have to be strong and know that this is part of a test. “For Hashem

24:20 your G-d is testing you, to know”—the whole purpose of tests is to lift us to a higher level: to know Hashem, to reflect, to delve deeply and to understand ever deeper layers of Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s Torah. Precisely when we understand that a test does not come to break us, but to awaken deeper strengths within us, we are truly on the right path. Then we can face each test, work through it fully and, through it, connect with our innermost selves. As we said, the main purpose of a test is to awaken the deeper, more inward strengths that each and every one of us has. With those strengths, we can draw closer to Hakadosh Boruch Hu with much more power, firmness and light. May Hashem shine upon each of us, and may these days be transformed into joy and gladness and festive occasions.