Challah Land, Not La-La Land: Emunah, Yediah, and the Simchah of Bitachon

Topics

• Challah Land, Not La-La Land: Emunah, Yediah, and the Simchah of Bitachon
• Can We Understand the Ribbono Shel Olam?
• Rav Elchonon Wasserman: Why Is Emunah Obligatory for a Thirteen-Year-Old?
• Yediah and Emunah: Knowing and Believing
• A Baltimore Bachur's Chiddush
• The Baltimore Bachur and the Inheritance of Emunah
• A Seriously Ill Woman with Extraordinary Bitachon
• A Woman Living with Emunah — and the Question of "Challah Land"
• The College Student and Endless Questions
• Another Call, This Time About a Daughter in College
• The Extraordinary Importance of Hafrashas Challah
• Challah and the Rejection of Avodah Zarah
• The Numerical Allusion to All the Mitzvos
• Challah Before Shabbos: Recognizing the Source of Our Parnassah
• The Yehi Ratzon Before Hafrashas Challah
• "Lech Echol B'Simchah Lachmecha": Bread and Joy
• From "La-La Land" to "Challah Land": The Inner Simchah of Emunah
• The Spiritual Power of a Mitzvah
• "Lech Echol B'Simchah Lachmecha"

Transcript

# Challah Land, Not La-La Land: Emunah, Yediah, and the Simchah of Bitachon

## Can We Understand the Ribbono Shel Olam?

Rabosai, I want to share a story that happened to me this week. I think it is an extraordinary story, but to appreciate it I need to give you a hakdamah.

I've been giving a shiur in **Derech Hashem**, the sefer of the **Ramchal**, to a group of bnei Torah. Derech Hashem begins with fundamental discussions of the Ribbono Shel Olam: His existence, His perfection, what it means to be the First Cause, and how all existence depends on Him.

We try to understand the Ramchal's words carefully. But I have been grappling with something inside myself.

How much can a person really understand about the Ribbono Shel Olam?

Isn't there something called **emunah peshutah**? We grew up speaking to the Ribbono Shel Olam as **Tatte**, Father. Do I need to turn that simple relationship into an entire philosophical system?

The Ramchal and the Rambam clearly teach that the foundations of emunah deserve careful understanding. I'm not minimizing that. But I keep asking myself: when all the explanations are finished, don't we return to **"Ribbono Shel Olam, I trust You"**?

Years ago, I asked **my Rebbe Rav Avraham Pam**, zichrono livrachah, a question in the **Chovos HaLevavos** about bitachon.

He told me, as I remember the conversation, that the Chovos HaLevavos can discuss tremendous depths of bitachon. But for ordinary people like us, we also need **simple bitachon**: the Ribbono Shel Olam is taking care of us, and we can trust Him.

That answer stayed with me.

We learn the Ramchal; we try to understand the **yesodos of emunah**. And at the same time, perhaps the most important thing is a simple heart that says, **"Tatte, I know You are here."**

## Rav Elchonon Wasserman: Why Is Emunah Obligatory for a Thirteen-Year-Old?

Now bring in the famous discussion of **Rav Elchonon Wasserman**, in **Kovetz Maamarim**, the maamar on emunah.

He asks a tremendous question.

The greatest thinkers of the world spent their lives debating the nature of existence and the Creator. Some brilliant philosophers never came to the clarity which Torah teaches.

And yet a Jewish child becomes **bar mitzvah at thirteen**, and from that moment he is obligated in the mitzvos, including the foundational obligation of emunah.

How could that be?

If belief in Hashem requires the greatest philosophical powers, how could the Torah obligate **every** bar daas, including a young boy, to attain it?

Rav Elchonon answers that the recognition of a Creator can be fundamentally **simple**. A person with ordinary understanding can see that the existence and order of creation point to the Ribbono Shel Olam.

So why can intelligent people fail to recognize it?

Rav Elchonon develops a mussar explanation using the Torah's principle that **shochad**, bribery, can distort a person's judgment. A person's desires and interests can influence what he is willing to accept.

Now, I want to be clear: this is Rav Elchonon's religious and mussar argument. It is not an empirical finding that every philosopher or scientist who questions religious belief is morally corrupt or incapable of rational thought.

But there is a powerful lesson for our own lives.

A person may not want to accept a conclusion because it would demand something difficult of him. The heart can interfere with the mind.

And that is how Rav Elchonon addresses the question. A child may be capable of a simpler recognition, while an adult's habits, ambitions and taivos can make acceptance much more complicated.

I have been trying to reconcile this **emunah peshutah** with the very deep and careful work we are doing in Derech Hashem.

Is emunah something we **know**, or something we **believe**?

Let's examine that, because the distinction will be vital for the story I want to tell you.

## Yediah and Emunah: Knowing and Believing

Now let's learn the words carefully.

The Rambam opens **Hilchos Yesodei HaTorah 1:1**:

**"יסוד היסודות ועמוד החכמות לידע שיש שם מצוי ראשון."**

The foundation of all foundations and the pillar of wisdom is **to know** that there is a First Existent.

The word is **leida**—to know.

But in **Sefer HaMitzvos, aseh aleph**, the Rambam describes the foundational mitzvah using the language of **emunah**, belief in the existence of the Divine Cause.

So which is it? **Yediah** or **emunah**?

Some discuss the different versions of the texts and whether the distinction is as sharp as it sounds. But it is a tremendous subject even before we settle that textual question.

I heard a fascinating account involving **Rav Shach**, **Rav Zvi Ezri**, and the **Brisker Rav**. [The exact source, names in the telling, and wording of the conversation need verification.]

Rav Shach asked: if the existence of a Borei Olam is clear to the person who sees the world, why do we call that **emunah**? Doesn't emunah ordinarily imply believing something beyond what one can directly see?

And the Brisker Rav is said to have distinguished two aspects.

Some things are **yediah**: truths a person can recognize and understand from the world around him.

But there are other matters, concerning the hidden worlds and the ways of the Ribbono Shel Olam, that cannot be directly grasped. There, **emunah** begins.

**Where yediah ends, emunah begins.**

Now I want to add another thought, something I have been trying to clarify in my own mind.

Even when a person has a strong intellectual understanding of a yesod in emunah, the process of asking questions never entirely ends. Answer one question, and another arises. Explain one problem, and somebody can ask something deeper.

So what is a person supposed to do?

I'm not saying abandon the pursuit of understanding. Chas v'shalom. Learn, ask, examine the Rambam, study the Ramchal. But realize that there are limits to what a finite mind can fully comprehend.

At the deepest level, **yediah and emunah work together**. We understand what we can, and we place our trust in Hashem beyond the point to which our understanding reaches.

This is the question that has been occupying my mind while I learn **Derech Hashem**.

And then something interesting happened.

### A Baltimore Bachur's Chiddush

During Pesach—I keep mixing up Pesach and Shavuos; forgive me!—a bachur from a yeshivah in **Baltimore** came to the shul.

We began talking about Rav Elchonon's kashya. How could a boy of thirteen be obligated in emunah, when the greatest philosophers spent lifetimes struggling with it?

The bachur, whose name I remember as **Spiro**, said something that opened my eyes.

Imagine! I've been learning the subject for years, and this young bachur gave me a sevara I had never thought of.

He asked: **How old was Avraham Avinu when he was makir es Boro, when he recognized his Creator?**

There are various teachings about the age at which Avraham recognized Hashem. We discussed traditions mentioning early childhood as well as other ages. The precise wording of the Rambam and the Midrashim, including differences in textual versions, must be checked; I don't want to flatten them into one date.

But in any case, he said, Avraham Avinu's ability to recognize Hashem was a central part of his spiritual greatness.

And we know the teaching of **Rav Chaim Volozhiner** in **Ruach Chaim**: when the Avos overcame their nisyonos and achieved certain madreigos, they established spiritual abilities which could be inherited by their descendants.

A Yid can show mesiras nefesh for Torah and for Kiddush Hashem because the Avos opened the path.

So the bachur suggested:

**Perhaps the ability to recognize the Ribbono Shel Olam through simple emunah is itself an inheritance from Avraham Avinu.**

Just as Avraham recognized his Creator, he left something of that capacity within his children.

Isn't that a beautiful thought?

I have never forgotten it, partly because of the content, and partly because a bachur taught it to me. A person can learn a sugya for years and still have his eyes opened by someone younger.

Now keep that sevara in mind, because it's going to connect with the extraordinary story that happened to me this week.

## The Baltimore Bachur and the Inheritance of Emunah

Let me return to what the bachur from Baltimore suggested.

We know from the teachings of **Rav Chaim Volozhiner** that the great achievements of the Avos established spiritual abilities that could continue in their descendants. Avraham Avinu faced tremendous nisyonos and passed a capacity for mesiras nefesh and devotion to Hashem to Klal Yisrael.

The bachur asked: **perhaps emunah is also one of those inherited capacities?**

Avraham Avinu was *makir es Boro*. He came to recognize his Creator. There are differing accounts concerning his age at that recognition, but the fundamental point is that he recognized Hashem and taught that understanding to the next generations.

Perhaps a young Yid is capable of **emunah peshutah** because Avraham established that capacity within his descendants.

I thought it was a magnificent sevara. The boy had opened my eyes to something I had not considered despite years of learning this sugya.

And I don't mean that this takes away the importance of studying the Rambam and the Ramchal. We must know what we can know, and we must strengthen our emunah. But not everything is resolved by philosophical analysis alone.

**Yediah and emunah work together.** What we understand gives us confidence, and emunah supports us where understanding ends.

Now I want to tell you how the Ribbono Shel Olam brought this entire question into my life this week.

## A Seriously Ill Woman with Extraordinary Bitachon

For the past several months, I have been involved with a family whose mother is very ill. There is a serious disease, and the family is discussing various medical procedures. Different doctors have different recommendations.

Everybody has an opinion: brothers, father, other relatives and doctors. Sometimes they call me, and I speak to physicians to try to help them understand the options.

But I keep asking one question: **what does the choleh herself want?**

She's a grown woman. She is the person facing these decisions. Yet all I seem to hear are the opinions of everyone around her.

And the family tells me something unusual. They say she is living with extraordinary **emunah and bitachon**. She is particular about **hafrashas challah**, and she believes that whatever happens, she is in the hands of the Ribbono Shel Olam.

Now, when I first heard this, I wondered whether she was somehow avoiding the reality. Does she appreciate the seriousness of her condition? Does she understand her medical choices?

Someone tells me she has such bitachon that the mitzvah of challah will bring her brachah. I think to myself: what does that mean in a case of serious illness?

I want to distinguish two things. **Bitachon is a religious and spiritual conviction; it is not a medical prognosis or a guarantee that a particular procedure will work.** The patient's own wishes, informed consent and medical care still matter.

But I was fascinated by the spiritual confidence they described.

I was learning **Derech Hashem**, struggling with the distinction between yediah and emunah. And here was a woman apparently living the entire subject with a simplicity and strength I had rarely seen.

I wanted to meet her and understand what she was actually experiencing.

And, rabosai, when I finally met her, it turned my entire perspective around.

## A Woman Living with Emunah — and the Question of "Challah Land"

Rabosai, I finally went to see the woman.

I was expecting something one way, and I found something very different.

Until that moment, I had wondered whether her confidence in the zechus of **hafrashas challah** was a kind of denial. She was seriously ill, and there were real medical questions. It was hard for me to understand how anyone could be so calm.

I used a sharp expression in my own mind: **"She isn't in la-la land. She's in challah land!"**

I thought perhaps she simply wasn't taking the situation seriously.

But then I sat with her. I spoke with her, and listened to what she was saying.

And I realized that perhaps **I** was the one who was living in la-la land.

She knew she was ill. She knew difficult decisions were before her. But she was not allowing the uncertainty to become her entire identity.

She had tremendous **emunah and bitachon**. She was confident that the Ribbono Shel Olam was with her, and that her mitzvah of challah connected her to His brachah.

The family around her was terribly worried. Some were crying, some were emotionally exhausted. But she had a kind of **inner simchah** and calm that I could hardly understand.

That is what moved me.

I am not saying she had a medical guarantee that the illness would resolve, nor that her emunah made professional care unnecessary. I am telling you what I saw: a person who could face an extraordinarily painful matzav while feeling herself held by the Ribbono Shel Olam.

That is something else.

### The College Student and Endless Questions

Now listen to the contrast.

Earlier that week, a bachur who used to learn in yeshivah called me. He was now in **college**, taking courses including evolution, and he had question after question about the relationship between science and emunah.

We discussed scientific claims, proofs, interpretations and the perspectives of Torah sources.

I had studied some of these questions before, and I had also received hadrachah from **my Rebbe Rav Yisrael Belsky**, zichrono livrachah.

So I tried to answer each question carefully.

But every answer brought another question, and each response seemed to produce another objection. We discussed one matter, then another, then something else; it went on and on.

I was exhausted!

Of course a person must be allowed to ask sincere questions. We must not pretend that scientific subjects are resolved by simply ignoring them. But this experience made me think about the difference between **having an answer to a particular question** and **living with a foundation of emunah**.

A day later I met this woman, and I saw her serene bitachon in the midst of a difficult medical situation.

For me, those experiences stood next to each other.

I had spent hours trying to answer doubts through **yediah**. And then I saw someone whose confidence rested deeply on **emunah**.

I felt I was beginning to understand the Ramchal and Rav Elchonon in a new way. We need the mind; but the heart also needs something that is not dissolved by every new question.

### Another Call, This Time About a Daughter in College

Then on Friday morning I received another call, from a father in town.

His daughter was studying in college and had been wrestling with some of the same questions. He wanted to speak to me about them.

After the long discussions I'd already had that week, I felt I had no koach left for another extensive conversation.

And, almost without thinking, I said: **"Let her take challah!"**

I was half trying to escape a discussion I was too tired to have.

But then I remembered a beautiful pasuk and told him to share it with her. It is from the **haftarah**, **Yechezkel 44:30**:

**"וראשית ערסותיכם תתנו לכהן להניח ברכה אל ביתך."**

You shall give the first portion of your dough to the Kohen, **to bring blessing into your home**.

What a pasuk! The mitzvah of challah is associated with **brachah in the home**.

Now I wasn't claiming that the mitzvah instantly answers the scientific issues she was studying. I was pointing toward another aspect of a life of emunah: **doing a mitzvah that acknowledges Who gives us our bread and sustenance**.

Before Shabbos, the father called back. He said his daughter had taken challah, and that her doubts seemed to have eased.

I said, "Call me after Shabbos. Let's see what remains after twenty-four hours!"

I didn't want to exaggerate an immediate reaction into a permanent transformation.

Still, I was struck by the experience. What is there about this mitzvah of challah? What kind of yesod does it teach?

I began looking through the sefarim. And what I found opened an entirely new understanding of **challah land**.

## The Extraordinary Importance of Hafrashas Challah

So I began researching the mitzvah of **hafrashas challah**.

I knew that many people speak about it as a mitzvah associated with brachah and zechus. But I wanted to know: **what do Chazal actually say?** What is the deeper connection between challah and emunah?

And I found some extraordinary things.

There is a passage quoted from the **Hagahos Maimoniyos**, at the end of the discussion of challah, which begins:

**"גדולה היא מצות חלה וחביבה."**

The mitzvah of challah is great and beloved.

It continues by citing the Midrash that the world was created in the merit of things called **reishis**, including challah.

**"בזכות חלה ... בראשית ברא ... ואין ראשית אלא חלה שנאמר ראשית עריסותיכם."**

In the merit of challah ... "Bereishis bara" ... and challah is called "reishis," as the Torah says, "the first of your dough."

Now I had originally thought of this as coming from the **Ramban**, but the identifiable printed passage is in **Hagahos Maimoniyos** quoting Midrashim. We must not confuse those attributions.

The idea is beautiful. Hashem created a world in which a person would work, prepare dough and make bread—but the very **first** portion of the dough would be designated for a mitzvah.

It's as though the ordinary business of making bread is transformed into an acknowledgment of the Ribbono Shel Olam.

And that's why the Torah says:

**"ראשית ערסתכם חלה תרימו תרומה"** (Bamidbar 15:20).

From the first of your dough, set aside challah as a gift.

Do you see? The person works, mixes flour and water, kneads dough, and produces bread. But before using it, he takes **the reishis**, the first portion, to recognize the Giver of the food.

### Challah and the Rejection of Avodah Zarah

And then I found something even more powerful.

**Vayikra Rabbah 15:6** asks why the parashah of challah is placed next to the parashah concerning avodah zarah.

The Midrash says:

**"כל המקיים מצות חלה כאילו ביטל עבודה זרה."**

Whoever fulfills the mitzvah of challah is considered as though he has nullified idolatry.

What has **challah** to do with **avodah zarah**?

Here is the yesod.

A person lives in this world. He earns money, buys flour, makes dough, uses his own strength. He can come to believe that his sustenance is entirely the result of **his own power**.

He becomes an eved to the system of earning, producing and possessing.

But when he is **mafrish challah**, he is saying something different: **Everything comes from the Ribbono Shel Olam. The bread is His gift. My work is real, but I am not the independent master of my sustenance.**

That is the opposite of attributing independent divine power to the forces of the world.

Do you hear why the Midrash connects challah with **bitul avodah zarah**?

The mitzvah teaches us to live within nature without treating nature or our own strength as an independent power separate from Hashem.

And now I begin to understand this woman a little more.

She wasn't merely performing a symbolic act. For her, **taking challah** was an expression of the knowledge that her life was in Hashem's hands.

The mitzvah was giving her **inner simchah and confidence**.

Again, that doesn't mean the halachic act guarantees a particular medical outcome or resolves every difficult question. It means that her mitzvah gave her a way to express and strengthen emunah.

### The Numerical Allusion to All the Mitzvos

I saw also a numerical interpretation brought in the literature around the mitzvah of challah, connecting the wording **"זו היא מצות חלה"** with **taryag mitzvos**.

These remazim are beautiful, but we need to check the precise Hebrew wording and the method of calculation before publishing an exact gematria claim. I do not want to manufacture a missing letter or a variant text merely to make the number work.

What matters for our discussion is the broader teaching in the sefarim: challah can represent a **fundamental yesod** on which the whole life of Torah rests.

The person has bread, the work of his hands, and ordinary daily needs. But he sees everything as sustained by the Ribbono Shel Olam.

That's a whole new understanding of what it means to be living in **challah land**.

And I found another beautiful connection in a work attributed to the **Chida**, on why the mitzvah of challah was especially associated with **Erev Shabbos**.

## Challah Before Shabbos: Recognizing the Source of Our Parnassah

Now why is the mitzvah of **hafrashas challah** so connected in our homes with **Erev Shabbos**?

There are familiar explanations about **Chavah** and the events of Erev Shabbos, about the correction of the world's first chet and the mitzvos associated with Jewish women.

But I saw another approach in a sefer of the **Chida**, cited in the shiur as **Devash Lefi**.

The Chida develops a remez involving the **sixth day** and the **sixth millennium**. In traditional explanations of the world's spiritual history, the days of creation can correspond to millennia. In that scheme, the sixth day can carry an allusion to the time of preparing for the final redemption.

So the mitzvah of challah, which is associated with **bitul avodah zarah**, may have a special connection with Erev Shabbos. One prepares bread for Shabbos, but at the same time declares that human life and sustenance depend on the Ribbono Shel Olam.

[The exact location and wording of the Chida's derush need to be checked against the printed Devash Lefi; it is a remez, not a claim that a particular year or event can be predicted.]

Now I want to bring you another remarkable source.

### The Yehi Ratzon Before Hafrashas Challah

There is a sefer cited as **Pitrei Rachamim**, associated with the family of **Rav Dovid Pardo**, which records a **yehi ratzon** said before taking challah.

The prayer speaks about approaching the mitzvah with **simchas halev** and asks that the kedushah of the mitzvah bring blessing and remove impurity.

It invokes the pasuk:

**"בלע המות לנצח ומחה ה' אלקים דמעה מעל כל פנים"** (Yeshayahu 25:8).

Hashem will swallow up death forever, and Hashem will wipe away the tears from every face.

What a tefillah!

A person is making bread, preparing an ordinary physical meal, and speaks about **kedushah**, **tefillah**, and a world in which suffering will finally end.

There is something very deep here.

The very action of taking challah draws the person's attention from the flour and the work of his hands to the Ribbono Shel Olam and to what he hopes his home will become.

And the tefillah uses the words **simchas halev**, joy of the heart.

This is not a mere technical ritual. It can be performed with inner joy and recognition that the food was given by Hashem.

[The exact title, authorship and full Hebrew wording of the yehi ratzon need independent verification; the prayer is presented as a source quoted by Rabbi Walkin, not as a required halachic formula.]

## "Lech Echol B'Simchah Lachmecha": Bread and Joy

Now listen to another beautiful pasuk.

**"לך אכול בשמחה לחמך ושתה בלב טוב יינך"** (Koheles 9:7).

Go, eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a good heart.

I saw this connected in a Midrashic teaching with **parashas challah**. [The exact Midrash location should be checked.]

Why should taking challah be associated with **simchah**?

Bread is the symbol of a person's work, his **amal**. We labor, earn money, buy ingredients, bake, provide for a family. The work is real; sometimes it is hard and full of worries.

And after the chet of Adam HaRishon, the Torah says:

**"בזעת אפיך תאכל לחם"** (Bereishis 3:19).

By the sweat of your brow shall you eat bread.

Bread is connected with toil.

But now take that same bread and **set aside challah**. You acknowledge that although you worked hard, the final source of your sustenance is Hashem.

What happens to the experience of work?

It can become filled with **simchah**, because you do not regard yourself as alone, responsible for controlling every detail of the world.

You have a job to do, but you are not the Ribbono Shel Olam. He gives the brachah.

Another pasuk speaks of joy in one's toil, and the Midrash as cited in the shiur associates that with challah. Again, we have to locate the exact words before publishing a specific attribution.

What I want to bring out is the connection between **amal** and **simchah**.

A person can be oppressed by the burden of parnassah. Or he can do his work while remembering that his sustenance comes from Hashem.

The mitzvah of challah becomes an act of acknowledging **the source of the bread**.

And that explains the Midrash we learned earlier: **"כל המקיים מצות חלה כאילו ביטל עבודה זרה."**

The person is not denying that he worked. He is denying that his work or the forces of nature are **independent of Hashem**.

And with that comes a remarkable **menuchas hanefesh**.

Now we can return to the woman whose emunah moved me so deeply.

## From "La-La Land" to "Challah Land": The Inner Simchah of Emunah

Now, rabosai, look back at the story.

At the beginning, I thought this woman might be in **la-la land**. She was facing a terrible illness, and yet she spoke with such confidence about her mitzvah of challah.

But when I met her, I realized there was something deeply genuine in the way she was living.

It wasn't that she had no difficulties. She was not pretending there were no doctors or no medical decisions. She knew she was facing a hard reality.

But her inner world was filled with **emunah and bitachon**. She believed that the Ribbono Shel Olam was taking care of her, and she expressed that belief through a mitzvah that made it real to her.

And I began to see that **hafrashas challah** is not merely a segulah that someone mentions when they want something.

It represents an entire way of living.

A person prepares bread, the thing that symbolizes **his work and his sustenance**. He takes the first portion and says: **Ribbono Shel Olam, it is all from You**.

I worked, certainly. I took the flour, kneaded the dough, baked the bread. But I'm not under the illusion that my own power is the independent source of everything I have.

Everything is from Hashem.

That is why Chazal connect challah with **bitul avodah zarah**.

And once a person sees his life that way, the feeling of **shibud** can begin to give way to **simchah**.

### The Spiritual Power of a Mitzvah

We often don't appreciate what we have in **each mitzvah**.

A mitzvah is not simply a task that a person performs and checks off a list. There are extraordinary **kochos**, profound forms of kedushah and connection to Hashem, bound up with fulfilling the will of the Ribbono Shel Olam.

A person can spend days trying to understand things through seichel, and he should. He can learn the Ramchal, the Rambam and Rav Elchonon, and those are all tremendous endeavors.

But sometimes a mitzvah, performed with genuine kavannah, gives the person a level of **clarity and menuchah** that he had not reached through intellectual arguments alone.

That was the lesson I took from this woman.

She had an inner simchah. She had an ability to stand before a frightening reality without surrendering her heart to fear.

And that was a mussar for me.

Not because I can promise what will happen medically. Not because every question has suddenly been answered. But because **her emunah was alive**.

### "Lech Echol B'Simchah Lachmecha"

Look at the words:

**"לך אכול בשמחה לחמך."**

Eat your bread with joy.

The person has worked for his bread, perhaps under tremendous pressure, and yet he can eat it **b'simchah** because he knows Who gave it to him.

That is the **segulah of challah** in the sense I am trying to bring out tonight: the mitzvah trains us to recognize the Ribbono Shel Olam as the true source of sustenance.

The Chazal about challah and avodah zarah suddenly become understandable. We reject the illusion that everything is independent of Hashem and entirely within our own hands.

That is a yesod of **bitachon**.

And when a person lives with such bitachon, he can gain **inner peace**, even when the world around him is full of unanswered questions.

So, rabosai, let us appreciate the extraordinary koach of a mitzvah performed with emunah.

I am not telling you to stop asking questions. Learn, think, study the Ramchal and the Rambam. But don't forget to **live** with the Ribbono Shel Olam as your Tatte.

Don't remain stuck only in endless questions, without ever putting the Torah into your life.

And don't dismiss a person's simple, sincere emunah as though it must be ignorance.

There is a world of **challah land** that can be more real than the world of doubt in which we sometimes live.

Take challah when the mitzvah applies, with a sense of joy and awareness of Hashem's brachah. And let every mitzvah strengthen your connection to the Ribbono Shel Olam.

**"Lech echol b'simchah lachmecha."**

May we be zocheh to live with that simchah, that emunah, and that menuchas hanefesh.

[The recorded shiur ends here; the TorahAnytime closing announcement is not part of Rabbi Walkin's teaching.]