No Such Thing as Coincidences

Another yesod, and emes you also find it in seforim, interestingly enough, find it a lot, befart in sifrei chasidus, it's also a yesod gadol, yesod gadol in hashkafa as well. Basically the yesod of the Ohr Sameach, of the Rav, is that there's no coincidence. It's not, it's not that coincidentally as it were, the Torah is interested in Yom Kippur and the Torah is interested in Shabbos, and then okay, so the way life works, so there are coincidences. Yom Kippur is going to come out sometime, so it happened to come out on Shabbos, so the two kedushas hayom coincide. So the Ohr Sameach says no, that's not the pshat. Al pi din, al pi halacha, it's not, it's not a coincidence. No, the Torah says יום כיפור שחל להיות בשבת, it's not the two kedushas hayom coincide. The pshat is a new kedushas hayom. Same thing you find in sifrei chasidus a lot, befart elsewhere as well, but the emphasis there, that as a person, every experience, every encounter a person has, there's no coincidence. There's no coincidence involved. Ad kedei kach that it's discussed that even if a person witnesses an aveira, a person witnesses an aveira. So what's the, what's the hashkafa pratis of that? So it says in seforim that that's a message that the person has to reinforce his own zehirus in that area. Ad kedei kach. Ella mai, so a person doesn't think about it, but if a person encounters it and a person has a sense of revulsion or should have, so that will engender within him a certain chizuk, a certain reinforcement. So every experience, encounter a person has shouldn't be attributed to coincidence. And if he has that yesod, so then if a person views things with that perspective, mamash revolutionizes his life. How so? How so? If you don't have this yesod, if you live life full of coincidences, you live life full of coincidences, so then consequently, there's going to be a lot of wasted time. A lot of wasted time. People have tirdos, different points in life, different kinds of tirdos. Tirdos which don't allow you to learn as much as you want. Family, whatever, whatever responsibilities you have, family, communal, whatever kind of achrayus a person has, or the person rachmana litzlan is not well, or any set of circumstances which is less than ideal for his, as he sees it, involvement in Torah u'mitzvos. He's torud, he's torud. Torud parnassah, torud with various responsibilities. So if a person believes in coincidence, a person believes in coincidence, so it's a waste. In other words, so this time is time which is taken away from him, which he's deprived of as it were from engaging in avodas Hashem because by some unfortunate coincidence, so he is kept from learning, he's kept from engaging in Torah u'mitzvos. If a person has this yesod, no, it's not the pshat that things coincide accidentally. Things coincide accidentally, but the pshat is that everything's min hashamayim. Everything's min hashamayim. Anything which is imposed upon a person—I mean, if you walk over to the wall and you bang your head against the wall, so it's—I don't know if it was min hashamayim that you should get a headache. So that you—take the... I don't know—it's not a sign of piety to then say gam zu letova. You bang your head against the wall and then you yell out gam zu letova. I have no highness against anyone. But anything which is imposed upon a person, any set of circumstances which is imposed upon a person, which didn't follow directly in his exercising his bechirah hofshis, so then it's very important that a person have this outlook that there are no coincidences, that everything, everything is behashgacha pratis, everything is behashgacha pratis, so then a person will find for some reason within this that for some reason his avodas Hashem requires this set of circumstances. Be it success, be it rachmana litzlan adversity, whatever type of circumstances are imposed upon a person, so a person will realize that there's some kind of tikkun which is supposed to arise from these circumstances. It's also very important when we talk about the middah of kaas, of anger. So basically, the middah of kaas usually flows from a sense of injustice that a person was wronged. That's usually when a person gets angry. If you think someone's wronging you, someone's hurting you, someone's depriving you of something, someone's insulting you, that's usually the occasion for anger. That's usually the occasion for kaas. But again, if you have a yesod, if a person trains himself, if his perspective on life is that again, any circumstances, again, not as a result of your own bechirah hofshis, not any problem which you make for yourself, but any circumstances which are imposed upon a person, which are imposed upon a person, there are no coincidences. So then instead of having a sense of frustration or anger at the hand which he feels that he was unjustly dealt, instead a person's response will be, "Well, what kind of tikkun am I supposed to make as a result of this? What kind of tikkun hamiddos, what kind of growth in avodas Hashem should this trigger on my part?" Sometimes people have a sense of frustration or inadequacy when they compare themselves to other people, and they think that he's more capable than I am and things come easier to him and therefore he's more— So if everything is just genetics, ein hachi nami. Ein hachi nami, it's takeh, it doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason that one person is endowed with this set of abilities and another person is endowed with a different set of abilities. Ein hachi nami. But again, if there are no coincidences, so again, obviously it means that for my personal avodas Hashem, so I was endowed with those abilities which are necessary. I wasn't endowed with the abilities which are necessary for your avodas Hashem, for what you're supposed to accomplish in life, and you weren't endowed with the abilities necessary to accomplish what I am, what I'm supposed to in life, but each one was endowed with his abilities. And therefore the proper way to measure yourself and the proper way to determine what you should do with your life, what you should do with your time, doesn't really involve looking at other people. Okay, so you look at other people to get chizuk, vechulu vechulu vechulu, but you should never, you can never lose sight of the fact that there are no coincidences. And if you think of a certain person, if it's takeh true that a certain person has an ability, a certain facility to do something that you don't have, so ein hachi nami. So it means that he was assigned a different task than you were. It doesn't mean, it's not a, it's not a question of inadequacy, it's not a source of frustration, it just means that you're being pointed in a different direction, you're being pointed in a different direction. So if a person operates with this yesod, not just in halacha, not just in terms of measuring the kedushas hayom of a יום טוב שחל להיות בשבת, but in terms of looking at himself and looking at all his experiences, so then everything in life, wherever he turns, there's an occasion for avodas Hashem.