Imagine never becoming angry or upset. Imagine living every day with joy and peace of mind. The Orchot Tzaddikim writes (Shaar HaSimchah) that someone who has full emunah and bitachon in Hashem will always be happy no matter what is happening, because he knows that Hashem is the cause of everything that happens and Hashem only does what is best for him.
Rav Lugassi told a story about the mekubal Rabbi Daniel Frisch who lived in our times. He wrote many books including the Masok MiDevash edition of the Zohar HaKadosh. On one occasion, he came to America to raise funds to print his sefarim. He stayed at the home of a very respectable family. While there, he continued his writing and avodat hakodesh. In general, he was sickly; his fingers were extremely bloated due to infections in his hands. It was very hard for him to write, but he did so anyway with incredible self-sacrifice. Although it was difficult, even in America he stayed up writing till the late hours of the night. The family hosting him was so proud to have this tzaddik with them.
One night, toward the end of his stay, one of the young adults in the family went up to the rabbi’s room to ask him some questions. At the time, the Rabbi was deeply engrossed in his writings, but he happily paused to speak to the boy. During the conversation, the boy accidentally knocked over the cup of grape juice that he was drinking and it spilled all over the Rabbi’s manuscripts, ruining many pages of hours of work. The boy didn’t know where to put himself. He tried to clean it up, but the damage was done. “I am so sorry, Rabbi. Please forgive me, please.” The Rabbi quickly calmed him down, looked at him with his soothing eyes and said the following impactful words, “You are asking me for forgiveness. But there is something you need to know. Many years before I was born, in fact many years before anyone in this world was born, Hashem, in His infinite wisdom, wrote down what is going to happen to every single person who would ever live. Of course, things could be changed, but there is a plan for every individual according to the needs of the soul. Hashem wrote down that on this day at this time, the writings of a Jew named Daniel Frisch should have this juice spilled upon them. What could possibly be bad about Hashem’s plan for me?”
Those were simple words of emunah that not only kept the Rabbi calm and not only calmed down the boy, but they also taught us a golden lesson on how to live our lives with emunah.
It’s not easy to deal with the everyday annoyances when things don’t go the way we had hoped. But if we always remember that everything was planned in advance by the One Who knows better than we do, we will be able to accept everything.