We of course know that the surgeon is not a murderer; on the contrary, he's a healer. If the surgeon would not operate immediately, the appendix might burst and the patient's blood stream would be full of life-threatening toxins. So we happen to know what's happening, whereas the tribesman does not.
Oftentimes, we give knee-jerk reactions to situations that seem to be bad. When we yell, “Oy, this is terrible,”
we're just like the tribesman who yelled “murderer!” The spiritual truth and the material manifestations of this world are often quite different - what you see is not necessarily what you get. Questioning what we see is pointless, because we seldom understand what we're seeing.With emuna, everything is different. Emuna is not only the most important of our 613 mitzvoth, but it's the first principle of our faith. First, we believe that everything comes from Hashem, for He alone did, does and will do every deed. Second, we believe that everything is for the very best; and third, we believe that everything Hashem does is for a specific purpose.
There are no exceptions to the above three rules. So, if Hashem is responsible for everything, and if He does everything for the best and everything for a purpose, there is really no need whatsoever to ask any questions about anything.
Abraham, the father of emuna and the first Hebrew, had no idea why Hashem asked him to sacrifice Isaac, his one son from his wife Sarah, especially after Hashem promised him that Isaac's offspring will be a great nation that will inherit the Land of Israel. Abraham didn't ask questions, as illogical as Hashem's request seemed to be. His reward was that his offspring, the Jewish People, would live on until the end of time, outliving all the great civilizations.
Jacob spent over two decades of working his fingers to the bone for his father in law Laban, who mistreated and swindled him in every imaginable way. On his way back to the Land of Israel, he was forced into dangerous confrontations with Esau's angel and with Esau himself. When he finally returned to Israel, his daughter was kidnapped and raped; his sons Shimon and Levi killed the rapist, the rapist's family and the entire population of their town. Jacob was nearly faced with an all-out war against all seven Canaanite nations. He later spent thirteen years of mourning for his son Yosef, thinking that Yosef was maimed by wild animals. If that wasn't enough, famine sent him on exile to Egypt. Yet he never asked questions, as difficult as his life was and despite the fact that Hashem seemed to be treating him in such an unfair and illogical manner. He lived on to see his lost and beloved son Yosef miraculously become the Viceroy of Egypt and to have joy and gratification from his many offspring.
King David understood the innermost secrets of creation. He could even understand the language of the birds and the animals. But he couldn't understand why in the world Hashem created poisonous spiders. It seemed so illogical and needless. King Saul ultimately became jealous of David and thought that David was plotting against him. For that, he and his army chased David all over the Judean Desert. For months, David's like was in gravest danger. He was finally trapped in a desert canyon with no escape. With no other choice, he entered a cave. A spider spun a web over the mouth of the cave in a few minutes that looked months old. When King Saul's officers entered the canyon, the found the cave, whose entrance was sealed by a nasty poisonous spider and her web. Obviously, he couldn't be in there, they thought. The poisonous spider saved King David's life.
Our forefathers had plenty of challenges in life and more than their share of difficult times. They didn't always understand what was happening in their lives, but they relied on emuna and didn't ask questions. We all have the potential of being tzaddikim and attaining highest-level emuna, but it entails putting logic and ego aside. As my beloved Rosh Yeshiva Rabbi Noah Weinberg ob”m of Aish HaTorah once told me, “Move aside and let Hashem run the world.” That's emuna. When we're on an international flight, we don't go into the cockpit and ask the pilot what he's doing. And if we trust the pilot, we can certainly trust Hashem.
Without emuna, there are no answers. With emuna, there are no questions.
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