Cast Your Burden on Hashem
“Cast your burden on Hashem, and He will sustain you. He will never let the righteous fall.” The Question Young married men come to me and ask: “Rabbi, I try to trust in Hashem. I say it, and I believe it. But I am afraid. I find myself worrying, and sometimes I am even anxious. Does this mean my trust is not real? That something is missing in me?” The question itself shows a mistake at the root. That mistake has to be pulled out by its roots. The Common Mistake: Trust Means Calm Here is the mistake. People think trust is a state of mind: a kind of inner calm, a cool head, a quiet heart. From there comes the self-blame: “If I really trusted Hashem, I would not be afraid.” But this mixes up two different things. Calm is a character trait. It is temperament, the natural way a person is built. Some people are calm by nature, and some are stormy. That is nothing to praise and nothing to be ashamed of. Trust is different. Trust is not a trait. It is a choice. Rabbi Bahya ibn Paquda writes this in his classic book Duties of the Heart, in the section on trust. At its core, trust means knowing and relying on Hashem. It is an act of the mind and of the will, not a feeling. If so, natural fear does not cancel trust. Darkness does not cancel your decision to light a candle, and fear does not cancel trust. A Close Look at the Verse Let us turn to the verse itself: “Cast your burden on Hashem, and He will sustain you.” Look closely at the words. “Your burden,” the weight of your worry, is still there. The verse does not say “erase the burden” or “stop feeling it.” It says: cast it. Throw it. That is an action. You feel the weight, and in the same breath you choose not to carry it alone. In other words, you first have to admit that the burden is there. Only then can you throw it. Someone who does not feel the weight has nothing to throw. You have something from which to build real trust precisely because you feel the weight, precisely because the fear is alive in you. Proof from King David: “My Heart Is Hollow Within Me” No one shows this better than King David himself. David is the greatest master of trust. He wrote the one hundred and eighteen chapters of Psalms, all of them filled with trust and faith. And still he writes, without shame: “My heart is hollow within me.” My heart is hollow, empty, from so much fear and trembling. And in that same psalm, in the same breath, he says: “Cast your burden on Hashem.” This is not a contradiction. This is the inner work. The heart trembles, and the mouth chooses. The inner self is afraid, and the will turns toward Hashem. Fear is what you feel. Trust is the spiritual answer you give, right there inside that feeling. There is a great lesson here. There is nothing wrong with feeling fear. If anything is wrong, it is only this: carrying the burden alone instead of throwing it to Hashem. A Basic Distinction from the Tanya Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi explains exactly this in the eleventh of his Holy Letters, a section of his Tanya, the classic book of Hasidic thought. He teaches that the pain and distress of the heart sit in the left chamber of the heart. They do not contradict the trust that lives in the mind and the brain. The two can live side by side, and sometimes they must. A person is not asked to wipe out the feeling. He is asked not to be swept away by it completely, and not to let fear make his choices. Here is the new insight. Trust is not the absence of fear. It is the courage to trust Hashem right in the middle of the fear.
Putting It into Practice
Your verse of fear, “My heart is hollow within me,” is not the end of your story. It is the beginning. The next time anxiety rises in you, do not judge yourself for what you feel. The feeling is allowed. The only question is: what will you choose to do with it? Say inside yourself: “Master of the world, I am trembling. And still, I choose to throw this burden to You.” This is a choice. It is not a one-time choice. It is a choice you make again, every day and every hour. Every time you choose trust in spite of fear, that is true strength.
Questions and answers
Q: Which verse from Psalms about casting your burden on Hashem is this essay built on?
Rabbi Landau answers: “Cast your burden on Hashem, and He will sustain you. He will never let the righteous fall.”
Q: If I truly trusted Hashem, would I stop feeling afraid?
Rabbi Landau answers: Here is the mistake. People think trust is a state of mind: a kind of inner calm, a cool head, a quiet heart. From there comes the self-blame: “If I really trusted Hashem, I would not be afraid.” But this mixes up two different things. Calm is a character trait. It is temperament, the natural way a person is built. Some people are calm by nature, and some are stormy. That is nothing to praise and nothing to be ashamed of. Trust is different. Trust is not a trait. It is a choice. Rabbi Bahya ibn Paquda writes this in his classic book Duties of the Heart, in the section on trust. At its core, trust means knowing and relying on Hashem.
Q: What does the wording of "Cast your burden on Hashem" teach about what to do with worry?
Rabbi Landau answers: Let us turn to the verse itself: “Cast your burden on Hashem, and He will sustain you.” Look closely at the words. “Your burden,” the weight of your worry, is still there. The verse does not say “erase the burden” or “stop feeling it.” It says: cast it. Throw it. That is an action. You feel the weight, and in the same breath you choose not to carry it alone. In other words, you first have to admit that the burden is there. Only then can you throw it. Someone who does not feel the weight has nothing to throw. You have something from which to build real trust precisely because you feel the weight, precisely because the fear is alive in you.
Q: How does the Tanya's Holy Letter 11 explain that pain in the heart and trust in Hashem can exist together?
Rabbi Landau answers: Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi explains exactly this in the eleventh of his Holy Letters, a section of his Tanya, the classic book of Hasidic thought. He teaches that the pain and distress of the heart sit in the left chamber of the heart. They do not contradict the trust that lives in the mind and the brain. The two can live side by side, and sometimes they must. A person is not asked to wipe out the feeling. He is asked not to be swept away by it completely, and not to let fear make his choices. Here is the new insight. Trust is not the absence of fear. It is the courage to trust Hashem right in the middle of the fear.
Q: What should I do the next time anxiety rises, if I want to trust Hashem?
Rabbi Landau answers: Your verse of fear, “My heart is hollow within me,” is not the end of your story. It is the beginning. The next time anxiety rises in you, do not judge yourself for what you feel. The feeling is allowed. The only question is: what will you choose to do with it? Say inside yourself: “Master of the world, I am trembling. And still, I choose to throw this burden to You.” This is a choice. It is not a one-time choice. It is a choice you make again, every day and every hour. Every time you choose trust in spite of fear, that is true strength.