“My Own Strength,” Dressed in Holiness

“And you say in your heart: My strength and the power of my hand made me all this wealth.” Opening There is something beautiful in this world. A Jew stands and prays. He cries out. He believes. And Hashem answers him. He gets the income he needed. The right match for marriage comes through. The rescue he hoped for arrives. What could be more natural than for his heart to feel glad and say, “You see? My prayer worked. My spiritual connection worked”? There is nothing silly about this feeling. It is completely human. And yet it is exactly here, at this moment of satisfaction, that one of the subtlest traps in all of serving Hashem lies hidden. The Verse and Its Depth The Torah warns: “Be careful not to say in your heart: My strength and the power of my hand made me all this wealth.” The simple meaning is clear: do not grow proud of your success in business and forget Hashem. But there is a deeper precision here. Notice that the Torah did not say “lest you say with your mouth.” It said “lest you say in your heart.” This is not crude arrogance that a person announces out loud. It is an inner whisper, a thought that rises in a moment of comfort, almost without the person knowing it. And there is more. The verse says “my strength and the power of my hand.” It does not say “my money and my gold.” Strength is at the center. And strength can be spiritual just as much as material. Here is the piercing point. What if the “strength” a person credits for his success is his prayer, his spiritual connection, his spiritual standing? What if the “wealth” he sees as the fruit of his own hands is not money at all, but a rescue that came after he prayed with fire? Then this is the very same trap. Only now it is wrapped in the clothing of holiness. It does not look like arrogance. It looks like faith. And for that reason it is seven times more dangerous. The Talmud teaches that arrogance is one of the most serious sins of all. You may wonder: what does a feeling of satisfaction in prayer have to do with arrogance? The link is that both live in the same place: the ego, the “I.” In the material world and in business, it is fairly easy to spot the “I.” In spirituality, the “I” puts on a prayer shawl. And who notices? What Is Called “Holy Ego” Hasidic teaching calls this “holy ego.” It is not the crude ego that says, “I am greater than you.” It is a refined ego that says, “I serve Hashem, so I deserve this.” It is as if Hashem owes me something because I prayed with real focus. But the truth, as the Tanya, the classic book of Hasidic thought, explains, is that a person does not own any spiritual level or rank. The soul is “a piece of Hashem above,” and in its own nature it wants to set the self aside. Only the body, only the outer garment, demands a separate existence for itself. And when the “I” disguises itself in the clothing of serving Hashem, that is its most dangerous form, because it is so hard to uncover. The book Torah Or, a classic of Hasidic teaching, brings the verse “I am too small for all the kindnesses.” Jacob our forefather said these words right after great success, when he was coming home from Haran wealthy and blessed. When he sees that Hashem has been kind to him, he does not say, “You see, my service worked.” He says: I am small. I succeeded, and that itself shows me how small I am, because by my own strength I had nothing at all. Why Hashem Gives: The Mission Here is a Hasidic foundation that needs to be understood well. Why does Hashem give? Not as a reward. Not as “payment” for prayers said with fire. He gives out of His own simple will, because you have a mission in this world, and He needs you as a vessel to carry it out. An emissary does not act by his own power. All of his strength and authority come only from the one who sent him. In the same way, everything that comes to us from above is a set of tools that Hashem gives us so we can do what is ours to do. This includes our income, our health and our rescue. Hashem gives them not because of who we are, but because of what needs to be done. The blessing is not a prize. It is a means. So when the rescue comes, the question is not, “Did my prayer work?” The question is: “What does Hashem expect of me now? What mission is He equipping me for?”