תמים תהיה עם ה’ אלקיך.” (דברים י”ח, י”ג)
רש”י: “התהלך עמו בתמימות ותצפה לו ולא תחקור אחר העתידות, אלא כל מה שיבא עליך קבל בתמימות ואז תהיה עמו ולחלקו
Rashi: “Walk with Him with wholeness, and look forward to Him, and do not delve into the future. Rather, whatever comes upon you accept with wholeness, and then you will be with Him and of his portion.”
A surprise birthday party can be fun, but for the most part, we prefer to keep life’s surprises to a minimum. For example, what is the first thing you do when you get into the car, before you even start driving? You open “Waze” to check how long the trip will take. If there is a traffic jam, you want to know in advance: no surprises. But Rashi here is telling us that to live with Hashem – to be “עמו” – is possible only if we accept that life can surprise us.
Rashi does not write that we should simply live “in the present”, or not worry about the future because we know the Borei Olam will take care of everything. Rather, he writes that we are “מצפה לו”— we look forward to Him, hope for Him. We are deeply concerned regarding the future, but the future we hope for is Him. We can live with surprises as long as we know that the Borei Olam is involved in our lives.
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That is the first stage of Temimus: “Walk with Him with wholeness, and look forward to Him, and do not delve into the future.” This is how we “walk”— the approach with which we journey through life, what we expect and look for from life. The second stage, Rashi writes, is that “whatever comes upon you accept with wholeness, and then you will be with Him and of his portion.” This second stage relates to how we react when life invariably does surprise us, often times in unpleasant ways. We should accept whatever happens to us with Temimus; only then are we to be considered “with Him”.
Here as well, this is not a question of believing that the Borei Olam will “make everything right again”. “קבל בתמימות” implies that the person accepts things as they are; not that the Borei Olam will make something else happen. Life is all right as it is— not because we are indifferent but rather because it is “Him”.
We see that this maaleh of Temimus is no simple matter. Naturally, we are not “מצפה לו”. We are “מצפה” for our benefit, success and happiness. And then, when things seem not to work out, we “explain” to ourselves how really whatever happened was to our benefit. And that might be true. But with “תמים תהיה עם ה’ אלקיך”, that’s not necessary: we want Him.