We’re now in Pesukeh Bitachon starting with the letter ח . Today’s pasuk is Mishleh 29,25 חֶרְדַּ֣ת אָ֭דָם יִתֵּ֣ן מוֹקֵ֑שׁ וּבוֹטֵ֖חַ בַּיהֹוָ֣ה יְשֻׂגָּֽב׃ Fear of a man will add a stumbling block, but one who trusts in Hashem will be encouraged. There are two approaches to this pasuk. In our previous work on Pesukeh Bitachon , we quoted from the approach the Bet Halevi and others that when a person is afraid, that fear creates a stumbling block that would not have been there, whereas someone who relies on Hashem will be saved from an existing problem. The Mesudat David gives a more practical explanation, which is that when a person is afraid of something that comes upon him, that causes an additional trap. Why? Because when a person is afraid, his heart is not with him. He's frazzled. He's in a state of panic, and that causes him to stumble on something small and trivial that he may not have stumbled on. We see that when a person is in a state of panic, he makes mistakes. On a practical level, the fear causes a stumbling block because the fear doesn’t let the person think correctly. You need to be calm. On a practical level, the one who relies on Hashem, besides the help that he gets from above, is calmer and therefore his decisions will be more correct. That's how the Mesudat David explains this pasuk , on a more practical level. The Malbim adds that the term חרדה herdah refers to, in his words, a sudden panic that causes a stumbling back. I'd like to just take out a moment to give a little science class on how panic works in our heads and why it shuts down our thinking and causes us to make mistakes. Hashem, in His great mercy, created something in our minds-we'll call it panic. If a person is walking across the street and they hear the noise of a bus screeching toward them, they’d run. We call that flight or fight . That's a state of panic. If you think there's a fire, you run. That's a state of panic. Panic is good for us because if a person, when he hears the screeching bus, starts making mental calculations, ‘ Should I run? Should I stay here? Should I jump,’ by the time he finishes making that decision, it’s too late. So Hashem put the amygdala in our brains. When it senses danger, it releases a chemical called cortisol , which is like an adrenaline of sorts, which suddenly gives us additional energy. That's why you can run and suddenly start breathing deeper and so on. The only caveat is that when this happens, the part of your brain that goes through thought processes, called the frontal cortex, shuts down. That's why you run when you hear the screeching sound of a bus. That's a good thing. If you see a tiger and run, that's a good thing. But what happens when a person is afraid of things that we shouldn't be afraid of- things that are not immediate dangers, which is what anxiety is really about. That state of unnecessary panic is going to cause stumbling blocks. It sometimes happens that people suddenly panic, and they run, slip and hurt themselves. It was an unnecessary fear. On the other hand, וּבוֹטֵ֖חַ בַּיהֹוָ֣ה יְשֻׂגָּֽב , the person that has bitachon has a calmer demeanor because he doesn't get into a state of panic when it's unnecessary. The example the Malbim brings down on this pasuk in Mishleh is the famous Hillel, who hears a scream coming from his house, and says, “ I'm sure it's not from my househol d,” and he quotes the pasuk. Hillel doesn’t panic when there's nothing to do about it. He's not panicking because he's at a loss. That’s what bitachon does for us. Bitachon helps us in situations where, quite often, there is nothing immediate to do. If one has to do CPR, of course do CPR immediately, but we're talking about when there's nothing to do immediately, and your mind is just playing tricks on you. That’s what a panic attack is, lo alenu . During a panic attack all of that adrenaline and cortisol is released, and because the person isn't running or fighting, but has that energy inside of him, hi