Faith as the doorway to seeing truth

במדרש ויפקח אלקים את עיניה ותרא באר מכאן שהכל בחזקת סומין עד שהקב"ה מאיר העין עוד שם ותמלא החמת מים שהיתה חסירה אמנה.

In the Midrash: "And God opened her eyes, and she saw a well" (Bereishis 21:19) — from here we learn that everyone is presumed to be blind until the Holy One illuminates the eye; and further there: "and she filled the skin with water" — she had been lacking emunah (faith).

The well was already there; Hagar simply could not see it. Chazal derive that we are all, as it were, blind to what is in front of us until Hashem opens our eyes, and that her inability to "see" stemmed from a deficiency of emunah.

ואמו"ז ז"ל הגיד להוכיח מזה המדרש כי כל הנצרך לאדם עומד לפניו תמיד ורק שצריכין להיות פקוח עינים לראות וע"ז בקש דהמע"ה גל עיני כו'.

And my grandfather, of blessed memory, taught — proving from this Midrash — that everything a person needs always stands before him; one need only have open eyes to see it. Concerning this, David HaMelech prayed, "Uncover my eyes [that I may behold wonders from Your Torah]" (Tehillim 119:18).

The Chiddushei HaRim taught that a person's every need is already present before him, hidden only by his own blindness; David's prayer was to have his eyes uncovered to perceive it.

והענין ע"ד מ"ש איהו אמת ואיהי אמונה.

And the matter follows what is said: "He is truth (emes), and she is faith (emunah)."

The Zohar's pairing of emes and emunah frames the relationship between Hashem's truth and the soul's faith.

והוא בחי' תורה שבכתב ושבע"פ.

And this is the aspect of the Written Torah and the Oral Torah.

Emes corresponds to the Written Torah (given from above), and emunah to the Oral Torah (drawn out by man).

כי הקב"ה ותורתו אמת פי' אמת שבכל עת ובכל מקום ובכל נפש אין עוד מלבדו.

For the Holy One and His Torah are emes — meaning the truth that at every time, in every place, and in every soul, "there is nothing besides Him" (Devarim 4:35).

The fixed truth (emes) is that Hashem's presence fills all times, places, and souls without exception — an objective reality independent of our perception.

והכל רק תורת אמת וכמו כן אמונה הוא בחי' תורה שבע"פ שכפי האמונה השלימה שיש לכ"א שמאמין ויודע שהכל תורה ואין עוד.

And everything is only the Torah of truth; and likewise emunah is the aspect of the Oral Torah, for in accordance with the complete faith that each person has — believing and knowing that everything is Torah and there is nothing else —

Emunah is the human side: how much of that ever-present truth a person actually perceives depends on the completeness of his faith that all is Hashem and Torah.

כך נגלה לו בכל עת ומקום אור התורה ומי ששם לבו לעיין בזה ימצא כפי אמיתות האמונה שיש לו הוא הפתח לראות האמת כי אמת ואמונה קשורים זה בזה

so is the light of the Torah revealed to him at every time and place; and whoever sets his heart to contemplate this will find that, according to the truthfulness of the faith he has, that is the doorway to seeing the truth — for emes and emunah are bound to one another.

Faith is the gateway: the stronger and truer a person's emunah, the more the ever-present truth becomes visible to him, since the subjective emunah and the objective emes are inseparably linked.

ולכן אמר המדרש מה שמלאה החמת מים הוא חסרון אמונה

Therefore the Midrash said that her filling the skin with water reflects a deficiency of faith.

Hagar's anxious filling of the water-skin betrayed a lack of emunah — had her faith been whole, she would have trusted that what she needed was already provided.

והרמז בתורת ה' שהמאמין כראוי התורה נגלה אצלו בכל עת ואין צריך למלא בטנו מים.

And the hint is, regarding the Torah of Hashem, that one who believes properly has the Torah revealed to him at every time, and he has no need to "fill his belly with water."

One whose emunah is complete constantly perceives the Torah's light and need not grasp anxiously to store up "water" for himself.

וכן אמרו חז"ל מתוך שחסידים היו. תורתן מתברכת במעיהן:

And so Chazal said: because they were chassidim (devout), their Torah was blessed within their innards.

The earlier devout ones, whose emunah was whole, found that their learning was so blessed and absorbed that it became part of them — they did not need to "fill up" externally, for the Torah lived within.

Summary: The well was already beside Hagar; she simply could not see it until Hashem "opened her eyes." From this the Chiddushei HaRim taught that everything a person needs always stands before him, hidden only by his own blindness, as David prayed "uncover my eyes." Hashem's truth (emes) — that there is nothing besides Him — fills every time, place, and soul objectively; but how much of it a person perceives depends on the completeness of his faith (emunah), the subjective doorway to seeing the truth. Hagar's anxious filling of the water-skin revealed a lack of faith, whereas one of complete emunah constantly perceives the Torah's light, like the chassidim whose Torah was blessed within them.