Rav Chaim Brim of Yerushalayim would often relate stories about the Chofetz Chaim which he had heard first-hand from a talmid of the Chofetz Chaim who lived in Yerushalayim. Once, Rav Chaim related, after hearing another wondrous tale about the great gaon and tzadik of Radin, he exclaimed to that talmid, “Imagine! You saw the Chofetz Chaim with your own two eyes! So I am now seeing somebody whose eyes actually saw the Chofetz Chaim himself!”
The talmid, however, did not seem to share Rav Chaim’s sentiment. “Why get all excited,” he asked, “over the fact that you are looking at me, and I looked at the Chofetz Chaim, whose greatness was because he looked at the holy words of the Torah? You can simply look at the words of the Torah yourself! They’re the exact same words that the Chofetz Chaim saw, and you can see them yourself.”
Rav Chaim remembered that lesson and recalled it fondly. We hear all these remarkable stories about various gedolim, he would say, and we wish we had some sort of connection with any one of these great men. We’re forgetting, though, that whatever gadlus they reached, whatever miraculous occurrences they were able to affect, all came about through one avenue – the Torah. And we have the very same Torah that they did.
Getting Our Yeshua
Almost every one of us experiences a time, at one point or another in our lives, when we fervently desire something that is out of our hands. Whether it is a matter concerning health, shidduchim, children, parnossah, nachas or anything else, which one of us hasn’t faced a challenging time when we wished, more than anything, that we knew what we could do to bring about our salvation? If only we know which kapitlach to say, which segulos to try, which kever to visit or which tzadik from whom to ask a brocha.
Alas, we have no neviim today, no prophecy to tell exactly how to go about meriting our salvation. What we do have, however, is direct access to the Power from which any prophecy would derive. We have a one-on-one connection with the Borei olam, the Creator Who is the only Source behind whatever salvation may be brought about by whichever segula, kever or brocha we might receive.
While a brocha from a tzadik may indeed be valuable, we must remember that it is Hashem – not the tzadik – Who grants any blessings, and we have direct access to Hashem ourselves. True, we may not be on the level of the tzadik, but it is Hashem’s ‘level’ so to speak, His Omnipotence, which controls our destiny, and we have access to that.
Consider, for example, the case of a girl in desperate need of a shidduch. It may be someone who has been waiting a few years or more while most of her friends are already married with children. Or, perhaps, it’s a girl who is already nineteen and a half and has been back from seminary for a whole two months and has yet to have even gone out once! Yes, she went straight from the airport to meet three different shadchanim before even going home. She had her resumé professionally prepared by a team consisting of a marketing expert, a published writer, a shadchan, a mother of boys in shidduchim, a proofreader and a sheitel macher. She went on a crash diet and lost all the weight she put on when she was being mekayeim the mitzvah d’Oraysah of “V’ochalta v’sovota… al ha’aretz hatova.” She did all that, and yet, shockingly, it’s been two months and she hasn’t even gotten a yes.
A friend tells her about the new, age-old segula advertised by Kimcha d’Rabbonan. For a nominal donation, seven rebbetzins (k’neged the seven nevios) will walk around for seven days with their snoods pulled down past their eyebrows. Surely the merit of tznius, tzedakah and all those rebbetzins will enable her to find her shidduch before seven months are up.
His Luxuries – My Necessities
Or consider a fellow who’s struggling with parnossah. Here, too, it may be someone who is truly in a desperate situation, owing tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars, and simply not managing to bring in enough money to cover his family’s basic necessities. Alternatively, it might be someone whose struggles are defined by his inability to buy or do what “everyone else” is buying or doing.
Just picture the shame of the family who cannot afford to hire the same prohibitively expensive party planner who did the last three simchos in their development. Never mind that two of the three families who used her couldn’t afford her either, that they are both now seriously in debt, and that one of the fathers is now taking pills for anxiety and his wife finds herself always yelling at her children who are in turn acting out at home and in school. Never mind that the ten-dollar-a-pop miniatures put out by that party planner went straight to the garbage after one bite and that her novel idea of using wooden tongue depressors instead of spoons (which were quite uncomfortable to eat with) was simply because she forgot to order spoons the week before. The bottom line is that this family feels like losers, but they simply cannot afford to do what “everyone else” is doing.
Enter the newest segula for parnossah. For only $360 you can purchase a cheilek, a share, in Reb Chaikel Chremsel’s house, so that when his rebbetzin bakes Shlissel Challah with the key to their house, and Reb Chaikel uses those loaves for lechem mishnah on Shabbos, it will essentially be the key to your house in that challah, and thus open the key to your parnossah. For only $540, the rebbetzin will bake sourdough challah – and we all know that sourdough challah is the key to everything.
Or perhaps or friend will prefer trying a segula for parnossah that is actually mentioned in numerous rishonim, some of whom quote it in the name of Chazal, in Talmud Yerushalmi. “Kol ha’omer parshas ha’Mon b’chol yom muvtach lo shelo yisma’atu mezonosav. One who recites the section [of the Torah which speaks] of the Mon is guaranteed never to lack for sustenance.” So our fellow keeps a card in his pocket from which he reads through every morning.
(Which brings to mind an incident related by one of today’s Yerushalmi magidim: Chaim, upon hearing that a certain day was particularly auspicious for reciting Parshas ha’Mon, but not having a siddur handy, accessed the complete nusach on his smartphone. He then began shuckeling back and forth fervently as he read through the text on his screen.
A friend of his, Moshe, passed by and offered a disapproving scowl. “You’re davening from a smartphone?” he asked incredulously.
Chaim looked up, exasperated. “The one thing for which there can be a heter to use a smartphone is l’tzorech parnossah, and now you’re upset at me?!”)
Reading it or Learning It
Let us take a second glance, though, at the recitation of Parshas ha’Mon which clearly is a segula for parnossah, if not even more than a segula, but rather an actual guarantee. Does it not seem, on the surface, as if Chazal is telling us that Hashem will grant us parnossah simply for reciting a certain formula? If so, perhaps we should seek out this or that segula or magic formula, rather than go through the more challenging (even if more meaningful) task of turning to Hashem and davening to Him for whatever salvation we seek.
Such an idea, however, is completely mistaken and fundamentally flawed because the same rishonim who tell us about the segula, also tell us how and why it is guaranteed to work. Simply open a Mishna Berura to the first siman of Shulchan Aruch (1:13), where he quotes the Mogen Avrohom (who in turn brings from Rabbeinu B’chaya) that, “V’ein dai b’amirah, it is not enough to just say the words, but rather sheyisbonen, he must think about what he is saying, and [through that he will] recognize the wonders of Hashem… k’dei sheya’amin, so that he should recognize as true, that all his sustenance comes about exclusively through Hashem’s specific involvement, as we saw by the mon that ‘one who took more [than the omer granted him], gained nothing, and one who took less, lost not one bit.’”
This is explained as well by the Beis Yosef, the Ta”z and others. The “segula” of reciting Parshas ha’Mon, is in fact no segula at all! Parnossah is from Hashem, and there is no way to get it other than trusting that He will bless us with His bounty. Reciting Parshas ha’Mon is not another way to get it; it is that very same way. It is how one works to achieve a deep-seated awareness, and to bring what he knows in his head to what he feels in his heart. By reviewing, over and over daily, how Hashem took care of us in the barren desert – a place where there was no logical way for us to get our sustenance – and how He gave each of us exactly as much as we needed, no matter how much we thought we took, we begin to actually feel that way. We, too, now look to Hashem for our sustenance – and to no other force. By turning to Hashem, to the true Power behind any segula or brocha we may receive, we are thus blessed with His full bounty.
As Rav Chaim Brim taught us, we can look at the gadol, who learned the parsha, which brought him his Yiras Shomayim, or we can learn the same parsha ourselves.
Of course, on top of what we ourselves try our utmost to achieve, there are times when a brocha or a particular hidur mitzvah, may bring us some extra merit. Let us not think for a second, though, that they can come close to, or ever replace, our own avodas Hashem.
Hishtadlus for Shidduchim
Just recently, a few choshuveh single girls who were in Eretz Yisroel, were zoche to find themselves in the proximity of Rav Asher Arielli. They asked for, and received, warm brachos for shidduchim. The girls then asked him, “What about hishtadlus? Is there any particular thing we should try to do in order to find our zivugim?”
“Your hishtadlus,” replied Rav Asher, “is to daven.” (“Uhn a lachatz,” he added. “Without [feeling] pressure.”)
For if we can ask directly from the One Who is in charge, why try any other way?
As Purim comes close, this lesson is especially applicable. We are taught that Hashem arranged that Esther should be hosting parties with Haman and Achashveirosh, specifically so that any Yid who was aware of Esther’s origins and who had thought that she might have been their salvation from the evil designs of those two men, would now abandon that last hope. After all, she seemed to have turned on her own brothers and sisters, preferring to party with the powers that be rather than intercede on behalf of her poor brethren.
Thus, the Jews – having abandoned any other avenue of hope – would be forced to turn to Hashem to save them. That’s all Hashem wanted from them, to remember to turn to Him, and immediately His salvation came about in the most miraculous and incredible way!
Today, too, we merited to witness the collapse of a presidency where justice and safety were abandoned while every sick and deviant and corrupted idea was championed. In its place, we have a president who has championed our causes in the past and promises to do so in the future.
None of that, though, should have any bearing on our tefilos or on what we think will happen. Anything, and everything, can change in a second – for good or chas veshalom otherwise. Only Hashem runs the world, and we turn directly to Him, and only to Him, with Torah, tefilla and ma’asim tovim, as we ask that He continue to protect us, to shelter us, to assist us, to heal and bless us, and to ultimately bring each of us our geulah protis, antd to Klal Yisroel our geulah klolis.
