By the time you read this, someone out there may be a billionaire. Or maybe not. As I type this, the drawing for Monday night’s lottery is topping one billion dollars. By the time I send it to print, the lottery and winning (or not winning) numbers will already have been drawn. And once again, either a gas station in Iowa or some convenience store in Loma Linda will suddenly become a national landmark, or the jackpot will roll over again.
I have no idea if there’s a winner yet. But one thing I do know: As of this typing, I know that it won’t be me. I didn’t buy a ticket.
Like the little gentile who dreams of being the guy on the Yankees who hits the grand slam in the bottom of the ninth to win the World Series, or who throws the touchdown to win the Super Bowl, it’s also the dream of many a yeshiva bochur to be able to dole out tzedakah and be a role model of chesed through the great philanthropy he will enact after his fantasy becomes a reality. But alas, it ends up in the hands of some retiree in Encino, California.
It’s the dream of every modern-day bochur (and even yungerman): a couple of dollars and suddenly the world is yours. And then there are the stories. Tickets bought, tickets lost, mistaken numbers, switched numbers, forgotten numbers. If only you had played your mother-in-law’s birthday, you would have your name on countless yeshivos, kollelim, and botei medrash across the country. And so on. Yad Hashem seems to be everywhere—except on the ticket you bought. But just like winning is His, so is losing. It’s just not the stuff of storybooks.
There’s even the story of the poor fellow back in the Old Country who religiously bought a lottery ticket every week. His wife was exasperated. “With those few coins,” she scolded, “we could buy eggs for the children. Why waste them? You never win!” She finally hauled him before the rov. The husband explained: “Rebbe, when I buy that ticket, I spend the whole week dreaming. I imagine paying my rent, marrying off my daughters, and having enough feed for my livestock. The hope itself keeps me alive. For a couple of coins, I get a week’s worth of happiness. Isn’t that worth it?”
Indeed, it is the dreams that fuel the currency of the lottery.
Of course, some of us dream bigger. Forget the eggs and chickens. People fantasize about kavod, sitting at the mizrach vant, and having rabbonim and askonim consult them on matters of national importance. Picking the right numbers may suddenly bestow us with great insight and wisdom.
My zaide told me that as both a bochur and as a yungerman in the Kovno Kollel, he had a difficulty with a certain Gemara. In fact, he felt he simply had no pshat. When he became rosh yeshiva of Torah Vodaas and had to give shiur on that Gemara, he suddenly figured out a pshat. He shared the explanation with Rav Reuven Grozovsky, who heartily approved of it. Then he asked why it took so long to figure it out. Rav Reuven smiled and said, “Until now, you only davened for the solution in the brocha of Atah Chonein, but now that you needed it for shiur, you had kavanah in the tefillah for parnassah, Boreich Aleinu, as well!”
Maybe before the drawing, I will run out and buy a ticket. Maybe by the time you read this, I may not have to write a column in the Yated. (Although I’d write it anyway.) But I doubt I will buy a ticket in New York.
True story: Many years ago, I myself toyed with lottery fever, not in New York, but in Shellsburg, Pennsylvania, of all places. My gas tank was empty, and I was desperate to find a station. Driving along deserted country roads, the warning ding was relentless. I was davening hard that my car would find some petroleum-based nourishment before my engine’s last gasp for sustenance.
On some country road, miraculously, I found a tiny convenience store with a lone pump. As I pulled up, I noticed a handwritten sign: “Lottery Tickets Sold Here.”
I turned to my kids. “Forget the gas,” I said. “We’re buying a ticket!”
They stared. “Abba, we thought you needed gas.”
“Listen,” I explained. “Have you ever noticed that the winners are never from New York? It’s always some farmer in a one-horse town like Shellsburg. We can’t pass through here without buying a ticket.”
Well, I passed the sign, “YOU GOT TO PLAY TO WIN,” and bought one. I didn’t win. And by the time I finish typing this, I still haven’t.
But not all lotteries are about Powerball. Klal Yisroel has its own lottery—and it’s far more serious than a billion dollars. On Yom Kippur, in the Bais Hamikdosh, two identical goats were brought before the kohein gadol. By lottery—goral—one was marked laHashem for a korban and one la’Azazel, to be cast off a cliff in the wilderness.
The goats were the same size, same cost, same appearance. Nothing distinguished them except the lottery. One ended up elevated to “Kodesh laHashem,” while the other was hurled down a jagged mountain to its death. It’s a chilling image. Life and death—by lottery. One goat may be a loser, but Klal Yisroel is a winner.
We speak about our goral: “Mah na’im goraleinu—How sweet is our lottery.” Our goral is not left to chance. During Elul, as we prepare for the Yom Hadin, it may feel like we’re just two goats standing in line, waiting for a random pull of the lot. Who will live, who will prosper, who will stumble. It can seem arbitrary.
Yet, Chazal tell us otherwise. Our goral is shaped not by chance, but by choice. Every tefillah, every kappitel Tehillim, every extra five minutes we push ourselves in learning—they’re all tickets we place into the Heavenly drum. And unlike Powerball, this lottery is stacked in our favor. No billion-to-one odds. Every act counts. And every tefillah counts as well.
And a little like the lottery, “You got to pray to win.”
I’m Just saying
