Will you be writing an essay about what the modern orthodox do with the bitachon vs hishtadlus issue?
Do they simply write off all the pesukim and maamarei chazal, because "chazal make mistakes"? What exactly have you discovered that the chovos halevovos didn't know about? Do dinosaurs play a role in all this?
Interesting that you try to paint this as a chareidi issue.
I just came across a letter (random? hashgacha?) from R Shlomo Fisher where he brings the גירסא change of the גרא and says that he feels it is unnecessary.
>>>In other words, for Chazal, and the Rishonim, increasing the amount of money that you make requires you to make the ordinary efforts that people engage in to increase the amount of money that they make.>>>
I wonder what this means.
Many years ago, people used to think a whole bunch of crazy things about human health and well being, and it's somewhat unfair to characterize it that way, because it's only crazy from today's perspective, so I'm not judging them. Just like in 100 years from now the way to treat cancer will be with gene editing and they'll look back and say that we did crazy things like infusing people with nonspecific poisons that kill the cancer but also kill the patient, but we titrated it just enough so that we maximize cancer death and minimize person death.
But people used to think that, let's say, bloodletting was a good medical procedure to have done to cure yourself of various ills. Now we would say we know better.
If we can't observe the universe to see the relationships between causes and effects, then where do we look for this information? R' Slifkin says that "[halacha] requires you to make the ordinary efforts that people engage in to increase [their] amount of money" but why do things that make no sense? Maybe doing things to increase one's income are like bloodletting? I presume that halacha does not endorse bloodletting.
The problem with disjointing cause and effect as we observe it in the universe and supplanting the way we see things with a mystical perspective that has never been tested and cannot be tested is that we actually don't even know what it means to "do the things that make sense" or that "people ordinarily do."
Without admitting that anything we see is connected to anything else we see, how can we know what is a relic of bygone times and what is something that currently makes sense? And if it currently makes sense, then why the need for mysticism at all? Isn't that what "makes sense" means? That we don't need to look at mysticism? No one would suggest fixing the "car with low gas" problem with anything other than more gas. Why is that never called into question, but fixing the "bank account with low funds" problem is seen as different? These are not asked sarcastically.
For those who are wondering about this girsa change of the Vilna Gaon:
In Niddah 70b, the Gemara says "what should one do to become rich? Do much business, trade faithfully. But many have done this, and it didn't work! *Rather*, pray for mercy from He that has the wealth (aka God). מאי קא משמע לן, what's the chiddush (ie we already knew that we must pray to God), that *neither works without the other*."
The Vilna Gaon removed the line "Do much business", but not the line "trade faithfully" (this gloss can be found on the side of the Gemara 70b). In context, this emendation doesn't make a lot of sense in comparison the two _other_ pieces of wisdom that the sages of Alexandria asked R. Yehoshua ben Chanina (69b) (how to become wise, and how to have boys). To both of those, R. Yehoshua b. Chanina responded with two phrases "increase Yeshiva, and decrease business", and "marry a worthy woman, and sanctify ones self with one's wife." If you delete the line "increase business" from the response about become rich, R. Yehoshua has only responded one thing: do business with faith.
Two more comments:
Even with the Vilna Gaon's girsa change, it still says "do business with faith", which is _still_ not what the Beis HaLevi quoted. The Beis HaLevi only quoted the middle, which says "יבקש רחמים ממי שהעושר שלו", not the previous line, which still says to do business, and not the next line, which says that one needs to both do business and also pray.
For זכרון דברים: You are combating עם ארצות with עם ארצות. The Gemara did in fact say "אלא", which rejects the previous line - and then clearly says that one needs to both do business and also pray. It was only rejecting doing business _without_ praying. This is so פשוט that I wonder if you in fact looked up the Gemara inside before commenting on it.
Natan, I must say, I was dazzled when I learned that you are smarter than R' Chaim Soloveitchik. But now that I see that you are even smarter than the Vilna Gaon, I shouldn't have been so impressed. I can only imagine who's coming next. Chazal? Moshe Rabbeinu? Hashem?
In terms of the substance of the post, it seems like you entirely missed the boat. Most people believe that as a general rule, the more hishtadlus one puts in, the more success they generally see, but of course only with siyyatta d'shmaya. So, without siyyatta d'shmaya, hishtadlus is meaningless. And with siyyatta d'shmaya, one can make it rich even with very minimal hishtadlus. Of course, there are people on lofty levels of bitachon such as the Gemara tells us about RSHBY whom did not need to expend any effort in providing income, but the Gemara tells us that most people are not on that level. This exactly what the many seforim about bitachon (such as the Chovos Halevavos (wait, was he Charedi?), the Bais Halevi, the Chazon Ish etc.) teach, and entirely consistent with reality and with Charedi (and it seems from the comments here, even MODOX) belief. Only you are scratching your head in confusion.
Articles like this are bait, they aren't seriously researched points of view.
There are many Gemaros, and to select some and ignore the others means you do not really care for what the Gemara says, you care to find a heter for what you want to believe.
Classic Torah sources, from Chovas Halevavos to Mesilas Yesharim and many others, make the same point. A person must work as much as necessary that בדרך הטבע he can sustain himself. Without that, Hashem will not make a miracle. But he does not have to account for every possibility, or increase the chances above that of 'not being a miracle'. A shoemaker who wins the lottery is a miracle, but a schoolteacher who supports his family is not. That is sufficient hishtadlus and anything more than that is not required by any classic Torah source. College education is unnecessary for a person to be able to make a living בדרך הטבע, even if it 'increases his chances'. Which is why hishtadlus does not include a requirement to go to college.
This is classic Jewish thought, and only someone who was not brought up with this education could not know this.
"Rather, he should seek mercy from the One Who has the wealth"
I'm not even sure you can take this at face value. Many people become wealthy without "seeking mercy from the One Who has the wealth"! Maybe the Gemara is talking about overturning a specific gezaira that one will NOT be wealthy.
Once again, it's complicated, and simplistic answers don't fully address the reality . . .
The Goan indeed takes out the words ירבה בסחורה, however it is completely irrelevant to the discussion at hand, because the Gemara concludes that wealth acquisition is grounded in רחמים. The question מאי קמ"ל proves this, as Rashi explained this passage in the previous Gemara למה ליה למימר להו ירבה כו' הואיל וברחמים הדבר תלוי, the only argument you would be able to make is that the Gemara's maskanah of דהא בלא הא לא סגי means that you need both equally, but certainly not that ירבה בסחורה is the key point of acquiring wealth.
This post motivated me to compose my own writeup of the sugya, where I explore the sugya and the (lack of manuscript, and existence of a few Rishonic) variants.
It is the #1 ethical book in the chareidi world today
They are not making it up
אמנם מה שיוכל לשמור את האדם ולהצילו מן המפסידים האלה הוא הבטחון, והוא שישליך יהבו על ה' לגמרי, כאשר ידע כי ודאי אי אפשר שיחסר לאדם מה שנקצב לו, וכמו שאז"ל במאמריהם (ביצה טז, א): כל מזונותיו של אדם קצובים לו מראש השנה וגו', וכן אמרו (יומא לח, ב): אין אדם נוגע במוכן לחבירו אפילו כמלא נימא, וכבר היה אדם יכול להיות יושב ובטל והגזירה היתה מתקיימת, אם לא שקדם הקנס לכל בני אדם, (בראשית ג, יט): בזעת אפך תאכל לחם, אשר על כן חייב אדם להשתדל איזה השתדלות לצורך פרנסתו, שכן גזר המלך העליון, והרי זה כמס שפורע כל המין האנושי אשר אין להמלט ממנו.
GreenButton UpArrow.svgמידת החסידות
על כן אמרו (ילקוט שמעוני דברים, רמז תתח): יכול אפילו יושב ובטל תלמוד לומר: בכל משלח ידך אשר תעשה, אך לא שההשתדלות הוא המועיל, אלא שהשתדלות מוכרח, וכיון שהשתדל הרי יצא ידי חובתו, וכבר יש מקום לברכת שמים שתשרה עליו ואינו צריך לבלות ימיו בחריצות והשתדלות, הוא מה שכתב דוד המלך ע"ה (תהלים עה, ז): כי לא ממוצא וממערב ולא וגו', כי אלהים שופט וגו' ושלמה המלך ע"ה אמר (משלי כג, ד): "אל תיגע להעשיר מבינתך חדל". אלא הדרך האמיתי הוא דרכם של החסידים הראשונים, עושים תורתן עיקר ומלאכתן תפלה, וזה וזה נתקיים בידם, כי כיון שעשה אדם קצת מלאכה משם והלאה אין לו אלא לבטוח בקונו ולא להצטער על שום דבר עולמי, אז תשאר דעתו פנויה ולבו מוכן לחסידות האמיתי ולעבודה התמימה.
Some people are taught how to 'make a leining' on a Gemara in their youth.
Basically, it is the lay of the land, how the text is to be understood, where to pause and how to finish sentences.
Quite young, we are taught the meaning of the word אלא. Basically, the Stam Gemara is discarding the previous pshat/halacha/answer as incorrect, and arriving at a new pshat/halacha/answer.
So the Gemara here attempts to tell us that more work = more money, but discards that and tells us that prayer is the answer.
The average tenth grader could tell you that.
The question now is, what happens to people that they could make a basic foolish mistake like this post, removing a critical word from the text to distort the pshat in the Gemara? Is it negi'us? Is it the warping of the brain that a college degree causes? Who knows?
Everyone is missing what is so clear here. The Gemara is discussing how to become WEALTHY. This - as discussed by the Chovos Halevovos all throughout Shaar Bitachon - is where the standard Hishtadlus does not work anymore. Extra business will not necessarily make one RICH.
Will you be writing an essay about what the modern orthodox do with the bitachon vs hishtadlus issue?
Do they simply write off all the pesukim and maamarei chazal, because "chazal make mistakes"? What exactly have you discovered that the chovos halevovos didn't know about? Do dinosaurs play a role in all this?
Interesting that you try to paint this as a chareidi issue.
I just came across a letter (random? hashgacha?) from R Shlomo Fisher where he brings the גירסא change of the גרא and says that he feels it is unnecessary.
קובץ אהל לאה חלק ג' עמ' קו
My father has a nice related interpretation of this interplay from a pasuk from last week's parsha, Beshalach.
ה' יִלָּחֵם לָכֶם וְאַתֶּם תַּחֲרִישׁוּן
"Hashem will provide you with bread. All you have to do is plow."
>>>In other words, for Chazal, and the Rishonim, increasing the amount of money that you make requires you to make the ordinary efforts that people engage in to increase the amount of money that they make.>>>
I wonder what this means.
Many years ago, people used to think a whole bunch of crazy things about human health and well being, and it's somewhat unfair to characterize it that way, because it's only crazy from today's perspective, so I'm not judging them. Just like in 100 years from now the way to treat cancer will be with gene editing and they'll look back and say that we did crazy things like infusing people with nonspecific poisons that kill the cancer but also kill the patient, but we titrated it just enough so that we maximize cancer death and minimize person death.
But people used to think that, let's say, bloodletting was a good medical procedure to have done to cure yourself of various ills. Now we would say we know better.
If we can't observe the universe to see the relationships between causes and effects, then where do we look for this information? R' Slifkin says that "[halacha] requires you to make the ordinary efforts that people engage in to increase [their] amount of money" but why do things that make no sense? Maybe doing things to increase one's income are like bloodletting? I presume that halacha does not endorse bloodletting.
The problem with disjointing cause and effect as we observe it in the universe and supplanting the way we see things with a mystical perspective that has never been tested and cannot be tested is that we actually don't even know what it means to "do the things that make sense" or that "people ordinarily do."
Without admitting that anything we see is connected to anything else we see, how can we know what is a relic of bygone times and what is something that currently makes sense? And if it currently makes sense, then why the need for mysticism at all? Isn't that what "makes sense" means? That we don't need to look at mysticism? No one would suggest fixing the "car with low gas" problem with anything other than more gas. Why is that never called into question, but fixing the "bank account with low funds" problem is seen as different? These are not asked sarcastically.
For those who are wondering about this girsa change of the Vilna Gaon:
In Niddah 70b, the Gemara says "what should one do to become rich? Do much business, trade faithfully. But many have done this, and it didn't work! *Rather*, pray for mercy from He that has the wealth (aka God). מאי קא משמע לן, what's the chiddush (ie we already knew that we must pray to God), that *neither works without the other*."
The Vilna Gaon removed the line "Do much business", but not the line "trade faithfully" (this gloss can be found on the side of the Gemara 70b). In context, this emendation doesn't make a lot of sense in comparison the two _other_ pieces of wisdom that the sages of Alexandria asked R. Yehoshua ben Chanina (69b) (how to become wise, and how to have boys). To both of those, R. Yehoshua b. Chanina responded with two phrases "increase Yeshiva, and decrease business", and "marry a worthy woman, and sanctify ones self with one's wife." If you delete the line "increase business" from the response about become rich, R. Yehoshua has only responded one thing: do business with faith.
Two more comments:
Even with the Vilna Gaon's girsa change, it still says "do business with faith", which is _still_ not what the Beis HaLevi quoted. The Beis HaLevi only quoted the middle, which says "יבקש רחמים ממי שהעושר שלו", not the previous line, which still says to do business, and not the next line, which says that one needs to both do business and also pray.
For זכרון דברים: You are combating עם ארצות with עם ארצות. The Gemara did in fact say "אלא", which rejects the previous line - and then clearly says that one needs to both do business and also pray. It was only rejecting doing business _without_ praying. This is so פשוט that I wonder if you in fact looked up the Gemara inside before commenting on it.
Natan, I must say, I was dazzled when I learned that you are smarter than R' Chaim Soloveitchik. But now that I see that you are even smarter than the Vilna Gaon, I shouldn't have been so impressed. I can only imagine who's coming next. Chazal? Moshe Rabbeinu? Hashem?
In terms of the substance of the post, it seems like you entirely missed the boat. Most people believe that as a general rule, the more hishtadlus one puts in, the more success they generally see, but of course only with siyyatta d'shmaya. So, without siyyatta d'shmaya, hishtadlus is meaningless. And with siyyatta d'shmaya, one can make it rich even with very minimal hishtadlus. Of course, there are people on lofty levels of bitachon such as the Gemara tells us about RSHBY whom did not need to expend any effort in providing income, but the Gemara tells us that most people are not on that level. This exactly what the many seforim about bitachon (such as the Chovos Halevavos (wait, was he Charedi?), the Bais Halevi, the Chazon Ish etc.) teach, and entirely consistent with reality and with Charedi (and it seems from the comments here, even MODOX) belief. Only you are scratching your head in confusion.
Articles like this are bait, they aren't seriously researched points of view.
There are many Gemaros, and to select some and ignore the others means you do not really care for what the Gemara says, you care to find a heter for what you want to believe.
Classic Torah sources, from Chovas Halevavos to Mesilas Yesharim and many others, make the same point. A person must work as much as necessary that בדרך הטבע he can sustain himself. Without that, Hashem will not make a miracle. But he does not have to account for every possibility, or increase the chances above that of 'not being a miracle'. A shoemaker who wins the lottery is a miracle, but a schoolteacher who supports his family is not. That is sufficient hishtadlus and anything more than that is not required by any classic Torah source. College education is unnecessary for a person to be able to make a living בדרך הטבע, even if it 'increases his chances'. Which is why hishtadlus does not include a requirement to go to college.
This is classic Jewish thought, and only someone who was not brought up with this education could not know this.
"Rather, he should seek mercy from the One Who has the wealth"
I'm not even sure you can take this at face value. Many people become wealthy without "seeking mercy from the One Who has the wealth"! Maybe the Gemara is talking about overturning a specific gezaira that one will NOT be wealthy.
Once again, it's complicated, and simplistic answers don't fully address the reality . . .
The Goan indeed takes out the words ירבה בסחורה, however it is completely irrelevant to the discussion at hand, because the Gemara concludes that wealth acquisition is grounded in רחמים. The question מאי קמ"ל proves this, as Rashi explained this passage in the previous Gemara למה ליה למימר להו ירבה כו' הואיל וברחמים הדבר תלוי, the only argument you would be able to make is that the Gemara's maskanah of דהא בלא הא לא סגי means that you need both equally, but certainly not that ירבה בסחורה is the key point of acquiring wealth.
As per Janis J: "YOU CAN'T ALWAYS GET WHAT YOU WANT, BUT IF YOU TRY SOMETIMES, YOU GET WHAT YOU NEED."
Freewill vs Determinism. ACJA
This post motivated me to compose my own writeup of the sugya, where I explore the sugya and the (lack of manuscript, and existence of a few Rishonic) variants.
https://scribalerror.substack.com/p/all-you-need-to-do-is-plow
Interesting the Talmud says pray and not Talmud Torah!
מסילת ישרים פרק כ״א
Predates chareidism by quite some time
It is the #1 ethical book in the chareidi world today
They are not making it up
אמנם מה שיוכל לשמור את האדם ולהצילו מן המפסידים האלה הוא הבטחון, והוא שישליך יהבו על ה' לגמרי, כאשר ידע כי ודאי אי אפשר שיחסר לאדם מה שנקצב לו, וכמו שאז"ל במאמריהם (ביצה טז, א): כל מזונותיו של אדם קצובים לו מראש השנה וגו', וכן אמרו (יומא לח, ב): אין אדם נוגע במוכן לחבירו אפילו כמלא נימא, וכבר היה אדם יכול להיות יושב ובטל והגזירה היתה מתקיימת, אם לא שקדם הקנס לכל בני אדם, (בראשית ג, יט): בזעת אפך תאכל לחם, אשר על כן חייב אדם להשתדל איזה השתדלות לצורך פרנסתו, שכן גזר המלך העליון, והרי זה כמס שפורע כל המין האנושי אשר אין להמלט ממנו.
GreenButton UpArrow.svgמידת החסידות
על כן אמרו (ילקוט שמעוני דברים, רמז תתח): יכול אפילו יושב ובטל תלמוד לומר: בכל משלח ידך אשר תעשה, אך לא שההשתדלות הוא המועיל, אלא שהשתדלות מוכרח, וכיון שהשתדל הרי יצא ידי חובתו, וכבר יש מקום לברכת שמים שתשרה עליו ואינו צריך לבלות ימיו בחריצות והשתדלות, הוא מה שכתב דוד המלך ע"ה (תהלים עה, ז): כי לא ממוצא וממערב ולא וגו', כי אלהים שופט וגו' ושלמה המלך ע"ה אמר (משלי כג, ד): "אל תיגע להעשיר מבינתך חדל". אלא הדרך האמיתי הוא דרכם של החסידים הראשונים, עושים תורתן עיקר ומלאכתן תפלה, וזה וזה נתקיים בידם, כי כיון שעשה אדם קצת מלאכה משם והלאה אין לו אלא לבטוח בקונו ולא להצטער על שום דבר עולמי, אז תשאר דעתו פנויה ולבו מוכן לחסידות האמיתי ולעבודה התמימה.
Some people are taught how to 'make a leining' on a Gemara in their youth.
Basically, it is the lay of the land, how the text is to be understood, where to pause and how to finish sentences.
Quite young, we are taught the meaning of the word אלא. Basically, the Stam Gemara is discarding the previous pshat/halacha/answer as incorrect, and arriving at a new pshat/halacha/answer.
So the Gemara here attempts to tell us that more work = more money, but discards that and tells us that prayer is the answer.
The average tenth grader could tell you that.
The question now is, what happens to people that they could make a basic foolish mistake like this post, removing a critical word from the text to distort the pshat in the Gemara? Is it negi'us? Is it the warping of the brain that a college degree causes? Who knows?
Everyone is missing what is so clear here. The Gemara is discussing how to become WEALTHY. This - as discussed by the Chovos Halevovos all throughout Shaar Bitachon - is where the standard Hishtadlus does not work anymore. Extra business will not necessarily make one RICH.