[Avodah] effects of religous worship on health

[Micha Berger]

On Thu, Dec 04, 2008 at 07:40:37AM -0600, Steven J Scher wrote:
: R' Daniel Israel
:>Another possibility is that He would arrange so that the supposedly
:>random groups are not random.  The scientists can pick any random
:>number generator they like, HKB"H can always "game" the system so
:>that the prayed-for group contains the people he wishes to give a
:>better outcome to.

: Yes.  I think this is the right answer... although I hadn't thought of it 
: until recently (as part of thinking about this discussion on A/A).  What's 
: random from our perspective is never random from HaShem's perspective, no?

Randomness has no meaning without time.

I'm about to flip a coin, the odds that it lands heads is 50:50.

I just flipped a coin, I see it laying on its side, it's heads. The odds
it landed heads, 100%.

(For purists upset with the colloquialisms: The probability is .5 or 1,
respectively. And those are approximates -- this coin could be the one
in a billion lopsided coin, my eyes could be playing tricks on me, etc...)

If I already flipped the coin but didn't yet look? Well, that involves
a number of deep debates. Topics range from different schools of thought
about what probability means, theories about the role of observation in
Quantum Mechanics and "

I'm proposing the Basian interpretation of probability. This boils down
to defining probability as the "subjective degree of belief in a
proposition". (Frequentists and Classicists can argue, but be prepared
to bore the masses.)

According to this interpretation of statistics, even if He does not
intervene in every instance (eg the majority of rishonim who would say
there isn't HP about which way a leaf falls in the middle of a forest
with no one around), there is no room for statistics. There are no
varying degrees of unknowns.


Related to all this is the concept that counting prevents berakhah.
After all, with counting, we shift many avenues of berakhah into means of
affirming faith in addition to the item itself. It may be we merit the
item, but not the additional aid to emunah.

Although the gemara in Yuma (22b) says this concept limited to not
counting Benei Yisrael, who are supposed to be uncountable like sand or
stars, I recall R' Freifeld (among a general sense of "everyone says")
citing a maamar chazal that makes a general statement: Ein haberakhah
shurah bedavar shesamui min ha'ayin.

The idea is real, but I'm not sure where the quote originates. The nearest
I found was a Beraisa "Tana devei R' Yishmael: Ein haberakhah metzuyah ela
bedavar she'ein ha'ayin sholetes bo." (Taanis 8b, also R' Yitchaq there.)

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Despair is the worst of ailments. No worries
micha at aishdas.org        are justified except: "Why am I so worried?"
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