[Avodah] Testing God

[Jonathan Baker]

RMKopinsky:

> I remembering seeing a Teshuva once (maybe Shu"t haRashb"a - I saw it on the
> Bar Ilan CD, so I don't remember what it was) asking about a person who
> said, "I will give tzedaka if my son gets well, and I won't give tzedaka if
> my son doesn't get well."  The question was, can you force him to give the
> tzedaka in any case, enforcing the Mishna in Pirkei Avos, "Al Tihyu
> ka'avadim."  The answer was that no he doesn't have to give the tzedaka.

So I've heard informally in other places: "tzedaka is the one thing you can
do to test Hashem; anything else, e.g. 'if X doesn't happen, I'll eat a ham
sandwich', is right out."

Tangentially - I wonder if we point that mishnah correctly?  Maybe it should
be "al tihyu k'OVDIM"?  The slave doesn't work to get a reward, he works
to avoid punishment.  The employee works to get his wage.

--
        name: jon baker              web: http://www.panix.com/~jjbaker
     address: jjbaker at panix.com     blog: http://thanbook.blogspot.com