[Avodah] Segulos (was Parashas Ha'mon - A Segulah for Paranassah!)

Prof. Levine larry62341 at optonline.net
Sun Jan 28 08:25:14 PST 2018


I am moving this discussion to Avodah.

At 04:14 PM 1/26/2018, Ben Waxman wrote on Areivim:

>Why does anyone think that everything must remain? the same?? Are you
>absolutely sure that Judaism that you grew up with was the be all and
>end all?? I
>Don't take this question as an approval of these segulot, that isn't the
>point.

I agree that everything does not have to remain the same. For example,
there was a time when only one person at a time said Kaddish. Today in
most shuls a number of people say Kaddish at the same time. This was
instituted to prevent fights over who should say each Kaddish. I am fine
with this provided that that the people saying Kaddish say it together.
However, when the saying of Kaddish becomes a Bilbul with each person
at a different place, then I do not believe that anyone has fulfilled
his obligation to say Kaddish.


>In addition, why would anyone think that his or her Yahadut is the
>standard (normative) Yahadut? Everything else is somehow strange,
>requires an apology, second best?

We are talking about segulos and if they are a normative part of
Yahadus. Here is what Rav Shimon Schwab had to say about segulos.
(From https://goo.gl/fZVeKm The Kishke segulah Part II)

    After writing the first part of The Kishke Segulah, a dear friend
    of mine, Rav Hershel Hisiger, R"M in Mesivta of Lakewood, called my
    attention to a story which succinctly and eloquently articulates,
    in a nutshell, the point of Part 2 in this series. The story was
    related by Rav Myer Schwab of Denver about his father, Rav Shimon
    Schwab zt"l. I subsequently verified the story with Rabbi Schwab,
    and thank him for his time and input.

    A great-granddaughter of Rav Shimon Schwab had been to Eretz Yisroel.
    Upon returning, she visited her grandfather, a red string tied around
    her wrist. When Rav Schwab saw the string, he asked his granddaughter
    why she was wearing it. The girl told her grandfather that it was
    a piece of a red string which had been wound around Kever Rochel
    seven times and that wearing such a string was supposedly a segulah
    for a shidduch and other things.

    When he heard this, Rav Schwab - in his trademark pleasant manner -
    asked the girl if she thought that perhaps she should not wear it.
    The granddaughter asked if he thought she should remove it, and he
    responded in the affirmative. Of course, the girl obliged, and Rav
    Schwab himself removed the red string from her hand. After removing
    the string, Rav Schwab explained to his granddaughter why he had
    felt that it should be removed.

    "If you wish for something," Rav Schwab explained, "then you should
    daven for it. That's how a Jew deals with all situations - with
    tefillah, Torah, and mitzvos. If there is a segulah which is part of
    our general service to Hashem, then such a segulah may be acceptable.
    There are no quick-fixes, however. A segulah which is not tefillah
    and has no component of avodas Hashem in it, but rather is merely
    a quick-fix, such as wearing a red string, is unacceptable."

    At first glance, one would think that this is elementary knowledge.
    After all, who among us does not believe that the Ribbono Shel Olam
    ultimately runs the world? On a deeper level, however, while we may
    believe this in the abstract, we sometimes seem to forget this most
    basic of principles in the subconscious way we act and feel at times.

See the above URL for more.

Part I is at
http://www.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/yated/kishke_segula_1.html


Based on this I think that one can conclude that certainly according to
Rav Schwab, segulos are not a part of normative Yahadus.

This is my point. To add new things that are incompatible with Yahadus
is simply not correct.

YL


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