[Avodah] Segulos and how they work

[Micha Berger]

On Sun, Mar 08, 2026 at 02:57:20PM +0200, Joel Rich wrote:
> My general theory of segulot is that if they make you feel closer to HKBH
> then that is their value.  It may be the realization that this is a prayer
> to say when you feel a fertility related need is sufficient to make your
> cries more real.
> 
> Understanding could make them even more powerful

I was going to write something similar, when I found the time, but let
me hit one point RJR didn't:

Understanding is a spectrum. A woman can say Tefillas Chanah without
being able to "understand what she is saying" (RAM's translation of the
QSA) on a word by word or even sentence by sentence level. But beyond
just knowing "this is a prayer to say" in this situation, she knows the
basic idea of what Chanah was davening for.

A point in the spectrum betwen RAM and RJR.

Every woman is going to understand it better or worse. And the more they
understand, the deeper the level of kavvanah possible. Even the typical
woman who understands every word can't have the same depth of kavvanah
as could someone who studied the tefillah on a Nechamah Leibowitz level.

-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 "'When Adar enters, we increase our joy'
http://www.aishdas.org/asp    'Joy is nothing but Torah.'
Author: Widen Your Tent       'And whoever does more, he is praiseworthy.'"
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF                   - Rav Dovid Lifshitz zt"l