העורך Editor

Rabbi Pesach Eliyahu Falk zatzal in his Shut “Machazeh Eliyahu” Part Two Siman 55:4 and onwards argues at great length and with great forbearance that the current “custom” of parents (completely) “forgiving” their honor is improper.

In a gem of sales copy, Rabbi Falk notes the widespread tendency to seek solutions to parenting issues from non-Jewish experts and their books. “Why not try the Torah way first?” he wonders.

P.S., I heard in the name of a certain rabbi that the way to instill the mitzvah is for each parent to remind the children to stand for the other parent… (אמר לו אחד, אני, איני נאמן. איש פלוני נאמן, הרי זה נאמן. הלך לקח ממנו, אמר לו, מי כאן מוכר ישן. אמר לו, מי ששלחך אצלי, אף על פי שהן כגומלין זה את זה)

Since everyone is forced into becoming a lender to many institutions.

So argues Rabbi Moshe Sternbuch in “Teshuvos Vehanhagos” Part Three Siman 447.

אתה חושב שצריך לחוקק כאן במדינת ישראל את חוקי השולחן ערוך?

כפי שמנה רבינו הגר”א ז”ל:

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כמה זמן חיפשתי את הגר”א הנ”ל!

I enjoy the stories in the Hashgacha Pratis newsletters encouraging Bitachon. I don’t mean accursed materialism or the skepticism of “cosmic impersonalism”, God forbid, but I wonder about the relevance of some of the stories!

For example, Jews who, after making gargantuan efforts suddenly, inexplicably felt Hashem would look out for them (perhaps after doing a mitzvah), so they ceased their efforts (Don’t try this at home!), then saw personal redemption. This is supposed to be an illustration of the benefits of Bitachon.

Except the feeling came chronologically only after the money\lost item\etc.\match was already in the pipeline on its way to them. So, maybe this was just an example of inspired “Mazlei Chazi”, not Bitachon of their own free will.

Can’t one find similar stories of even non-Jews or ostensible atheists who had a premonition things would work out before they understood how and wherefore? And isn’t there a “survivorship bias” (i.e., we don’t hear of those cases where the premonition was false)?

(Although Sanhedrin 94a brings the concept of “Mazlei Chazi” only in the sense of foreboding doom, not of impending salvation.)

I haven’t looked into this further.