Excerpt from a recent Hamodia article by Rabbi Avraham Chaim Carmell:
This is not an attempt to cut corners on the tried-and-tested Twelve-Step Program for alcoholics. Unlike the long journey of overcoming an addiction, this plan can be used when you need almost immediate results.
It was formulated by an acquaintance of mine as a way to resolve stressful situations. You could call it a segulah, I suppose, but it is explainable — at least in spiritual terms. He culled these points from various statements interspersed in the weekly talks of his Rebbe and has seen it work numerous times for himself and others.
You have mislaid something; just missed the last bus; a child hasn’t returned home. Go through the following four steps, with some level of sincerity:
- I believe with complete faith that this situation has been sent from Heaven for my ultimate benefit.
- I know that Hashem controls all events and am confident that I shall soon see a positive resolution.
- I thank You, Hashem, for everything You have done for me, and in particular for the present problem.
- I pray that I overcome this challenge without agmas nefesh, distress or suffering so as not be a cause of pain to the Shechinah. [Chazal tell us that whenever a Jew suffers, the Shechinah suffers with him (Chagigah 15b).]
My friend is a sofer. One of his colleagues had just completed his “last” sefer Torah. Due to a medical condition, he had changed to another means of earning an income. A dealer in STaM products had found him a community in America that bought the sefer Torah and were planning the hachnasas sefer Torah before Shavuos.
A week before Shavuos, he reappeared in the studio where my friend and other sofrim work. He explained that his dealer had already shipped to the U.S. all the yerios (sheets of written parchment, which are shipped independently and sewn together at the point of destination). Apparently, one yeriah was missing, and he had to rewrite it and get it to America in time for Shavuos.
My friend suggested he try his four-step plan, which his colleagues had all heard about. This sofer said he usually uses the “Ein od milvado” of the Nefesh Hachaim, but that requires concentration and focus and he didn’t have the peace of mind for that, so he agreed to go through the four steps.
At my friend’s urging, he asked the dealer to look one more time for the missing yeriah (although he had already overturned his office looking for it). Ten minutes later the phone rang. All the sofrim put down their quills in suspense to hear the conversation. They heard an excited voice: “The miracle happened! I found it!” What had happened is that sofrim usually send yerios wrapped around cardboard tubes (the type used for foil and the like) to ensure that they don’t get bent.
When the Rabbi of the shul requested to see a sample of the writing, the dealer asked for a yeriah to be sent to him. Since it was a single yeriah, the sofer had inserted it inside the tube rather than wrapping it around it. After scanning it, the dealer put it back inside. He had used the tube many times since, without realizing he had left a yeriah inside. Now it had suddenly occurred to him to check there!
It is this writer’s contention that the underlying secret behind all such segulos is the same. When things don’t go right, we tend to get caught up in the here-and-now technicalities of the problem. There is some physical factor or person causing us distress. The function of any segulah is to help us rise above the facts and remember that everything is in the Hands of Hashem.
This is not always so easy; the hard facts on the ground often seem insurmountable. The effort it takes generates a zechus that in many cases is what Hashem wants from us before He brings about the yeshuah (see Rabbeinu Yonah, Mishlei ch. 3).