Praying for Luck

Rabbi Melanie Aron

November 6, 2004

There is a wonderful old Yiddish story recounted at the beginning of Rebecca Goldstein’s book Mazal .

Once upon a time, Mazal, which means luck, and Sechel, which means brains or sometimes, good sense, got into an argument about which is more important. Unable to resolve their difficulties they decided that the next child born would get sechel, brains, but no mazal, luck, and they would see what happened.

The little boy with brains and no luck, was born to a poor widowed mother and spent his childhood in rags. But when he was a teenager, the local goldsmith noticed the intelligent gleam in his eye and made him his apprentice. When the boy had learned everything he could learn from the goldsmith, he set off to the big city. There he found work with the royal tailor and eventually was recognized for his skill.

Meanwhile the king’s daughter was causing trouble at court. It was time for her to be wed, but she would not accept any of her royal suitors. They bored her to tears. She would marry, she insisted, the first suitor who could engage her in conversation. But in order to discourage unqualified applicants, it was announced that all those who tried and failed would be beheaded.

The young tailor, with sechel but no mazal, decided to take the risk. He came to see the princess, but rather than addressing her, spoke to her lady in waiting.

I would like your opinion, he said to the lady in waiting.

Once there were three friends who set out to find their fortunes. One was a woodcarver, one a tailor and one a teacher. They traveled from their town into a deep forest on their way to the big city. At night they decided to take turns keeping watch and protecting the others from the wild beasts. The first to stand guard was the woodcarver, and in the quiet of the night hours, in order not to fall asleep, he busied himself carving the form of a woman out of wood. Eventually his watch was over, and it was the turn of the tailor. Seeing the statuette, he decided to fill his hours making her a beautiful set of clothing. A few hours before dawn, the tailor laid down to rest and the teacher took his turn. He found the wooden statuette now clothed in the most modern of outfits, and taught her to speak.

In the morning, all three of the men wanted to marry this woman. The woodcutter said, “had I not carved her out of wood, she would not exist, I shall marry her. “The tailor said, “were it not for my clothes, she would just be a piece of wood. It is I who gave her style, I shall marry her.” The teacher said, “I gave her the power of speech, without which she would just be a dummy, I will marry her. “

“So,” the young man turned to the lady in waiting, “to whom shall this young woman be wed?”

The lady in waiting didn’t know what to say, but the princess had a definite opinion and insisted that the teacher who taught her to talk was the one who had made her a person and it was to him that she should be married. After saying that, she stepped out onto the balcony for a moment, but unfortunately, for this young boy who had no mazal, the guards, who were supposed to be listening to see if the princess spoke, weren’t paying attention. Assuming that the princess hadn’t responded to him any better than all of the previous applicants, they began hauling the young man off to be executed.

“See,” Mazal said to Sechel, “without me you are lost. Watch what a little luck can do.”

Then it happened that the princess looked out the window and saw the guards hauling off the young man. “Stop,” she said, “that’s my intended.” So they were wed and lived, with mazal’s help, happily ever after.

In this week’s Torah portion, Eliezer, Abraham’s servant prays for luck in his mission of finding a bride for Isaac. He prays: O Adonai, God of my master Abraham, I pray Thee send me good chance today.”

Yet we see by his behavior that Eliezer, didn’t really believe in leaving things to chance. As he approached the town, he headed to the place where people gathered, so that, in addition to watering his camels, he could get information about the townspeople and make useful contacts. He chose a time of day when people’s work was done, and there was time to dawdle and make conversation. He devised a test of character, easily as good as many of the online dating questionnaires, so that he could gain insight into whether the young woman would be a good match for Isaac. This is clearly a man who makes his own luck.

When I thought of Eliezer, Jeremy I thought of your mother and her musical performances. Performances look so effortless, yet you know how much work takes place behind the scenes. When I thought of Eliezer, Jack, I thought of some of the stories your father has told about your grandfather and the other early pioneers of the modern state of Israel, who were not going to wait for luck but wanted to take history into their own hands.

. Luck is nice, and sometimes when you’re playing bridge, the trump do break your way, but more important is how you play the game. The rabbis of the Talmud had an expression, ein somchim , we don’t depend on miracles. It like the words we read in the prayerbook last night: “Pray as if everything depended on God. Act as if everything depended on you. “Abraham’s right hand man understood that, and his success bore out the wisdom of this approach.