Hamas War

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Tfilat Hamon, The Prayer for Prosperity and Peanut's Linus

Lots of emails are going around reminding us that today is an auspicious day to pray for prosperity, say the "T'filat Hamon." 

How much of our parnasa, income, is from G-d and how much from our own efforts?  It reminds me of an old classic Peanuts cartoon.  I can't find the actual cartoon to post, but here are the words:
Linus:  "I'm afraid to look at it. Oh, I hope I got a good grade.  Please, please, please let it be a good grade."
Charlie Brown says to him, “You should have done all that hoping and praying when you were studying for the test.”
Linus replies, with a look of disdain, "Hoping and praying should never be confused with studying."


Linus is right.  But please remember that our success is a combination of our own efforts with whatever G-d wants to give us in This World, Olam HaZeh.  Remember, our final accounting for reward and punishment are in the Next World, Olam HaBa.

2 comments:

rabbi neil fleischmann said...

The Gemorah says that you should pray while the grain is being cultivated and growing, but that once it's brought in to the silo then prayers about it are wasted because it is what it is. Linus' prayers had to be concurrent with his studying in order to work. Once he was holding the paper in his hand his prayers could not change the grade that was written on the paper.

Batya said...

Thanks rabbi for the clarification, but poor Linus, he got it wrong.