Benefit without Merit

Howard:  Since children, longevity and money are not due to one’s merit (Moade Kattan 28a), what is it we say on Yom Kippur below? 

“Who will live and who will die, who will become rich and who will become poor? But teshuva, tefilah and tzedaka avert the evil of the decree.” 

Poverty and life are 2 of the 3 cited in gemara Moade Kattan 28a that are independent of merit. 

How then does teshuva, tefila and tzedaka play a role?

Rabbi Israel Chait:  Teshuva changes the person’s internal make up. He can then naturally succeed without God’s help, according to the laws of chance which we call “mazal.” Tefila—prayer—is a different track; it’s asking God to directly intervene in the laws of nature. God’s response to prayer is due neither to merit or nature. And tzedaka is also a separate phenomenon, it is also a separate track. God says He will “Open the windows of heaven and pour out a bracha on us until we tire of saying enough.” (Malachi 3:10).

Rabbi Moshe Ben-Chaim: I thought into what Rabbi Chait said above. He explained these three phenomena as altering our fate. Teshuvah is akin to Joseph's plan to succeed, despite the seven years of famine. Rabbi Chait previously taught that when Pharaoh heard the forecast of the famine, he felt incapacitated. He was a mystical fatalist. Joseph’s response was greatly different: although there was a divine decree of famine, this does not mean that man his crippled and can't engineer a plan around it and succeed. Joseph acted like a person doing teshuva: he regrouped and made a new plan with the new information of a famine. Even without God's interaction, he succeeded. So too, a person who changes his internal make up through teshuva will make better choices and have a better year. This is 1 of 3 ways man’s fate can be avoided.

I wondered why prayer and tzedaka earn a response from God, regardless of our merit. Perhaps God's justice demands that the creatures that He made dependent upon His kindness, should be answered when they pray, as the talmud says: 

“Rav Yehuda said: A covenant was made with the thirteen attributes that they will not return empty-handed, meaning that if one mentions them, he will certainly be answered, as it is stated in this regard: “Behold, I make a covenant” (Exodus 34:10).

And also in God's justice is that He validates man’s act of tzedaka by replenishing his charity. And this has nothing to do with merit or nature.  

Thus, there are 3 ways to avert a decree: 

1) internal change that avoids a poor fate, 2) tefila which invokes God’s response to care for those creatures He decreed are dependent, and 3) tzedaka,  God endorsement of man’s acceptance of a higher system that overrides nature. God’s will is that He care for needy creatures by intervening when one prays, and that man’s belief in a metaphysical guiding world is endorsed by God’s return of his charity. 

Man's greatest concern is self-preservation, which is expressed through his concerns for physical health and wealth. But in God's eyes, most prominent to man should be his Torah studies. Therefore if health, wealth or children would negatively impact his Torah studies, God will adjust their relationship to the person to optimize his Torah studies. Some people might be unaffected by wealth, but one man might be harmed by the needy knocking on his door all day, thereby diminishing his Torah study. God, knowing all variables, determines that there might be two equally righteous people like Rabbi Chisda and Rabba who’s prayers were answered, but Rav Chisda had greater physical success than Rabba.