- Segula 2
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- Moshe Ben-Chaim
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- Reader: I find your answer to my question perplexing. Re.
"...Please tell me of the different SEGULAS (tehillim, prayers,
minhags, etc.) that you know of for a safe birth and for a healthy
pregnancy."
- Like I mentioned, these "segulos" are simply man made
means to seek security and protection,which opposes God's plan that
man seek God alone.
- How can you argue that there are no such things as Segulas when it
is strongly advised that a husband during the ninth month of his
wife's pregnancy be given Pesicha at every opportunity. What about
saying certain Tehillim?
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- Mesora: One must pray to God
alone. if Segulas had any power, why don't we see Abraham, Isaac,
Jacob, or Moses using them or urging the Jews to use them? Follow what
the wise people did, not what todays foolish society preaches.
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Reader: Segulas, as I understand them to mean, enable the person
performing them to bring down and/or open themselves up to Kedusha. It
is this Kedusha that helps to bring about/enable good things (brachas).
Could you please address this as your opinion runs contrary to every one
that I have heard on this subject.
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- Mesora: This "kedusha"
theory is not explaining a phenomena which makes any sense. If I were
to tell you that by standing on one foot for 34 minutes while facing
east will cause you great wealth, will you follow this theory or do
you rather seek sensible methods of procuring wealth, those which your
mind tells you will arrive at success? Of course you agree with the
latter, well, this is the same method of thinking you must engage in
when making decisions in philosophy and religion. Rationality is not
to take a back seat in these areas. If an idea about "bringing
down and opening up kedusha" does not tell me anything, i do not
know what that means. Therefore, I cannot and will not gauge any of my
activities on that which is not sensible, or teaches me something
real. What you are quoting are simply words with Hebrew nuances, but
these nice sounding words cannot replace how reality works, and how I
a thinking being work. The greatest rabbis urged us to use our minds
in all areas, and not to even blindly accept the rabbis themselves,
without reasoning what we hear from them, and proving their views.
Blind acceptance of statements, even those of "rabbis. is not
what the Torah is based on.
God gave us a mind for the express purpose of using it, not following
blindly.
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- Reader: Also PLEASE, could you please address the second part
of my original question: I have experienced a crisis of personal
disconnection with the Almighty. I feel as if I no longer have the
personal relationship with Him that I once had. This feeling leaves me
anxious and depressed. I have as a result not been dovening at all in
the mornings, either at shul or at home the way I used to, and the way
I used to during my wife's previous 2 pregnancies. Thank G-d, we have
2 beautiful and healthy children. I attribute that in large part 2 my
dovening, saying Tehillim and other Segulas. As my wife has just
entered her 8th month, I am worried that there it might be pointless
to do these things again as it"s too late for Segulas and
Tehillim to do anything.
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- Mesora: You must abandon
listening to any idea other than the Torah's ideas. Feeling that you
have a personal disconnection may be true, especially if you abandon
following the laws of prayer. Why should God intervene on your behalf
if you do not seek Him out in prayer? Follow the Torah's laws, seek
reasonable understanding for the laws so they are performed how God
intended, and you will rise out of your depression and realize that
true connection to God which is only when you are functioning with
your rational faculty as He designed you to do.
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