Michael el Chayil

Imagine this: one day a wealthy person (see how inclusive and diverse I am being?!) comes to you and announces, "I am going to give you 1,000$ a day." He hand you the cash, and walks off. You have never seen him before, you have no idea what this is about, and you certainly have no idea how long this will continue. What you do know is that you have 1,000$ cash money in your hand. As this continues for a few days and then weeks, you come to rely on that money. You still have no idea how long it will continue, but it sure is nice. A foolish person just spends the money like there is no tomorrow; each and every day. A somewhat smarter/more conservative person uses some now and saves some. He (that is not non-inclusive; English uses the male pronoun to also mean "unknown/irrelevant gender") lives within a budget, but certainly appreciates the daily gift. What would a wise person do? The wise person would, upon his benefactor's arrival, ask how he should best utili...

There is an old Dilbert strip where the pointy haired manager notes in a group meeting that a full 40% of sick time off is occurring on Mondays and Fridays and he wants people to stop using their sick time to get three day weekends. The joke, of course, is that assuming that people get sick on random days of the work week and given there are five days in work week, then one fifth would occur on any given day and 2/5, aka 40%, is the number you would expect.) A lot of השגחה פרטית/Divine Providence stories, unfortunately, sound a lot like that Dilbert. "Oh my gosh... I never carry change and as I was dropping the kinderlach off at school, little Shloimy said he need a quarter for the pushka. I was about to say that I didn't have any change... but then I looked down in the cup holder and there were three quarters! Just enough for each of my yiddishe kinder for the puske. And the only reason my coffee cup was not covering them is because that morning I had a tickle in my throat a...

A couple of weeks after I successfully completed (for the first time!) my century ride, I was asked by one of my sponsors, "So, what's your next project?" I answered, "To complete the ride again next year, and also... tomorrow morning's ride." I wasn't "just being me." The century ride is certainly the highlight of the year for bike riding, but I wouldn't be able to do that ride without my daily (of course except on Shabbos) rides. Moreover, the daily rides are really the main thing; I do the daily rides to maintain my health. (Well... at my age, to do what I can do slow the decline.) That thought got me thinking about how this daily physical activity punctuated with periodic/annual "all out" events mirrors our spiritual existence. Why would I think that? In the introduction to the Mishna Brura you will find an explanation of why it is that an essentially spiritual and eternal being -- our nefesh -- requires nourishment from food,...