Chapter 7 of the essay on hishtadlus in Sefer Ben Melech, is entitled "Not to be obstinate in Tefila". This fits in logically enough, seemingly following the trend in the last few chapters, filling in some more specifics that pertain to the main thesis of sefer Ben Melech, that:
1. hishtadlus is the ratzon HaShem
2. Appropriate hishtadlus is hishtadlus k'darko shel olam
But upon looking at it more, it throws a monkey wrench into our understanding of what we have learned over the last few months about hishtadlus.
Rav Mintzberg starts off by saying that in addition to what we know about doing hishtadlus being the darko shel olam, to fulfill our needs, there is another way form of hishtadlus to acquire what we need or want.
We had learned that hishtadlus k'darko shel olam are the actions that we take in order to create a channel through which success will flow, should that be the will of HKBH (to grant us the success that we were trying to achieve). We learned that this is in keeping with the ratzon HaShem, in which HKBH established that the laws of nature are such, that everything in our lives, comes about through the mechanism of cause-and-effect.
But now Rav Mintzberg says, that there is another way to acquire what we need or want. This other way is through tefila to HKBH, asking HKBH to give us what we desire. He explains, that the meta-physical nature of the world is such that when a person davens, asking for something from HKBH, HKBH will answer him and provide him with what he asked for (we will deal with the line about provide him with what he asked for later in this post). So far we are with Rav Mintzberg, since it's a very basic concept in Judaism.
But then Rav Mintzberg goes a step further and says that davening is like one of [the other] ways of hishtadlus, through which we can take action and get what we need or want.
This last point bothered us, because it seems to fly in the face of much of what we have learned over the last few months, ever since we started learning hishtadlus in Sefer Ben Melech. The way that we have been understood from the beginning has been, that appropriate hishtadlus is about trying to accomplish something, by doing things in the normal way that can be expected to deliver successful results. Davening is not hishtadlus k'darko shel olam and while it is surely true that tefila can impact the outcome and therefore, obviously has its place when doing hishtadlus, that is not because tefila is itself a form of hishtadlus. Rather, a reason is that tefila makes a person more worthy of HKBH's beneficence and favor, resulting in HKBH decreeing success on the person's hishtadlus endeavors. Tefila may even go so far as to bring about a decree of success on a person's efforts, even if the hishtadlus that was done, doesn't quite measure up to the appropriate amount of hishtadlus.
We will need to investigate in the weeks to come, whether the Chazon Ish in the last paragraph of chapter 1 of his essay on bitachon in Emunah uBitachon Chazon Ish
גם עילות של ההצלה שטבעת בני האדם להשתדל בהן משתנות
אצל הבוטח, כי תחת לרדוף אחר נדיבים ושרים ולבקש תחבולות שוא, יפשפש הבוטח
במעשיו ויפנה את לבו לתשובה תפלה וצדקה להעביר רוע הגזירה.
is a support for what Rav Mintzberg is saying.
Furthermore, besides tefila not being appropriate hishtadlus on its own, any success brought about in this way is not necessarily a good thing and as Ben and Ariel pointed out, it should be tantamount to what Rav Mintzberg previously denigrated as being the kind of chutzpah, about which Chazal taught us that "chutzpah works; even when used towards HKBH". We understood, that as opposed to physical or worldly actions, which when in error cab be waved off as a bad estimate, tefila is directed totally towards HKBH and there is a greater need to be careful with how and what you ask for. Because, as Rav Mintzberg has pointed out, it may get a person what they want, but is surely not a sign that they did the correct hishtadlus and/or that it was proper behavior on their part, to daven in this fashion. According to Rav Mintzberg, with tefila or without tefila, not doing enough hishtadlus that is appropriate for you, besides being a sign of lack of bitachon, it is also an affront to HKBH; is not a good thing; and is something that they will probably live to regret.
It seems that Rav Mintzberg may have been aware that what he said would cause a disconnect with what he has been saying until now, because in the next paragraph he attempts to bring support for the idea that tefila can also function as a form of hishtadlus k'darko shel olam. He starts off by re-iterating what he just said in different words, that even when a person does not have the zechuyos (merit) to be granted what he desires (and it is a situation, where it has not been decided by HKBH that the person is going to be supplied with it under any and all circumstances), he can still acquire what he wants through the mechanism of tefila through which he beseeches HKBH and HKBH favors him by giving him what he is asking for. The reason for this extreme benevolence on HKBH's part, being that by beseeching HKBH with his request, HKBH's attributes of mercy, goodness and loving kindness are triggered. Plain and simple, this is just the way that HKBH established the metaphysical laws of the universe, end of story. What Rav Mintzberg adds is that Chazal teach us that the "The Kingdom of Heaven is akin in it's behavior to the kingdoms on Earth" and since we observe that human nature is that when a person asks another person for something, it arouses a desire on the part of the giver to give the requester what they asked for, we can now understand the way that the Kingdom of Heaven works and HaShem will provide a person with what they are requesting, just because he asked for it akin to human nature.
We could not understand what Rav Mintzberg's point was, since his analogy is not altogether intuitively true and furthermore, there seems to be no need for him to make the argument at all. Having been the beneficiaries of HKBH's granting us what we davened for, we innately relate to the fact that HKBH responds positively to our tefilos. We are less convinced of the basic benevolent qualities of humanity that Rav Mintzberg seems to champion. Who are these people that are always aroused to give, just because they were asked? Our conjecture was, that at the very least, we are talking about requesting something from a person, that the person is able to give, because asking a person for something that they cannot give, often gets the opposite (of benevolent) response. We contemplated ancient, benevolent, absolute monarchies, but being good Americans we couldn't even begin to relate to that example. We thought that perhaps Rav Mintzberg was referring to compassion raised in the parent-child relationship, when he says that HaShem will give people what they daven for. But that also didn't work in all cases, because parents often know what is best for the child and do not give the child what they are asking for, which would clash with what Rav Mintzberg seems to assert, that HKBH will always listen to your plea and give you with what you asked for. Then again, we may be reading too much into Rav Mintzberg's words and taking what he said to its illogical extreme.
So we weren't grasping the whole mashal/nimshal thing that Rav Mintzberg suggested. It was reminiscent of an insight from Rav Yosef Leib Bloch, who was the Rav and Rosh Yeshiva of Telz from 1910 until his passing in 1929. The Telzer Rav in the third lecture/shiur/essay in Shiurei Daas part 3, entitled התגברות הדעת makes the point that when a non-related idea ('B') is brought as a way of understanding the subject in front of you ('A'), it is obvious that 'B' is clearer and easier to grasp than 'A' and is brought as a way of re-setting your thinking, so that once you have a handle on 'B', you can now understand the more difficult 'A'. So for example, if a mashal is brought that is meant to clarify a nimshal and we find that it does not clarify or in fact is less clear than the nimshal, we need to think about the possibility that the idea that we are supposed to learn from the nimshal is very different than we thought. It is likely, that in order to solve the difficulty with the understanding what the mashal/nimshal is coming to teach, we would need to delve into the mashal to figure out what details we know about the mashal then see if any of that information tells us something important about the nimshal that we wouldn't have thought of and that we didn't "hear" in the original reading of the mashal/nimshal.
Sol went further and pointed out that even without the analogy to earthly kingdoms there is a problem understanding what Rav Mintzberg is getting at, because even with the Kingdom of Heaven, it is not true that a person davens for something and HaShem gives it to him. Often times, we ask HKBH for something and the answer is, No.
Ariel suggested that Rav Mintzberg was referring to the way that people were meant to be, before Adam and Chava ate from the Eitz HaDaas. Mankind wants to do good, it's that we have veered so far from HKBH and the Torah's values that we have corrupted our very nature and we no longer desire to bestow loving kindness on all and sundry. Ariel continued, citing the halacha in the Rambam, that a recalcitrant husband who refuses to follow Bais Din's decision that he must give a get, is beaten until he acquiesces to give the get. The Rambam's reasoning is that the recalcitrant husband wants to do the right thing, but his evil inclination (yetzer ha-ra) won't let him. So we beat the yetzer ha-ra in him, until his yetzer ha-ra has been weakened and he can do what his yetzer ha-tov knows that he really should do. Ariel used this as a metaphor to paint the picture of people who the Torah tells us want to do good and answer people's requests with benevolence, but their yetzer ha-ra has corrupted them to the point that they don't want to do what is good and what is right.
As I'm typing up these notes, it occurs to me that perhaps what Rav Mintzberg was referring to when he brought as a proof that it is human nature for people to grant other people's requests, simply because they asked, may be referring to something Sefer Ben Melech has on page 100 in footnote 46, where Rav Mintzberg writes that
אכן מותר לבקש מקרוביו ואוהביו שיסייעו לו מתוך ידידות כדי שיהיו לו צרכיו בהרחבה, ואין זה יציאה
מגדר הבוטח, כיון שגם עזר וסיוע מידידים הוא מכלל דרכו של עולם.
it falls within the parameters of hishtadlus b'darko shel olam for a person to ask those close to him for help. He avers that asking your relatives and close friends for help, even for things that are "extras", is not outside of the realm of bitachon, since asking for help from those that are especially close to you is hishtadlus b'darko shel olam, since that falls with the range of normal behavior.
So in sum, while we did not agree with Rav Mintzberg that tefila is hishtadlus k'darko shel olam, it is likely that even Rav Mintzberg would strictly limit the concept of tefila being hishtadlus k'darko shel olam to cases of a very close relationship between the person doing the davening and HKBH.
Further, we don't understand how Rav Mintzberg could repeatedly make the point, quite forcefully, earlier in the essay that appropriate hishtadlus is where you take action and do things that under normal circumstances, could be expected to deliver the desired results and then here in this chapter, all of sudden abandon the idea of hishtadlus being b'darko shel olam, without mentioning that he has just jettisoned the main thrust of what he had been pushing from the beginning of the essay until now.
