Ask the Rabbi with Rabbi Chaim Mintz
I have a friend who just started wearing tzitzit. He was in a car accident with some friends, and he was the only one who wasn’t hurt. When I saw that wearing tzitzit protected him, I decided to start wearing them as well. Then on the first day I wore them, I was hurt in a car accident. How could that happen?
Rabbi Chaim Mintz responds:
God is Not a Vending Machine
In this world things are very often hidden, with Hashem (God) running the world from behind the scenes. This is known as hester panim — Hashem hiding His “face,” so to speak, meaning that things are often not what they seem. If all people doing mitzvot would live a wonderful life and sinners would suffer, with the consequences of keeping or violating the Torah so obvious, there would be no free-choice (bechirah) — and no one would ever sin. In fact, one of the 613 mitzvot is that one is not allowed to test Hashem and say, “Because I did a mitzvah You must give me what I ask for!”
Your friend might have been saved from injury in the car accident because of the mitzvah of tzitzit — possibly for some lofty thought he had about them — or for any number of reasons. Hashem has deep, complex reasons for doing what He does and they are far beyond our shallow understanding. Why were righteous people killed in the Holocaust? Why do good people suffer, and why are evil people prosperous in this world? It is way beyond our limited understanding to fully comprehend how Hashem runs the world.
From Worse to Bad
It is also possible that your tzitzit did help you. Perhaps you warranted a greater injury, and in the merit of the mitzvah you were spared. This point can be brought home with the following incident. I once knew someone who was having health problems. I told him to go to the great sage, Rav Moshe Feinstein, and get a blessing. He said he would not go, because he had gone to him previously for a blessing, and things just got worse, so he saw no point in going to him again. I responded by telling him the following true story:
You’ve Got Nothing to Lose
Rav Moshe Feinstein’s yeshivah was having a fundraising dinner, and the dinner organizers were seeking a guest of honor. This is usually offered to wealthy, well-connected people who have a network of friends and business associates who would donate in their honor. The organizer approached a certain individual who was an investor, and asked him to accept. The man refused, saying that every time he accepted an honor his stocks went down. The organizer told Rav Moshe about the man’s response and Rav Moshe asked to speak to him. “No bad result can occur from doing a mitzvah,” he told him. The man said, “If you’ll tell me nothing will happen to me, I’ll do it.” Rav Moshe said, “There is no need for any concern. Don’t worry.”
The man agreed to accept the honor and, lo and behold, the very next day after the dinner, his stocks plunged. He went back to Rav Moshe and complained. Rav Moshe told him that there is no question that he did not lose from the mitzvah that he performed, and he must realize that it is good that he accepted, because if not he may have lost much more. Similarly, I told the person with the health problems, “If you received a blessing and your health got worse, you should understand that without the blessing it probably would have gotten much worse.”
In short: Although we are not always able to see in this world how a mitzvah protects a person, there is no question that one only gains from doing mitzvos.
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