Here is my 5778 Yom Kippur morning sermon given at Congregation Or Shalom. I hope you enjoy it, and that it brings you mazal tov!
A Lucky Day
My younger brother, Brian, is a lucky guy. Seriously, growing up, whenever we played a game that involved pure luck, he would win. When he was in 5th grade, he got chosen to fly to Seattle to meet with Bill Gates.
Now that he’s an adult, it seemed as though his luck had caught up with him. A few years ago, he started a new advertising business. Not too long after opening, his computer was hacked, and all of his data was held ransom by an anonymous malicious source. They extorted him for $750, making him pay in bitcoins. Not knowing how he would be able to keep his clients as he was just starting, Brian chose to give in to the demands, and paid the $750 in bitcoin. Now, I don’t know if any of you know much about bitcoins and how they work, I do not. But apparently, when you purchase them from currency, you can only buy them in whole amounts. At the time, one bitcoin cost about $500. So, my brother had to buy two bitcoins, and then he paid spent 1 ½ bitcoins, and was back up and running. My brother learned from this moment that seemed for once not to be filled with luck. He invested in stronger security for his computer and eventually his server, and, mentally, he chose to just wash the feelings of being taken advantage from his memory, focusing on building and growing his company, which he has done nicely.
A few months ago, Brian came across an article about bitcoins, and he remembered that he still had the ½ bitcoin from the time of his incident with hackers. Anyone know how much a half a bitcoin is now worth? Over $2,000. My brother is the only person I know who can get hacked and extorted for $750 and still turn a profit of over 200%!
I asked my brother for permission to share his incredulous story with you today, because I wanted to talk about luck. In many ways, this day of Yom Kippur involves luck. In Hebrew, one of the words for luck is mazal. We use the expression Mazal Tov, which literally means, “good luck” or “good fate.” And this is a part of what we are asking for on this day – we want more Mazal Tov in our lives, rather than Mazal Ra (Bad luck).
Our Hebrew expression for “good luck” actually stems from the ancient arts of astrology, as mazal most literally means, “star or planet,”[1] In Judaism, we see many differing accounts as to whether or not to put our trust in mazal. You may be surprised to learn that many of our Jewish sages believed in the power of the stars to influence individual lives. Yet, as Francine Klagsbrun points out, “they managed to incorporate popular beliefs about astrology into an overall Jewish view of the world, maintaining that the stars and constellations, like everything else in the universe, are subject to the will of God.”[2] As such, we can play a role in shaping our fate, if we can find a way to influence God.
Well, in our U’netanetokef prayer, we declare that it is on this day that much of our fate will be determined – who will live and die, who will gain and who will lose, who will succeed and who will resemble the Bears. But we also see that in the end, we can lessen the harshness of today’s decree through tefillah, teshuvah, and tzedakah. Through our prayers, our serious reflection, our return to our true selves, and our commitment to helping others, we can play a role in determining our own luck, our fate.
<PAUSE>
There is a Talmudic expression that broadens this perspective on our ability to change our luck – m’shaneh makom, m’shaneh mazal. If we change our place, we change our luck.[3] We can take this maxim literally, if we want – after all, changing one’s physical location will certainly bring about a different fate. However, many rabbis interpret this phrase metaphorically – we have to make our places, our routines, our normal actions different if our luck is going to change.
So, if changing our routines can grant us better luck, what else can help? Well, there are a number of researchers who have spent time actually analyzing people who consider themselves lucky, trying to figure out what makes a person able to change one’s mazal.
Richard Wiseman, a psychologist at the University of Hertfordshire, is one of these luck-theorists. In his book, The Luck Factor, he formulates a few main conclusions on what it takes to be lucky. He says that lucky people tend to build a “network of luck.” By this, he means that those who are best at creating mazal tov tend to talk with a lot of people and hold extensive, diverse social networks.
The more people we know, and especially the more diverse our group of friends may be, the more opportunities we find are brought our way. For example, if you have 30 friends who all know one another, and you are looking for a job, you’re going to hear about the same job from 30 different people. If instead, you have 20 good friends, but each one runs in very different crowds, you’re more likely to hear of 20 different opportunities. This is one of the advantages of being in a community like ours - we have people here at Or Shalom from all over the northwest suburbs. I’ve seen people here changing one anothers’ luck by bringing opportunities to one another.
Another luck researcher, Max Gunther, points out that we don’t even need to make friends to strengthen our network of luck – even just starting conversations with people around us, at the check-out line, in the airport, at the gym or at an oneg . . . all create more exposure to opportunities.
The people in our lives bring us possibilities to change our makom – probably more often than we notice. But noticing and running with opportunity is just as critical as having a great chance brought to us in the first place. Why can I say this? Because Professor Wiseman measured it. He conducted an experiment to test out just how much of one’s luckiness has to do with personality. He “gave people who describe themselves as lucky and those who describe themselves as unlucky, a newspaper,” and asked them to count how many pictures were inside. The results: On average, unlucky people took about two minutes to count the photographs whereas the lucky people took just a few seconds.
Why? Because on the second page of the newspaper, in large print that took up half the page, it was written: “Stop counting – There are 43 photographs in this newspaper.” Weisman’s data showed that the unlucky people tended to miss this message while the lucky people tended to spot it.[4] To change our luck for the better, we have to be clear-headed enough to be on the lookout for opportunities. We cannot allow ourselves to get so caught up in what we are doing that we block out lucky, fateful moments that are staring us in the face. Yet another great reason that Shabbat can be important, so that I can not only work in a shameless plug for joining us on our Friday night gatherings throughout the year, but it also to offers us that clear-headed space, that openness, we need in order to notice the world around us differently.
We have seen that lucky people tend to work hard to build a network of luck based on diverse relationships and pay attention to one’s surroundings. But just as importantly, Professor Wiseman’s research has shown that lucky people tend to be optimistic about their world – they are Monty Python fans, they Always Look on the Bright Side of Life. He asked a number of individuals, “Imagine yourself at a bank when robbers come in, firing a shot, and it hits you in the arm. Is this lucky or unlucky?” <Pause – let people think> Overwhelmingly, what do you think happened? Lucky people said it was lucky – I could have been killed, but the arm isn’t so bad. Wiseman to concluded that “Lucky people tend to imagine spontaneously how the bad luck they encounter could have been worse and, in doing so, they feel much better about themselves and their lives. This, in turn, helps keep their expectations about the future high, and, increases the likelihood of them continuing to live a lucky life.”[5] Similar to the story of my brother, Brian, who learned from his early exposure and was grateful that his lack of cyber security only cost him $750 and no clients. Rather than allow life to define a moment as unlucky, perhaps what keeps lucky people lucky is their ability to re-define what good luck really is!
Many of us do this all the time – Have you ever played the “it could be worse” game? “Well, I broke my foot, but it could be worse – I could have broken both feet!” Believe it or not, this is a central attribute of Jewish thought. We are the people who have for centuries striven to make blessings out of curses. That is the story of earlier, of our Mah Tovu prayer. ohalecha ya’akov, mishkenotecha, Yisrael. How good are your tents, Jacob; your dwelling places, O Israel? We could have thrown this beautiful prayer away because of its source and original intent, but instead of choosing to respond to a curse with destruction, we made it into a lucky moment – A moment where not only weren’t we cursed, but we found a beautiful prayer and have created stirring melodies to go with it. We are a people who search for opportunity and truth wherever it is available, creating our own narrative of luck.
On this day of Yom Kippur, we recognize that there is only so much that we can do to influence luck. Remember what our rabbinic sages have taught, mazal is subject to the will of God, but the will of God is not the same as the will of humans. There are issues we cannot control, much bigger than ourselves.
Right now, in our world, we know that it can seem as though we are living in unlucky times – the terrible condition of what is happening in Puerto Rico, the terrible earthquake in Mexico, the ethnic cleansing that is happening in Myanmar. But then, you hear stories of people who are helping one another, and we find hope . . . and luck.
If we want this to be a lucky year, we can do our part by connecting with one another, remaining open to opportunities around us, and creating chances for luckier days. We can take Shabbat into our hearts, clearing our minds so we can notice our surroundings better. We can stand up for what we believe and work to change our makomot – our homes, our communities, our city, so that our luck can change. And while we may not be able to influence all that fate throws our way this year, we can control how we respond and how we interpret. The mazal happens . . . We add the tov.
Will this sermon help you to win the lottery? Hopefully – and if it does, please remember to support Or Shalom, the place where your luck turned around! But if you don’t, may you do the hard work that helps you to find Mazal Tov in all aspects of your life, so that you feel as though you’ve won the lottery every day.
[1] Francine Klagsbrun. Voices of Wisdom: Jewish Ideals and Ethics for Everyday Living. Jonathan David: Middle Village, NY, 1980. p. 284
[2] Francine Klagsbrun. Voices of Wisdom: Jewish Ideals and Ethics for Everyday Living. Jonathan David: Middle Village, NY, 1980. p. 284
[3] Teaching based on BT Rosh Hashanah 16B, found in R. Alcalay. Words of the Wise. Massada: Israel, 1970. p. 299
[4] Richard Wiseman. “The Luck Factor.” In SKEPTICAL INQUIRER: The Magazine For Science And Reason, Volume 27, No.3 ~ May/June 2003 http://www.csicop.org/si/
[5] Richard Wiseman. “The Luck Factor.” In SKEPTICAL INQUIRER:The Magazine For Science And Reason, Volume 27, No.3 ~ May/June 2003 http://www.csicop.org/si/
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