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Rabbi YY Jacobson - The Thief and the Lottery

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Community upload. AI output has not been independently verified.
Author: Rabbi YY Jacobson
Categories: Religion
Tags: religion
Views: 2 · Last viewed: 2026-10-16 10:03 UTC

Short Summary

Main recommendation: Trust in Hashem (God) while still making personal effort, and do not treat outcomes as a matter of luck or clever calculation. The Rav of Dvinsk, known as the Mashiach Gaon (the speaker momentarily misspoke, first saying 'Soloveitchik of Brisk' before correcting himself), uses a story about a stolen lottery ticket to make this point. The story illustrates that the outcome reflects Divine providence rather than the particular numbers chosen.

Key Points

  • A penniless, very pious man, desperate to marry off his daughter, bought his last ruble's worth of a lottery ticket after a chance encounter with a seller, seeing it as providence.
  • He trusted Hashem while also believing a person must make efforts and do what is naturally required.
  • A dishonest, unethical businessman, also in debt, stole the pious man's ticket and swapped it for his own, reasoning that God would favor the pious man, so the swap gave him better odds.
  • The stolen ticket turned out to be the winning ticket, and the thief lost the prize he had given away.
  • The Rav ruled that the pious man should receive the money, because God wanted the person to win, not the numbers.

Details Worth Noting

  • Concrete instructions: No specific steps, amounts, timing, or actions for the viewer are given. The only guidance is conceptual: make efforts while trusting Providence, and do not attribute outcomes to choosing the "right" numbers.
  • The Rav (Dvinsk) described the thief's error as mistaking the numbers for the cause: "If I would have only been smart enough to choose these numbers, then this would happen."
  • The thief confessed to the theft before the Rav, admitting he stole the ticket and swapped it, which is what led to the ruling.
  • The story frames the pious man's trust as compatible with action: he bought the ticket with his last money and then prayed for a miracle.
  • The thief's motive was partly his debts and a belief that the winning odds favored the pious man's ticket.

Bottom Line

Results come from Divine providence rather than from clever choices, so the story argues against superstition about lucky numbers and for combining honest effort with faith.