Bitachon to Win $1.5 Billion in the Powerball Lottery

Question

A number of years ago, I bought a Powerball lottery ticket. The prize was $1.5 billion, and I really wanted to win in order to give a significant amount of money to tzedakah. I asked my rosh yeshiva for a brocha and told him that I would split the prize if we won. I had 100% bitachon that I would win, yet I didn’t. I know that Rav Yisroel Salanter said that when one has complete bitachon, the thing one desires will happen. Why, then, didn’t I win the lottery?

Yosef Chaim N.

Rav Zafrani 

You are referring to a famous story involving Rav Yisroel Salanter, who told someone that if he had complete bitachon that he would receive a gold watch, he would indeed receive one. A few minutes later, a non-Jewish soldier came to Rav Yisroel and handed him his gold watch for safekeeping while he went off to war.

However, there is another story involving Rav Yisroel Salanter. Someone, much like yourself, once told him that he had 100% bitachon that he would win the lottery. Rav Yisroel asked the man if he would sell the ticket for a large sum—less than the winning amount. When the man agreed, Rav Yisroel said that this showed that he did not truly have bitachon that he would win, because if he did, he wouldn’t consider selling the ticket.

To truly have bitachon in winning the Powerball lottery, you would have to internalize that there are millions of participants, and al pi teva, your odds of winning are incredibly small. Nevertheless, since Hashem is above teva, He can override natural odds and cause you to win. But this is an exceptionally high level of bitachon, and I doubt that there are many people alive today who could genuinely reach such an elevated state.

May Hashem bless you with brocha and hatzlocha and grant you all the parnassah you need.