Off the Beaten Track

Over at Emes VeEmunah, Harry is back to his preaching in favor of the egel hazahav. He titles his post The Eibishter Vet Helfen and he is trying to tell us that it is not really true. I wonder how he understands the pasuk (Tehillim 55:23): השלך על ה יהבך והוא יכלכלך לא-יתן לעולם מוט לצדיק

Here is how I understood Harry's post:
In order to have the materialistic (goyish) lives that we yearn for, we need to be as much like the goyim that we can allow ourselves. We need to know English (goyish, as Rabbi Nosson Wachtfogel, ZT"L, called it) as our first language and we ought to go to goyish bastions of learning to acquire skills so that we can work together with the goyim and share the American dream.

You know what I think? (If you are reading this blog, then you already know what I think). I think that HKBH "had it up to here" with our living with the goyish materialistic mentality and pulled the plug on the whole business. We strayed too far from Vayikra 26:3. I will not elaborate further. My position on parnassah has been clearly articulated in chapter 2 of my book.

What I do want to add is an old favorite of mine that was brought to mind from Harry's post:

One Sunday morning a Jew walks into shul and sees a tattered and despondent looking beggar at the door. A compassionate fellow, this Jew presses a twenty dollar bill in his hand and says: Gut zol Helfen!

The very next Sunday as he goes again to shul he sees the same beggar standing at the door looking much cleaner, a bit better attired and in a cheerful disposition. As he passes him, the beggar presses $600 into his hand and says to him:

"Gut zol Helfen was a longshot, but he came through in the 7th and paid out 60 to 1."

For us believing Jews, parnassah comes from Off the Beaten Track.