Win the Lottery, not Nanach

HH

The story is told that the wife of R' Yisroel Salanter bought a lottery ticket, when he heard of this he was very agitated and immediately wrote up a contract disowning himself of his wife's possessions. He said what if she should win all that money, how would I be able to sleep when there are people hungry in the streets and I am sitting on money that could feed them.

The story seems a bit strange, because wouldn't he rather be able to help as many people as possible. Probably RYS realized that although feeding these people is a high priority, it would not be the ultimate solution, and definitely not in areas further away. So since he was involved in working on his system to really bring rectification to the world, and having to tend to feeding people would detract him from this, he shied far away from such responsibility.

So the other day my friend bought a lottery ticket, and I told him straight up 100% he wasn’t going to win, and it was foolish of him even to think otherwise. For if a Nanach such as himself who has only one thing on his mind day and night to spread Na Nach Nachma Nachman MeUman, if he would come into a few million dollars that would already finance so much hafatza that would be forsure a huge step, if not the final step, to the ultimate redemption. And since it is highly doubtful that this is the way HY is going to bring the redemption, through this lottery ticket, there's just no way it's the winning ticket. It seemed to me that he agreed completely.

Na Nach Nachma Nachman MeUman!