Rav Chaim Kanievsky On Health Or Wealth

The recent edition of Mishpacha newspaper had an interesting incident with Rav Chaim Kanievsky.

A community abroad is suffering from two perspectives. They are suffering from tremendous poverty, while at the same time they are even more troubled by a series of health problems, as nearly every household in the community has been affected by a serious illness or tragic death (sounds like an exaggeration to me, but ok).

the community had sent a representative to talk with Rav Dovid Batzri about their situation. Rav Batzri recommended, no not an exorcism, they arrange a "Day of Prayer" for the whole community. Rav Batzri added that in this day of prayer they should only focus on one of their needs, not both. He said this is what is brought in the seforim. The article does not give any explanation or reason for this, but my guess would be that he wants them to focus in order to achieve, and if you try to focus on more than one idea, more than one need, you end up not focusing at all. Having one thing to concentrate on helps with the focus.

So now the community has a new dilemma. Should they be focusing on the financial needs of the people in the community or on the health needs? Why they can't hold two separate days of prayer, one for each need, is beyond me, but ok.

Actually, they decided that they were going to focus on the health issues and dedicate their day of prayer to that. However, they still were worried about their parnassa needs. So, they sent representatives to Rav Chaim Kanievsky to ask him to daven on their behalf.

To their surprise, Rav Kanievsky told them to change their plans. He said they should dedicate their day of prayer to davening for their parnassa needs, rather than for their health needs. To say the least, they were completely thrown off guard and surprised that he was telling them their parnassa needs are more important than their health needs.

Rav Chaim Kanievsky explained that when a person davens for parnassa, he includes within that his requests for good health. "parnassa tova" means as well the ability to enjoy the good parnassa. He explained with an example from the gemara and explained that when Hashem grants good parnassa he also grants good health, so the person can enjoy the parnassa.