Is Everything a ‘Hashgacha Pratis’ Story?
I enjoy the stories in the Hashgacha Pratis newsletters encouraging Bitachon. I don’t mean accursed materialism or the skepticism of “cosmic impersonalism”, God forbid, but I wonder about the relevance of some of the stories!
For example, Jews who, after making gargantuan efforts suddenly, inexplicably felt Hashem would look out for them (perhaps after doing a mitzvah), so they ceased their efforts (Don’t try this at home!), then saw personal redemption. This is supposed to be an illustration of the benefits of Bitachon.
Except the feeling came chronologically only after the money\lost item\etc.\match was already in the pipeline on its way to them. So, maybe this was just an example of inspired “Mazlei Chazi”, not Bitachon of their own free will.
Can’t one find similar stories of even non-Jews or ostensible atheists who had a premonition things would work out before they understood how and wherefore? And isn’t there a “survivorship bias” (i.e., we don’t hear of those cases where the premonition was false)?
(Although Sanhedrin 94a brings the concept of “Mazlei Chazi” only in the sense of foreboding doom, not of impending salvation.)
I haven’t looked into this further.