How to be Successful:
Sefer Od Yosef Chai elaborates on this verse, saying that what is written here comes to give good advice to a person, which he writes: “Is necessary for every person, both in physical and business matters and in the ‘business’ of Torah, because most of the time people are harmed by something that they do not feel, and, therefore, everyone needs this good advice, and I also need it, and I pray that Hashem will help me with this good advice, both in gashmius and in the ruchnius.”
He quotes Sefer Keser Malchus (Siman 90) on the Gemara (Sanhedrin 26B) that says: “Ulah said that thoughts are effective even for divrei Torah.” Rashi explains that when a person thinks that he is going to do something or accomplish something, his thoughts are effective ‘cancel the thing’, meaning that he will end up not being able to do it. This also applies to divrei Torah in a case where a person says that he will finish a Masecha by a certain date.”
He explains that, by nature, people desire goodness and wealth. Some people think up strategies and plans that they believe will work to make a lot of money or acquire whatever it is they want. Their imaginations are full of moneymaking ideas, such as investing in a certain business or traveling to a certain place where real estate is cheap, etc. etc. These fantasies are always in their heads, and they constantly come up with new ones. A smart person, however, knows not to pay attention to such daydreams. When they pop into his head, he banishes them immediately and pays them no mind.
He adds that, as we know, everyone’s income for the year is decreed on Rosh Hashanah. However, if one engages in such fantastical schemes and imaginary plans, he could, in fact, cause his income to decrease, even though it was decreed on Rosh Hashanah that he was meant to receive it.
He explains this concept by saying that Chazal say that if one has a good dream, in which it is foretold that he will receive some good thing, sometimes the joy he feels from the dream suffices as its fulfillment. In other words, the happiness he feels is considered enough for him, and he doesn’t need to receive the actual content of the dream itself. So too, if one imagines that he is going to make a lot of money and this causes him happiness, this may be considered enough for him and, as a result, he will not receive the money that he was really destined to receive.
He goes on to relate the following story: There once was a man who used to go to Arabs farmers buy eggs and chickens from them. He would then bring them to the market to sell them. It was a lot of work to transport the items from the Arabs’ farms to the market, and the profit was very meager.
One day, he was walking and carrying a basket on his head with about 1,000 eggs in it, as well as two flocks of chickens on his shoulders. He began to think to himself: How long will I have to toil in this difficult business and make such a small profit? Since there are about 1,000 eggs on my head, and two flocks of chickens on my shoulders, when I reach the city. I will not go to the market to sell them. Instead, I will take everything to my house, and there the hens will sit on the eggs. A chick will hatch from each egg, so I will already have 1,000 chicks, and they will be females. When they grow up, they will lay 1,000 eggs a day, and from each egg a chick will hatch that will lay another egg, until, within months, I will have 2000,000 chickens. I will then sell each chicken for a dinar, and buy wool and send it abroad.
He calculated that within three years he will have accumulated 500,000 gold coins, with which he would buy houses, shops and orchards, making him the richest man around. He will then certainly be so important that when the king’s birthday arrives, he will be at the head of the dignitaries who come to greet him, and when he enters his presence, he will bow his head as the leader of the delegation in honor of the king.
Since he was lost in his thoughts, he did not realize that he really made this movement, as if he were bowing his head before the king, and this caused the basket with the 1,000 eggs in it to fall. The eggs all broke and the chickens also fell and died. The sound of the eggs breaking woke him up from his daydream and he saw that he had nothing left, neither eggs nor chickens, neither gold coins nor wool, neither houses nor orchards, nor even a visit to the royal court. There were only broken eggs and the carcasses of chickens.
Likewise, when a person engages too much in imagination, picturing in his mind all kinds of ways in which he can achieve success and prosperity, his thoughts will lead to his ruin. On the contrary, the little joy he has when he imagines the success he thinks he will experience will cause him to lose out on all the goodness and prosperity that was decreed for him on Rosh Hashanah. A person must clearly recognize that all these thoughts are fantasies implanted in his mind by the Satan as a means of causing him to lose the goodness that was destined for him to receive. Therefore, he must banish them from his mind as soon as they arise.
With all this in mind, the Od Yosef Chaim explains the pasuk as follows: “When you build a new house.” This refers to when a person has a new idea pop into his mind of how he will build up wealth and prosperity. “And you shall make a railing for your roof.” This means that these ideas have to be fenced in. They cannot be allowed to overtake a person’s thoughts or to become an obsession. By doing this, one fences in these thoughts so that they cannot take away what was decreed for him. (Thoughts are referred to by Sefarim Hakedoshim as “roofs” because they live in a person’s mind, the top part of the body.) “And you shall not spill blood (damim) in your house.” The word “damim” connotes “dimyonos” (fantasies). Thus, these words mean that one should not allow fantasies to live in his home, as they can cause him to fall and to be left with nothing.
