problem
Hello Rabbi.
There is a well-known joke that a person who plays the lottery is not allowed to cross the road because statistically his chance of getting into a car accident is higher than his chance of winning, and if he plays the lottery based on this, then he will be afraid of it.
My question is, is it really rational to fill out a lottery ticket and cross a road?
Obviously. This is not a very successful joke, but certainly as an argument about reality it is nonsense. A person weighs alternatives against each other. Let’s say that the chance of winning the lottery is X (tiny). And the chance of being hit on the road is also X. But buying the ticket is accompanied by the chance of winning a very large monetary value and the hope of winning. Therefore, I am willing to pay so that I have the credit to win. On the other hand, in crossing the road, the alternative is to cross roads. Living inside my house without moving. That is definitely worth the small risk to my life. What is inconsistent about that? The fear of a small chance depends on what is on the other side.
See the beginning of column 197, which I just wrote, and the references there.
If a person likes risk (betting on the lottery), how should that lead him to avoid risk (crossing the road)?
Yosiphon
Think about it this way, what Rabbi Michy answered you with is very similar to David Hume's argument, and I don't remember his formal formulation. But the winning blow to miracles was – as Rabbi Michy extended in his book Truth and Unstable – that the witness' argument should be put to the test against its alternative: It is indeed unlikely that witnessing a miracle that occurred in the presence of thousands of people is an invention, but what is more likely? That such an event that breaks all our knowledge of reality and has no parallel in everyday life actually happened? Or that someone simply invented it through some disruption in the processes of transmitting the story and the like. Of course, invention is much more plausible. (Hence, the one who chooses not to doubt the status of Mount Sinai is like someone who stays home and doesn't cross the road lest he be run over. But the one who chooses not to believe in it is not open at all to the opportunity to win the lottery of his life: to the option that the word of God is indeed accessible to us in some way.)
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