Mazel Is Not Luck: A Call to Reject Modern Idolatry

by Ram ben Ze’ev

Mazel Is Not Luck: A Call to Reject Modern Idolatry

On 7 November 2024, I wrote about “Mazel, Divine Flow, and Trust in HaShem.” It is necessary to return to that subject, because the confusion has not diminished. If anything, it has deepened.

The phrase “Mazel Tov” is still casually translated as “Good luck,” as though Judaism endorses randomness, cosmic coincidence, or the mechanical alignment of stars. It does not. It never has.

Mazel is not luck. Mazel is flow.

The word מזל (Mazel) refers to a channel, a conduit through which Divine shefa — the outpouring of G-D’s sustaining energy — descends into the world. Nothing exists independently. Nothing sustains itself. Nothing “just happens.” At every moment, creation depends upon the will of Hashem.

If that flow were withdrawn for even an instant, existence would collapse into nothingness.

To believe in “luck” is to believe in a force detached from the Creator. To attribute outcomes to stars, planets, or abstract cosmic forces is to subtly relocate authority away from Hashem and into creation itself. That is not merely an intellectual error; it is a form of refined idolatry.

The Torah does not permit us to outsource causality.

Throughout history, the nations have looked upward to the heavens and imagined that constellations decree fate. Astrology is built upon this assumption. Modern secularism builds upon a similar assumption, replacing stars with probability and coincidence. Both perspectives share a common flaw: they remove Providence from the centre.

Judaism does the opposite.

Everything flows from Hashem. Success, delay, wealth, struggle, opportunity, challenge — all are expressions of Divine orchestration. That does not mean we are passive. We act, we plan, we work, we build. But our actions are vessels, not sources. The source is always Above.

When someone says “Mazel Tov,” they are not wishing randomness upon another. They are acknowledging that a positive flow has manifested and praying that the channel remain open. They are affirming that blessing is not accidental but bestowed.

This understanding demands something of us.

If there is no luck, then there is no victimhood to coincidence and no pride in self-generated fortune. There is only responsibility before G-D. We are called to strengthen our אמונה (emunah – faithful trust in G-D), to reject foreign ideas that creep into our language, and to purify even our speech from concepts that do not belong to Torah.

Emunah is not vague optimism. It is not wishful thinking. It is the steady inner knowledge that nothing operates independently of Hashem. It is the recognition that all mazal, all flow, all outcomes — visible or hidden — are directed by Divine will.

When a Jew lives with emunah, he does not look to stars, statistics, or superstition. He looks upward — and inward — knowing that every circumstance is guided, measured, and purposeful.

Language shapes belief. If we casually speak of “luck,” we slowly internalise a worldview in which G-D recedes and randomness reigns. If instead we speak of mazel as Divine flow, we train ourselves to see His hand in all things.

The modern world is saturated with subtle idolatries. Some are ancient, dressed in horoscopes and planetary charts. Others are new, dressed in statistics and chance. Both whisper the same message: “It just happened.”

Torah answers: Nothing just happens.

When we say “Mazel Tov,” let us mean it properly. Let us affirm that blessing flows from Hashem alone. Let us reject the superstition of stars and the fiction of luck. And let us live with the clarity that every breath, every achievement, every moment of life is sustained by the ongoing will of G-D.

That is not mysticism. It is reality.

###

Bill White (Ram ben Ze'ev) is CEO of WireNews Limited, Mayside Partners Limited, MEADHANAN Agency, Kestrel Assets Limited, SpudsToGo Limited and Executive Director of Hebrew Synagogue